Power Shifts in the Saudi-Iranian Strategic Competition

Abstract

The tensions between The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) have afflicted the Gulf, and the broader Middle East region pervasively since the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran. The most theoretically illuminating feature of this conflict is that rather than isolated and regional, it develops parallel to global shifts in power. This article analyses the ascensions of two Islamic powers, and how their ascensions have aligned, commensurate to trends in global polarity. While religious incongruence underpins an aversion that is predicated on sectarianism, structural implications of polarity remain pervasive, and omnipresent in explaining the way states interact with one another. Polarity theory has been applied to the Middle East in the regional sense. However, the literature pertaining to how global polarity inflects on the Saudi– Iranian contest is understudied. It is this space in scholarship this paper seeks to address. Show more