Iran and Saudi Arabia's Proxy War: Shaping the Middle East's Turmoil

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Throughout the past two decades, the Middle East has been marked by almost constant violence. The catalogue of despair in the region today is difficult to fathom. The Syrian civil war has become one of the greatest catastrophes in living memory, killing at least half a million civilians and displacing more than ten million. The conflict in Yemen has resulted in the largest outbreak of cholera in human history and left 8.4 million people on the brink of starvation (Lynch, 2018). Iraq and Libya remain disastrously failed states.

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Multiple explanations have been posited for why violent conflicts in the region remain unresolved – some point to the Middle East’s colonial legacy, to the famous “lines in the sand” drawn by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World War (Barr, 2011). Others point to foreign interference, in particular to the destructive interventions of the US in the name of the “War on Terror” – according to Lawrence Wright, “America’s involvement in the Middle East since 9/11 has been a long series of failures” (Wright, 2017: XXVIII).

Most recently, a third narrative has become especially popular in the media, and to a lesser extent, among academics: violent conflict in the Middle East stems from the ongoing confrontation between the two most powerful regional actors, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and manifests itself primarily through so-called “proxy” wars. Such an account has proven highly compelling and strands of this explanation largely fall into two categories: those that see Saudi-Iranian rivalry, and by extension the conflict that it causes, as essentially sectarian in nature; and those that see this confrontation as simply the most recent iteration of a historic struggle for leadership of the Muslim world that dates back to the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Yet Saudi Arabia and Iran’s interventions in Syria and Yemen are a comparatively recent phenomenon – both states only began projecting power externally in this fashion following the US’ pivot away from the Middle East after the 2003 Iraq War. Rather than understanding cross-Gulf competition as being simply a new iteration of a historic rivalry based on ideological or sectarian differences, this essay explains the persistence of conflict in the Middle East through the prism of a rapidly changing regional order. American retrenchment has left a relative power vacuum, an order in flux, and Saudi Arabia and Iran’s opportunistic involvement in Syria and Yemen stems from their desire to secure outcomes in regional conflicts which align with their political and security interests – interests which are fundamentally incompatible. To paraphrase Churchill, mastery itself is the prize of the venture.

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has shaped ongoing conflicts in the Middle East in profound, lasting and unintended ways. Their competition for regional hegemony, which plays out on several battlefields across the region, has massively exacerbated existing divisions – whether political, ethnic or sectarian – both in war-torn countries such as Syria and Yemen, and in states such as Iraq and Lebanon where the memory of war is still fresh and conflict simmers beneath the surface. There is little doubt that their contest has greatly exacerbated violence in the Middle East, and the support which they have provided to their allies, whether direct or indirect, has not only prolonged war, but often also intensified it.

The figures speak for themselves: since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, Iran has spent between $6 billion and $15 billion annually on supporting Assad’s regime (al-Jazeera, 2018; US Department of State, 2018) – a figure which does not include funding for the 15,000 Iranian ground troops it has fighting in the country (Tabrizi and Pantucci, 2016). Aside from its own soldiers, Tehran directly or indirectly controls over 70,000 non-Iranian forces in Syria, principally Shia militiamen from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Hezbollah fighters, and pays monthly salaries to over 250,000 “militia and agents” supporting Damascus. Saudi Arabia, by contrast, has refrained from putting boots on the ground but has vigorously supported various Syrian opposition groups since the early days of the civil war, especially by providing rebels with heavy weaponry such as anti-tank missiles and recoilless rifles (Reuters, 2013). Riyadh has also more recently funded the training and equipping of Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Forces – ostensibly under the guise of supporting the campaign against the Islamic State (IS).

The roles of Saudi Arabia and Iran have been reversed in Yemen’s civil war: like the Iranians in Syria, Riyadh jettisoned its policy of indirect intervention by simply invading its southern neighbour following the fall of Sana’a to Houthi rebels in 2015. Since the overthrow of Yemen’s then-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Saudi Arabia has overseen a massive air and ground campaign in support of the regime against the Houthis, which it considers to be an Iranian “proxy” – sending over 150,000 ground troops and carrying out 16,000 airstrikes within Yemen. Iran on the other hand has refrained from direct intervention and its support to the Houthis has been sporadic: while it has certainly provided the rebels with millions of dollars’ worth of rockets, ballistic missiles and small arms in an attempt to prolong the conflict as a means of “bleeding the Saudis” , it is clear that, in the words of the US National Security Council, “Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen”.

