Geo-Strategy #4: Saudi Arabia's Trump Card Against Iran

We are exploring why the United States would want to invade Iran. So far, we have two good reasons. The first is the Israel Lobby. Within the Israel Lobby, there are millions of Christian Zionists who believe that a conflict in the Middle East, especially between Israel and Iran, will bring Jesus back to Earth. They want their God, Jesus, to return to Earth, and they believe that a war in the Middle East will force him to return.

The second reason is the idea of Empire. America is an empire, and as an empire, it has a lot of privileges. For example, it can just print as much money as it wants. America is currently $34 trillion in debt, and the debt is growing by a trillion dollars every two months. America can do this as long as it is an empire and as long as people fear it. But as we've seen with Putin's invasion of Ukraine, people are now starting to rebel against the empire. Therefore, America must demonstrate it is still the military hegemon of the world, and it can do this by invading Iran.

Today, we look at the third and final force driving conflict in the Middle East: the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Most people think that Iran's major enemy in the Middle East is Israel. In fact, Iran's major enemy is Saudi Arabia. These two are bitter rivals, and to understand why, we have to look at their history.

The 1979 Earthquake: The Islamic Revolution

The year is 1979. At the start of 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran are good friends.

In 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran were very good friends. They had a lot of similarities: they were both monarchies ruled by a king, they were secular, they relied on American power to defend themselves, and they were both prosperous oil exporters.

But then, in 1979, a political earthquake radically changed the landscape of the Middle East. In 1979, there was a bottom-up revolution called the Islamic Revolution. Before 1979, there was a general consensus in the Middle East that religion and politics would be separated. But in 1979, the people in Iran demanded three things:

1. They would not be ruled by a king.
2. The US should not interfere in domestic politics. (Remember that the king, the Shah, was supported by the American military.)
3. As a Muslim people, the government should be focused on Islamic law.

In the referendum, 98% of the people of Iran voted to install an Islamic Republic to replace their monarchy. This was completely unexpected and caused an earthquake throughout the Middle East.

In November of 1979, 600 religious extremists tried to besiege Mecca. Mecca is the holiest city in the Islamic religion because it's the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. These 600 extremists tried to take the city over and demanded three things:

1. The Saudi Arabian monarchy should abdicate.
2. The United States should remove itself from the internal affairs of Saudi Arabia.
3. Saudi Arabia should be governed by Islamic law.

This revolt was crushed by the military, but from that day on, Iran and Saudi Arabia became bitter enemies because they were both trying to install their vision of Islam on the Middle East.

Three Forms of Rivalry

This rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia took three forms.

1. Religious Conflict

Even though they're both Muslim countries, they have different versions of the religion. Saudi Arabia is Sunni, and Iran is Shia.

You may ask what the difference is between these two branches of the religion. The answer is that no one actually knows; it's a very complicated issue. The major difference is this: in 610, the Prophet Muhammad had a vision in the city of Medina to found a new religion called Islam. He spread this religion throughout the Arab world, forever transforming the Middle East. When he died, there was a problem of succession: who would succeed the prophet as the leader of the religion?

The Shia people believe that only people of Muhammad's bloodline can be the leaders of the religion. The Sunni disagreed and said that anyone who proved himself competent and faithful to the religion could be the leader. For hundreds of years, these two groups fought a war over the succession, and this led to a bitter rivalry that has lasted to this day.

The majority of Muslims in the world, about 80%, are Sunni. Only 10% are Shia. This is important because Saudi Arabia is a Sunni country, and Iran is a Shia country. At the time of the Revolution, Iran committed itself to spreading the Shia Revolution throughout the world.

Saudi Arabia considers itself the leader of the Islamic world because it is home to both Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in the entire Islamic religion. As you may know, there's a requirement that as a Muslim, you must take a Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, once in your lifetime. Because Saudi Arabia controls Mecca and Medina, that's really the source of its authority over the Islamic world. Iran argued that because Saudi Arabia is ruled by a king, that's anti-Muslim, and because it is defended by the US military, that's also anti-Muslim. Iran says Saudi Arabia is a heresy and has dedicated itself to subverting Saudi Arabia's authority.

