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Saudi Arabia
Relations with Iran
Saudi Arabia's postwar concerns about Iraq led to a rapprochement
with Iran during 1991. Historically, relations with non-Arab Iran
had been correct, although the Saudis tended to distrust Iranian
intentions and to resent the perceived arrogance of the shah.
Nevertheless, the two countries had cooperated on regional security
issues despite their differences over specific policies such as
oil production quotas. The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979
disrupted this shared interest in regional political stability.
From a Saudi perspective, the rhetoric of some Iranian revolutionary
leaders, who called for the overthrow of all monarchies as being
un-Islamic, presented a serious subversive threat to the regimes
in the area. Political disturbances in the kingdom during 1979
and 1980, including the violent occupation of the Grand Mosque
in Mecca by Sunni religious extremists and riots among Saudi Shia
in the Eastern Province, reinforced the perception that Iran was
exploiting, even inciting, discontent as part of a concerted policy
to export its revolution. The Saudi government consequently was
not displeased when Iraq invaded Iran in September 1980. Nevertheless,
Saudi Arabia remained officially neutral throughout the Iran-Iraq
War, even though in practice its policies made it an effective
Iraqi ally.
The thorniest issue in Saudi-Iranian relations during the 1980s
was not Riyadh's discreet support of Baghdad but the annual hajj,
or pilgrimage to Mecca, that took place in the twelfth month of
the Muslim lunar calendar (see Tenets of Sunni Islam; Pilgrimage
, ch. 2). Contention over the participation in hajj rituals of
Iranian pilgrims, who numbered about 150,000 in this period and
comprised the largest single national group among the approximately
2 million Muslims who attended the yearly hajj rites, symbolized
the increasing animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Tehran
insisted that its pilgrims had a religious right and obligation
to engage in political demonstrations during the hajj. Riyadh,
however, believed that the behavior of the Iranian pilgrims violated
the spiritual significance of the hajj and sought to confine demonstrators
to isolated areas where their chanting would cause the least interference
with other pilgrims. Because the Saudis esteemed their role as
protectors of the Muslim holy sites in the Hijaz, the Iranian
conduct presented a major dilemma: to permit unhindered demonstrations
would detract from the essential religious nature of the hajj;
to prevent the demonstrations by force would sully the government's
international reputation as guardian of Islam's most sacred shrines.
Tensions increased yearly without a satisfactory resolution until
the summer of 1987, when efforts by Saudi security forces to suppress
an unauthorized demonstration in front of Mecca's Grand Mosque
led to the deaths of more than 400 pilgrims, at least two-thirds
of whom were Iranians. This tragedy stunned the Saudis and galvanized
their resolve to ban all activities not directly associated with
the hajj rituals. In Tehran, angry mobs retaliated by ransacking
the Saudi embassy; they detained and beat several diplomats, including
one Saudi official who subsequently died from his injuries. These
incidents severed the frayed threads that still connected Saudi
Arabia and Iran; in early 1988, Riyadh cut its diplomatic relations
with Tehran, in effect closing the primary channel by which Iranian
pilgrims obtained Saudi visas required for the hajj.
Although Iran began to indicate its interest in normalizing relations
with Saudi Arabia as early as 1989, officials in the kingdom remained
suspicious of Tehran's motives and did not reciprocate its overtures
for almost two years. The Persian Gulf War, however, significantly
altered Saudi perceptions of Iran. The unexpected emergence of
Iraq as a mortal enemy refocused Saudi security concerns and paved
the way for a less hostile attitude toward Iran. For example,
Riyadh welcomed Tehran's consistent demands for an Iraqi withdrawal
from Kuwait and interpreted Iran's strict adherence to neutrality
during the conflict as a positive development. Despite their lingering
doubts about Tehran's aims vis-à-vis the Shia population of southern
Iraq, the Saudis recognized after the war that they and the Iranians
shared an interest in containing Iraq and agreed to discuss the
prospects of restoring diplomatic relations. The issue that had
proved so vexatious throughout the 1980s, the hajj, was resolved
through a compromise that enabled Iranians to participate in the
1991 pilgrimage, the first appearance in four years of a hajj
contingent sponsored by Tehran. In effect, once Saudi Arabia and
Iran decided that cooperation served their regional interests,
the hajj lost its symbolic significance as a focus of contention
between two countries that defined themselves as Islamic. The
reopening of embassies in Riyadh and Tehran accompanied the resolution
of the hajj and other outstanding issues.
Data as of December 1992
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