Grasping the nature of the Iranian–Saudi struggle is therefore central to understanding why violent conflicts such as those in Syria and Yemen remain unresolved. Religious and sectarian explanations for these two countries’ rivalry abound: the root cause of conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, the narrative often goes, lies in the initial seventh-century schism within Islam following violent disputes over succession that arose after the death of the Prophet. Alternatively, some accounts emphasise that the rivalry is primarily over religious authority - a struggle for leadership of the Islamic world. According to this narrative, Iran’s assertion following its 1979 Islamic Revolution that it constituted the nucleus of the entire Muslim world – calling itself Umm al-Qura (the mother of all cities) – along with its avowed mission to spread its Islamic revolution abroad directly challenged Saudi Arabia – which claimed the leadership of the global Islamic community by virtue of its unique status as the birthplace of the Muslim religion and the custodian of the two holy mosques.

This essay does not seek to discredit the idea that religious influences impact Saudi Arabia and Iran’s interactions with each other and with the wider Middle East. Yet it is clear that a primarily religious or sectarian account does not explain why both states, which had previously settled for uneasy, but peaceful, coexistence now find themselves embroiled in violent confrontations across the region. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, relations between the two powers, although never friendly, were stable and even at times cooperative: in Andrew Terrill’s words, under the Hashemi and Khatami administrations, “limited cooperation became possible within an overall atmosphere of suspicion and competition”. Despite ups and downs, both states managed to sign first a cooperation agreement in 1998 and then a security accord in 2001, forced into uneasy collaboration by the greater threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The US invasion of Iraq removed at a stroke this key buffer between the states, fundamentally changing not just the regional order but also the dynamic of Saudi Arabia and Iran’s relationship (Keynoush, 2016). The rapid escalation of their rivalry in the past two decades must therefore be understood through the prism of 2003 and its aftermath. The unintended consequences of the invasion have fundamentally altered the balance of power in the region – on the short term, by collapsing Iraq and on the long term by prompting first a reassessment of US policy towards the Middle East and then a retrenchment from the region that began after 2003 and accelerated throughout the Obama administration (reference here). Seen in light of this rapidly changing regional order, it becomes clear that Saudi Arabia and Iran’s repeated clashes are marked more by geopolitical opportunism and pragmatism than by deeply rooted sectarian or religious differences: in the power vacuum caused by Washington’s retreat, both sides have sought to secure outcomes in unresolved conflicts which align with their political and security interests.

The presence of regional powers with far-reaching ambitions and the importance of Gulf energy to the global economy has generated unusual levels of external involvement in the Middle East – with varied results for its security (reference here). For better or worse, Washington’s military commitment and its corresponding guarantees have served as the cornerstone of the region’s security architecture since the famous agreement between Ibn Saud and Franklin Delano Roosevelt reached on the deck of the USS Quincy in January 1945 (Jones, 2012). This security commitment, implemented by successive US presidents to varying degrees, was most clearly articulated in the Carter Doctrine, announced in 1980: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

The US’ declaration of a security umbrella both coincided with and contributed to the development of the Gulf monarchies into modern states, facilitated by the massive oil revenues they began to accumulate throughout the 1970s. At the time, Gulf states such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia lacked the human, military and institutional capability to protect themselves and sought to court Western powers, in particular the US, with the aim of fostering a regional balance of power that was beneficial to their interests. As a result, the US’ presence in the region increasingly provided the guarantees that enabled Gulf states to measure up to stronger rivals, in particular Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Washington’s protection was crucial to establishing a relatively stable regional order: the American military secured vital sea lanes in the Tanker War of the 1980s, pursued a dual containment policy that isolated both Iran and Iraq during the 1990s, and repelled the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