Saudi Arabia is Sunni and it practices the most extreme form of Sunni religion, called Wahhabism. In 1744, the Wahhabis, the most extreme Islamic group, made an alliance with the Al Saud family of Saudi Arabia. The agreement was that Wahhabism would become the national religion of Saudi Arabia, and the Wahhabis would swear allegiance to the Al Saud family.

But in the 1930s, oil was discovered in Arabia. In fact, Saudi Arabia proved to have the most valuable oil resources in all the world. As the world was modernizing, oil was becoming more and more important, which made Saudi Arabia extremely wealthy. As it became wealthier, it tried to become more Western, more secular, more progressive, and more modern, which brought it into conflict with the Wahhabis.

Wahhabism accounts for 20 to 40% of all the people in Saudi Arabia, so it is a very significant group. More importantly, Wahhabi people tend to be extremely fanatical. For example, in 1979, the people who laid siege to Mecca were Wahhabists. Wahhabists were also responsible for terrorist attacks against tourists and foreigners in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has always had this problem with the Wahhabis. The way Saudi Arabia has tried to resolve the conflict is to export the religion of Wahhabism throughout the world. For example, Osama bin Laden was a Saudi citizen responsible for spreading Wahhabism in Afghanistan, and that's what started Al-Qaeda. So, Saudi Arabia is trying to export Wahhabism, and Iran is trying to export the Shia religion, which brings them into conflict with each other.

2. Economic Conflict

Both countries are oil exporters. In fact, Saudi Arabia is completely reliant on oil for its economy. 40% of Saudi Arabia's GDP is based on oil exports; it is the number one oil exporter in the world. 75% of government revenues come from its oil exports. In other words, Saudi Arabia does not actually collect taxes from its citizens; it just sells oil.

Iran also sells oil; it's the number four oil exporter in the world. But it's less reliant on oil because it has a diversified economy, meaning that it has very strong human capital and a very well-educated population that does all sorts of different activities: science, art, education.

For the longest time, Saudi Arabia has been trying to control the price of oil to maximize profits. For example, it wants to cut back production to increase the price of oil, which will increase profits. But Iran often doesn't cooperate because it is trying to sell as much oil as possible to boost its economy. So there's an economic conflict between these two countries.

3. Geopolitical Conflict

Both countries are trying to exert as much influence as possible over the Middle East.

Iran is trying to exert influence because after the revolution in 1979, many countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United States, encouraged Iraq to invade Iran. This invasion, called the Iraq-Iran War, lasted eight years and cost the lives of millions of Iranians. From then on, Iran has adopted a policy of aggressive intervention in the Middle East to distract the United States and Israel. For example, in Israel, there are two groups opposing Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, and they're both financed and supported politically by Iran. The point of doing this is to distract Israel.

Saudi Arabia is trying to exert influence over the Middle East because as the number one oil exporter, it needs to control shipping lanes. It needs to control the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. 40% of all the world's oil passes through these two straits, and it goes mainly to East Asia: China, South Korea, and Japan.

The Proxy Wars

Because of these geopolitical tensions, Iran and Saudi Arabia have fought three proxy wars, or shadow wars.

The first is in Iraq. As you know, in 2003, America invaded Iraq and destroyed the country. After destroying the country, there was a power vacuum, so Iran came in and tried to take over. It could do so because two-thirds of the population were Shia and therefore had an affinity with Iran, while one-third were Sunni. To counter the Iranian influence, Saudi Arabia started to finance the one-third of Sunnis against the Shia. There was a very violent civil war fought in Iraq after the invasion. Many people also believe that Saudi Arabia is responsible for financing the Islamic State (ISIS) because ISIS really hates the Shia religion. Over time, because Iran has been so much more effective in projecting its power than Saudi Arabia, Iran now controls much of Iraq. In this first war, Iran defeated Saudi Arabia.

