The new Middle East Cold War comes complete with its own spy-versus-spy intrigues, disinformation campaign, shadowy proxy war and supercharged state rhetoric and very high stakes.
There has long been blood between the Saudis and Iran. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni/Wahabi Muslim Kingdom of ethnic Arabs. Iran is a Shi’ite Islamic Republic populated by ethnic Persians.
Shi’ites first broke with Sunnis over the line of succession after the death of the Prophet Mohammad 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 of Middle East for almost as long.
These days, geopolitics plays a major role. The two sides have assembled allied camps. Iran holds in its sway Syria and the militant Arab groups such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Shi’ite radical factions in Iraq. In the Saudi sphere are the Sunni-Muslim Gulf monarchies, Morocco and the other main Palestinian faction, Fatah. The Saudi Camp is pro-Western and leans toward tolerating the state of Israel. There are even speculations that Israeli-Saudi intelligence services cooperate to some extend in the Middle East.The Iranian grouping defiantly opposes the U.S. and Israel.
For decades, the two sides have carried out a complicated game of moves and countermoves. With few exceptions, both prefer to work through proxy and covertly funded militias, as they did during the long Lebanese civil war in the 1980s,when Iran helped to establish Hizbullah and the Saudis backed Sunni militias. They currently deploy proxies in Iraq and Syria against each other.