The physical and geographic landscape of the Middle East has multiple serious structural imbalances and discrepancies that, taken together, are seen to threaten Gulf security interests. These disparities are particularly vivid in the minds of Gulf leaders: the region’s geography is particularly problematic for them: while Iran and Iraq have massive territories, the Gulf states – aside from Saudi Arabia – are compact and lack strategic depth. Iran occupies the entire northern shore of the Gulf, a huge geographical advantage. Several Gulf states – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – rely heavily or even entirely on access to shipping routes via the Strait of Hormuz, through which pass not only their oil and gas exports but also much of their food and other vital goods. Iran’s ability to disrupt or even halt shipping in the strait, although sometimes exaggerated (Marshall, 2015; Klare, 2008), is seen as a serious long-term threat to their viability.

The US’ security role therefore became the bedrock of a relatively stable regional balance of power, one that compensated for the Gulf states’ structural insecurities. Gulf monarchies – and particularly Saudi Arabia – have in that sense since the 1980s been consumers rather than producers of security, an arrangement that has proved vital in countering Iraq, deterring Iran and defending the open sea lanes central to the Gulf monarchies’ economic success and interaction with the global economy. Under such an order Iran was hemmed in, outmatched and outspent by the combination of American military might and Gulf oil wealth.

As a result of these constraints, Tehran sought to invest in asymmetric capabilities and cultivated friendly organisations and networks in countries and territories in the Levant experiencing civil strife (reference here). The combination of weak states, fractured civil societies, and competition over Muslim and Arab causes (especially the Palestinian question) in the region would prove to be the perfect environment first for the early spread of Iranian influence and then for an escalating Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Iran’s head start in building and supporting friendly networks in the fragile states of the Levant is one of the principal reasons that Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, with all their oil wealth and political connections, have struggled to make inroads.

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the transformations that followed had many severe unintended consequences, one of which was the upending of the regional order to the benefit of Iran. The bloody Iraqi civil war that erupted soon after the invasion altered the dynamic of regional competition, and quickly widened the divide between Sunni and Shia within the country (reference here). It also reinvigorated jihadist groups in the region, with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups finding a new cause at the heart of the Arab world. Initially uncertain about the US effort to overthrow Saddam, Gulf leaders quickly came to realise that the war in Iraq was seriously damaging to their interests (reference here): in retrospect, the survival of Saddam’s regime in a weakened state had served a useful strategic purpose and the almost total disintegration of Iraq removed a precious buffer separating Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The collapse of Iraq is key to explaining why the Gulf states, and especially Saudi Arabia, have sought to control the outcome of conflicts in the region. Victory in Syria, in their eyes, would reverse the “loss” of Iraq to Tehran’s sphere of influence (reference here). The regional equilibrium had been upset by the rise of new and largely unknown Iraqi political elites, such as Nouri al-Maliki, who had spent their years of political exile in Iran and were distinctly antagonistic towards Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (reference here). Lacking the capacity to offset these changes and frustrated with the failure of US policy, the Gulf monarchies largely withdrew from Iraqi politics, seeking instead to isolate the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad within the Arab world – unwittingly strengthening Tehran’s hand. Iran soon filled the vacuum by backing established Shia partners and patiently nurturing new allies. Its strategy and connections allowed it to enter Iraqi politics and, over time, to become an indispensable power broker, recognised as such even by Washington (reference here).

Unwittingly supporting Tehran’s gradual acquisition of power and influence in the region, the US began to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2007, a policy that began under Bush but accelerated when Obama took office – his goal being to pull out all American personnel and end this “dumb war” by 2011 (reference here). Under Obama, the US would adopt a new approach to the Middle East, triggering a fundamental change, not just to American strategy but also to the region’s balance of power: the “pivot” to Asia.

The main premise of this policy, articulated during Obama’s first term, was that the Bush administration had devoted too much blood, treasure and attention to the Middle East, with counterproductive, not to say catastrophic, results . A decade of military intervention had left Washington with a limited capacity to carry out nation building and to shape the Middle East’s order and American political discourse was pervaded by weariness with the region and the sense that Arab societies were ungrateful for sacrifices made by the US. The ambiguity of, and lack of details about, the rebalance has contributed to the widely held view among Middle Eastern states – and particularly Iran and the Gulf monarchies – that the Obama administration is seeking an exit from the region (reference here).