Then they fought another war in Syria. Syria's leader, Assad, faced a rebellion. Saudi Arabia, America, and Israel supported the rebels against Assad. Iran came in to support Assad, as well as Russia, and over time, Assad was able to crush the rebellion. In the second proxy war, Iran won as well.

Now there's another proxy war in Yemen, which started in 2016. The wars in Iraq and Syria were important to Saudi Arabia, but they didn't really threaten it. This war in Yemen did. For the longest time, Saudi Arabia supported the Yemeni political leadership. Then there was a rebellion by the Houthis. The Houthis were Shia villagers who lived in the mountains and were trying to overthrow the government. Saudi Arabia was afraid that the Houthis would become friends with Iran, so it launched a massive invasion of Yemen. It was 150,000 Saudi Arabian troops. They had warplanes and were backed by the most advanced American weapons and technology. They also had a coalition of about 30 nations, including Egypt and the UAE.

Saudi Arabia named this operation "Decisive Storm," which sounds like "Desert Storm." The strategy they used is what we call shock and awe. Shock and awe is basically: "We have so many bombs, airplanes, and soldiers that we can destroy you in about a week's time." Go in, go fast, be decisive, destroy your enemy.

Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia, this did not work. The first reason is that the Houthis were in the mountains, so the bombs didn't really stop them. In fact, all the bombs did was make them really angry because they were killing civilians. You're basically uniting the entire population against you. The second problem is that the Houthis are in the mountains, but Saudi Arabia has oil fields. And it's really, really easy to blow up oil fields. That's what the Houthis were doing. They were sending cheap drones that might cost $1,000 or $10,000, and they would blow up oil fields and ports.

Saudi Arabia has another problem: it has no fresh water. It is a desert. No water, no rivers. It relies entirely on desalination plants. This is extremely impressive technology that takes saltwater and turns it into freshwater. It's very impressive, but it's all on the coast. Iran can blow these plants up, and the Houthis can blow these plants up as well.

Saudi Arabia basically lost this war because the Houthis could inflict massive economic damage. From this war, Saudi Arabia learned three things:

1. If it wants to defeat its enemies—the Houthis, the Syrians, and the Iraqis—it also needs to be able to defeat Iran.
2. Its economy is extremely vulnerable to attack. At any point, Iran, with its missiles and drones, could destroy the entire Saudi Arabian economy. It can easily blow up all the oil fields and the desalination plants.
3. We really need America to fight Iran for us. In the long term, that's the only way we're going to survive as a nation. We need to defeat Iran, and we can't do it by ourselves. We need America to do it for us.

Saudi Arabia's Desperation and the Rise of MBS

Unfortunately for Saudi Arabia, in 2001, 9/11 happened. 15 of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia, which meant that America was very unhappy with the country. Americans didn't like Saudi Arabia and also knew that there were a lot of human rights abuses there.

The other thing that happened is that in 2003, America invaded Iraq. Saudi Arabia tried to exert as much influence as possible in Washington D.C. to stop the war because they knew that if America invaded Iraq, it would make Iran more powerful. As you know, Saudi Arabia could not stop the war.

In 2008, Barack Obama came into office. His understanding of the world was that the Middle East is a complete mess and hopeless. He didn't really want to deal with it. Plus, China was rising. The main threat to American power in the future would be in East Asia. So he proposed something called the Asia Pivot, which was to transfer American military resources from the Middle East to East Asia to counter the threat of China. But to do that, you needed to reduce tensions in the Middle East.

In 2015, he made a deal with Iran called the Iran Nuclear Deal. The deal was basically Obama saying to Iran, "Listen, I know you're trying to develop nuclear weapons. If you promise not to develop them, we will lift economic sanctions on you so that you can prosper." Iran said yes. This really scared Saudi Arabia because if America leaves the Middle East and brokers a peace with Iran, then Saudi Arabia would be extremely vulnerable.

