The Regional Geo-sectarian Contest over the Gulf.

AuthorKaddorah, Emad Y.
PositionCOMMENTARY

Introduction

Over the last decade, sectarianism has increased in the Middle East and influenced regional politics. The debate over a potential rift between Sunni and Shia Muslims began with the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Iran's proclaimed intention of exporting this revolution to neighboring countries alarmed the latter's political regimes, particularly in the Gulf States in immediate proximity to Iran, where the state systems are monarchies, and the majority of the people are Sunni. The reality of sectarian strife has become clear since the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was followed by Iran's increasing influence in the country and the Iraqi Shia parties' control of the government. The strife erupted into a sectarian civil war during 2006-2008, when some armed Sunni groups intensified their attacks in response to the U.S.-led coalition and the government's policies, while the Salafi-Jihadists escalated the conflict. With the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011, some of its revolutions such as in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen have evolved into sectarian and geopolitical confrontations among regional states, particularly Gulf States and Iran. Operation "Decisive Storm" in Yemen, in effect since 2015, clearly exemplifies this geo-sectarian struggle. Finally, the execution of Saudi Shia dissident cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr in January 2016 led to an open confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran after Shia angry demonstrators set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia responded by cutting off its diplomatic relations with Iran.

The nature of this multifaceted conflict is disputed. Is it a geopolitical rivalry over the regional influence that uses sectarianism as a means to mobilize popular support? Or is it a sectarian conflict fed by Sunni-Shia antagonistic discourse and respective grievances, while states and sectarian substate actors add fuel to the fire?

This paper argues that the regional conflict over the Gulf region is geo-sectarian. This means that it is a geopolitical contest which has recently been engulfed by a sectarian dimension. Geopolitically, the traditional power struggle among Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia over the Gulf has been obvious since the early 1970s, and continues to be perpetuated mainly by Saudi Arabia and Iran. The recent sectarian clashes in Iraq, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, which have evolved into sectarian conflicts, have significantly exacerbated that struggle. With that said, this assertion raises a question over the legitimacy of the emergence of a Sunni camp against the Shia camp, and to what extent this may affect the security and stability of the region at large, particularly the Gulf. Therefore, the paper first argues that the nature of the conflict in the region is fundamentally geopolitical. Second, it traces and analyzes the factors that led to the rise of sectarianism. Finally, it attempts to answer the above-mentioned question regarding the Sunni vs. Shia camps.

The Geopolitical Contest over the Gulf

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran is informed less by sectarianism and more by other factors. (1) Geopolitically, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran have contested for regional influence since the decision by Britain in the late 1960s to withdraw its military forces from the Gulf. The United States and the Soviet Union, the two superpowers at that time, sought to fill this strategic gap and to protect the region from each other's influence. Saudi Arabia and Iran were allies with the United States according to the "Twin Pillars" policy. Baathist Iraq, which was supported by the Soviets, was the main adversary. Even under the Islamic Revolution regime in Iran since 1979, the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988) was mainly a struggle for regional influence rather than a sectarian war. During this war, Shias fought alongside Sunnis in Iraq, which was led by a secular regime, while the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) supported Iraq to maintain its survival and protect the Gulf from a potential Iranian hegemony. The fall of Saddam Hussain's regime in 2003 led Saudi Arabia to become the main regional country to counter Iran's growing influence.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have different visions for the structure of the regional system in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia seeks to preserve the current GCC system, which helps maintain its significant regional role and prevent Iran from exerting any influence on the Arab Gulf States, particularly Bahrain. In contrast, Iran is looking for a new regional system that includes all eight Gulf States, and in which it provides a strong role in Gulf security. Through this prospective system, Iran looks to reduce the ability of Saudi Arabia to maneuver in the Gulf.

The question of United States' power in the region is also at the heart of the struggle: Iran sees a Gulf free from the U.S. military influence, whereas Saudi Arabia has long relied on the U.S. as some sort of external balancer to serve as a check against Iran and Iraq. The two sides have also contested for the patronage of the Palestinian cause: Saudi Arabia sees Iran's involvement in this issue as tremendously threatening to its regional status. (2) The two states embody different models of government--each laying claim to Islamic legitimacy. Since the Iranian Revolution, they have represented two opposite poles of Islamic politics--a revolutionary republic versus a conservative monarchy, each claiming that it speaks most legitimately for "Islam" in the political sphere. (3)

The Gulf States themselves have some protracted sectarian problems. However, these problems are limited almost exclusively to Bahrain and the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia. These problems fuel the sectarian conflict with Iran. But the small presence of Shia populations in other Gulf States neither raises local sectarian problems nor regional conflict. There are an estimated two million Shias within the six states of the GCC. In Bahrain, Shia citizens outnumber the Sunni citizens; Kuwait has a sizeable 25-30 percent of Shias. The four remaining GCC states also have minority Shia populations of roughly around 10-20 percent. The numbers for the Gulf in...

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