From the perspective of the Gulf states, Obama’s obstinate focus on withdrawal from Iraq and diplomacy with Iran exacerbated the post-2003 shift in the regional balance of power. By softening its rhetoric on Tehran, exploring negotiations over its nuclear program and refraining from supporting the Green Movement protests, it appeared clear to the monarchies that the Obama administration was seeking to recalibrate the US’ posture in the region – a recalibration which to their eyes aimed at strategic realignment with Iran on the long term. To Washington’s dismay however, its plans for gradual, controlled recalibration were disrupted by the political upheavals which swept the Arab world in 2011. Initially hesitant, the US soon supported the uprisings, a move which further alienated its traditional allies in the Gulf who criticised Washington’s abandonment of Mubarak and its rapid acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood (reference here).

Yet it is the US’ policy in the Syrian Civil War that best illustrates the new detached approach adopted under Obama and sustained by the Trump administration. Although Obama initially called for Assad’s departure (reference here) it was clear that he was eager to avoid extensive involvement in Syria that would echo the costly entanglements he had promised to avoid. The Gulf monarchies and other American allies in the region were particularly dismayed by Obama’s failure to uphold his “red line” on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons (reference here), and his prevaricating during the summer of 2013 – as he made a case for military intervention only to back off soon after – raised broader questions about the US’ resolve and reliability. Equally, despite the Trump administration's escalation against Iran, the Obama-era rules of engagement remain largely in place in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where the US continues to avoid direct intervention while seeking to reduce its presence – most recently by announcing that the 2000 remaining American troops in Syria would be withdrawn with immediate effect.

Either an abstract at the beginning of case studies or within the case studies. Need to explain the motivations of each state Syria (long case) (An essential driver of the Syrian civil war has been the involvement of Saudi Arabia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in every aspect of the struggle. Their role has hugely influenced the behaviour, calculations, and fortunes of the principal players in the Syrian conflict. Regardless of whether the effect was intended, the struggle for regional mastery in the wake of US retrenchment has revealed and deepened the many fault lines that cross Syrian politics and society (reference here) and has exacerbated the polarisation of the Middle East.

In the case of Iran and the major Gulf states, “spill-in” – an effect in which a growing security vacuum attracts external interference – is a more apt description of the dynamics at play than “spillover”. Viewing the struggle over Syria as crucial to a rapidly changing regional order, each of these states has massively invested to secure an outcome aligned with its political and security interests. Unsurprisingly, each has approached its involvement in Syria as part of larger regional ambitions, leading to friction, rhetorical escalation and brinkmanship. However, this investment has proven costly and inconclusive for all concerned: the complex Syrian terrain and tortuous regional politics have frustrated their quixotic hopes of a quick, clean victory.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the bloody Syrian quagmire represented an opportunity to redress recent changes in the regional balance of power that overwhelmingly benefitted Tehran. As has been mentioned previously, in the eyes of Riyadh, victory in Syria would reverse the loss of Iraq to Iran’s sphere of influence. The Gulf states had previously attempted to counter the spread of Iranian power in Lebanon and Palestine (reference here) – a frustrating and costly strategy given the complex demographics and politics in the area – and considered that victory in Syria could decisively alter the dynamic in both countries. The Assad regime itself also had a long history of interference in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs – to the detriment of Riyadh and its allies – making such a reversal doubly tempting. Moreover, ousting Assad in favour of a friendlier Syrian regime would severely limit Iran’s reach in the Levant by severing its link to Hezbollah, a crucial ally, and to a lesser extent to Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (reference here).

Tehran therefore stood to lose more than any other player from the fall of Assad. Since the Iranian revolution, Syria had proven to be a reliable ally and a crucial logistical conduit to rejectionist factions in Lebanon and Palestine. What began in the 1980s as a tactical relationship between broadly different political systems with a common enemy (namely Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) had by the time of the civil war evolved into a crucial strategic and ideological alliance against the US-dominated Middle East order.

