Saudi Arabia and Iran: Soft Power Rivalry in the Middle East.

• Author: Sinkaya, Bayram
• Position: Book review

Saudi Arabia and Iran: Soft Power Rivalry in the Middle East

By Simon Mabon

New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013, 298 pages, $80.51, ISBN 9781780763118.

Recently, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran has become an interesting topic to study because of the rise of sectarian politics. However, there are few scholarly studies exclusively addressing Iran-Saudi Arabia relations. Actually it is a challenging task because the two countries are engulfed in a fierce and complicated competition that dates back to 1979. Additionally since the competition between Riyadh and Tehran involves many speculations, most topics in Iran-Saudi Arabia relations are highly controversial. Against this backdrop, Simon Mabon contributes to the literature with his book entitled Saudi Arabia and Iran: Soft Power Rivalry in the Middle East.

The book consists of seven chapters attempting to explain complex the nature of the rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran. The first chapter offers an analytical framework built on Hinnebusch's modified Realism and Constructivism. Dubbed by the author as "the Incongruence Dilemma," this framework focuses on the importance of identity and its implications on security considerations of states. It argues that "incongruence of identity" in a country leads to internal security dilemma. Given the entrenchment of actors, within particular institutional and normative structures, efforts to resolve internal security dilemma and state responses to the threats stemming from "incongruence of identity" could lead to external security dilemma and place the state in direct competition with neighboring states. Hence, the Incongruence Dilemma employs a three-stage framework. The first stage is concerned with structural constraints placed upon actors and deals with state formation, and domestic as well as regional systems. The second stage is mainly concerned with incongruence of identity that causes challenges to ideological or territorial sovereignty of the state, and state responses to these threats. The third stage "explains how internal security dilemma manifest themselves at the external level" through provoking soft power rivalry or manipulation of internal security dilemmas by external actors (p. 36). Having drawn this framework in the first chapter, the remaining chapters are organized accordingly.

The second chapter locates and contextualizes the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran and defines ideological and geopolitical spheres of...