Saudi Arabia became very, very desperate. Its very existence was threatened. Also, the economic outlook for Saudi Arabia was not that great. Remember, the entire economy is dependent on oil, but oil is a finite resource. Eventually, you're going to run out. If you're optimistic, you'll say Saudi Arabia will run out of oil in about 70 or 80 years. But there are also some people who believe that Saudi Arabia will run out of oil in about 10 years. If Saudi Arabia has no oil, then its entire economy collapses. You also have a problem with global warming and climate change. The entire global economy is slowing down, therefore the demand for oil is decreasing. The economic outlook for Saudi Arabia is extremely grim.

That's why in 2017, Saudi Arabia appointed a new leader called Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, also known as MBS. MBS promised to be a new leader. He was young, he was progressive, he wanted women to drive, he wanted young people to go to the movie theater. He proposed a new vision for Saudi Arabia called Vision 2030.

The Trump Connection

But MBS's most important achievement is that he became friends with the new president, Donald Trump. In 2016, Donald Trump became president of the United States, and MBS decided that this was an opportunity for Saudi Arabia to reset relations with America.

Trump's first trip outside the United States was to Saudi Arabia. That was the first achievement. The second achievement is that MBS became best friends with Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner was Trump's Middle East advisor, and his job was to bring peace to the Middle East, mainly between Israel and the Arab countries. To that extent, Kushner did a great job because MBS helped him. His major achievement is something called the Abraham Accords, which established peace between Israel and the Arab countries so that they could unite against Iran together.

MBS was looking very good, but then in 2018, he did something that scared the world. MBS was a visionary; he had a plan for where to take Saudi Arabia and wanted to modernize it. But he was also a young tyrant. He did not like people who criticized him. There was a journalist named Jamal Khashoggi who worked for the Washington Post and was a permanent resident of the United States. He was a Saudi national, and MBS had him killed. This caused an international uproar. The CIA and the US government conducted an investigation and determined it was MBS who ordered the assassination. Trump protected MBS.

Then, the most important thing that Trump did was in January 2020. Trump ordered the assassination of a man named Qasem Soleimani, who was considered to be the second most powerful man in Iran after the Ayatollah, the supreme religious leader of the country. It was Qasem Soleimani who was responsible for Iran's policies in the Iraq War, the Syria war, and the Yemen War. From the perspective of Saudi Arabia, Qasem Soleimani was Public Enemy Number One. He was the greatest threat to Saudi Arabia.

Before this, America had many opportunities to assassinate Qasem Soleimani. George W. Bush had the opportunity, and Barack Obama had the opportunity. Both believed that doing so would basically cause World War III, because if you kill the number two leader of Iran, Iran would have no choice but to go to war with you. That's why they both refrained from killing him. In fact, when Trump made the decision to assassinate Soleimani, the entire military was stunned. They couldn't believe this was happening.

So how did this happen? For some time, there had been conflict between US soldiers and Shia militias in Iraq, and the Pentagon felt it had to act. In these situations, they have to go to the president and present options on how best to respond. Usually, the Pentagon will design the choices so that the president does what the Pentagon thinks is best. For example, if the military goes to Trump, they give him three choices:

1. Let's do nothing.
2. Here is what you should do.
3. Let's blow up the world.

When these three options are presented, a president, being wise and strategic, will obviously always pick option two. Unfortunately, in this instance, Trump chose option three: "Let's blow up the world." And so they assassinated Qasem Soleimani.

In other words, it is very likely that if Trump had stayed for a second term, the United States would have gone to war with Iran, given how things were progressing.

MBS was so happy about all this that he once bragged privately to a friend about Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and the man responsible for all Middle East policies.

"He's in my pocket."

Meaning, "I own him." The evidence that suggests this is that after Trump and Jared Kushner left office, Jared Kushner set up a private equity fund, and MBS and the Saudi government invested $2 billion into the fund.

We don't know this for sure, but it seems like Trump was doing exactly what the Saudis wanted, which is to inflame tensions with Iran. This suggests that if Trump wins a second term, it is very possible that he will declare war on Iran, or at the very least, continue to escalate tensions, which will very likely lead to a major war. In that respect, the upcoming election is one of the most consequential elections.