During that time, thanks to political and military victories, Hezbollah evolved from being simply an Iranian proxy into a veritable force of its own (reference here) – and now constitutes the third pillar of Iran’s alliance with Syria. Both Hezbollah and Assad’s Syria also provided Iran with a much-needed Arab cover and precious cross-confessional appeal (reference here). For Iran the loss of Syria would therefore have done more than simply limit its reach in the Levant, it would have amounted to a serious strategic setback in the broader Middle East: the partnership with Assad was seen as a resilient force multiplier in an otherwise hostile regional environment.

The involvement of both Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Syrian civil war is therefore driven far more by hard-nosed geopolitical considerations than by religious differences as each has sought to secure an outcome which advances its position in the wider region. Too often, the Syrian conflict is cast as a purely sectarian affair, with the Sunni Gulf states supporting Sunni rebels and Shia Iran supporting Bashar al-Assad’s (nominally) Shia regime. While this view appears accurate on the surface – both have used sectarian groups and divisive rhetoric to further their goals – a closer examination of the timeline of the support from Riyadh and Tehran to Syrian fighting groups would challenge this. Identity politics was not the immediate policy pursued by Saudi Arabia and Iran in Syria: instead, sponsoring sectarian groups was a plan B after backing other, more inclusive actors failed.

Riyadh initially supported moderates among those who took up arms against Assad: from early 2012, Riyadh backed the Free Syria Army (FSA), which had a national Syrian rather than a Sunni sectarian focus – even though many fighters were Sunni Muslims. Unlike other external sponsors of the rebellion such as Qatar and Turkey, who turned to more Islamist and sectarian groups early on (reference here), Saudi Arabia was wary of backing Islamists – particularly the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – preferring instead to support the mostly secular former army officers that had defected to the FSA.

It was only after fighters began joining more radical Islamist groups as the FSA proved unable to defeat Assad that Riyadh sought alternatives – eventually backing the Salafist Jaysh al-Islam in Damascus in late 2013 (Black, 2013; Oweis, 2013). Yet even then the Saudis did not abandon moderate groups completely, maintaining their sponsorship of the Southern Front, an FSA militia in southern Syria, until 2017. Riyadh’s approach was therefore pragmatic, rather than sectarian: it turned to Islamist groups as a last resort, when their preferred allies in the FSA proved unable to topple Assad.

Tehran was similarly more nuanced, turning to sectarian actors as a contingency plan. The Iranians initially sent weapons and advisors to help Assad’s military, the nominally inclusive Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Although its elite units were dominated by Alawites, it was no sectarian institution, boasting Sunnis, Shias, Alawites and Christians in its ranks – and using national symbols and slogans rather than sectarian or religious imagery (Phillips and Valbjørn, 2018). The SAA performed poorly however in the first two years of the conflict, prompting Iran to send Qasem Soleimani, commander of its Quds force, to Damascus to salvage the situation.

Under his direction, Tehran turned to Hezbollah and brought Shia militia from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Syria – a solution which they had already tried and tested in Iraq. Having trained many of the units himself, especially during the post-2003 campaign against US forces, Soleimani viewed these militias as more dependable than the SAA. Like Riyadh, the chronology of Tehran’s support suggests a pragmatic rather than a sectarian motivation: the militias in question were chosen not for ideological reasons but rather for their reliability and fighting ability.

The multifaceted assistance provided by Iran to President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime, and by the Gulf states to the fragmented rebellion, have been crucial to their political survival and military operations. Without either Iran or the Gulf states’ support, it is unlikely that their corresponding allies would have survived until now, at least in their current form. Iran has proven considerably more coherent, competent and committed than its Gulf rivals; the experience, expertise and strategic patience it deployed in support of the Syrian regime to a great extent enabled Assad’s recovery from serious setbacks in 2012 and 2013. In contrast, the war in Syria has exposed not only the political and operational limitations of the Gulf states, but also the rivalries among them.