A Saudi-Iran Cold War.
The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend about the "new Cold War" in the Middle East:
'There has long been bad blood between the Saudis and Iran. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim kingdom of ethnic Arabs, Iran a Shiite Islamic republic populated by ethnic Persians. Shiites first broke with Sunnis over the line of succession after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in the year 632; Sunnis have regarded them as a heretical sect ever since. Arabs and Persians, along with many others, have vied for the land and resources of the Middle East for almost as long.These days, geopolitics also plays a role. The two sides have assembled loosely allied camps. Iran holds in its sway Syria and the militant Arab groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories; in the Saudi sphere are the Sunni Muslim-led Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Morocco and the other main Palestinian faction, Fatah. The Saudi camp is pro-Western and leans toward tolerating the state of Israel. The Iranian grouping thrives on its reputation in the region as a scrappy "resistance" camp, defiantly opposed to the West and Israel.
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If you had to venture a guess as to which state was more likely to emerge as a moderately liberalizing, less anti-American force in the Middle East in 10 to 15 years would it be Saudi Arabia or Iran?
I genuinely don't know the answer, but it really doesn't matter because the U.S. is already knee deep in this thing on behalf of the House of Saud.
That said, we need to be clear about the forces we're supporting. Saudi Arabia may be pro-Western in the sense that they've agreed to take American money and have U.S. soldiers fight on their behalf in exchange for doing what they would do no matter who was protecting them (i.e. sell oil), but I don't think there's a natural "pro-Western" constituency in the country outside of the elite. There's also that little matter of Wahhabi proselytizing, which hasn't exactly been a boon to U.S. security. Not too many Iranians flocked to al-Qaeda in the 1990s.
(AP Photo)