A Thaw In The Desert: What Iran-Saudi Arabia détente means for the region?

At a kernel level, the geopolitical conflict and subsequent imbroglio are a result of both quest for regional dominance and to be the purveyors of the Islamic world, with Saudi Arabia representing the dominant sect of Sunni Islam, with Wahhabism as its dominant form, while Iran sees itself as the centre of the Shia world. The post-revolutionary regime since 1979 has vigorously promoted Shia Islam and has challenged the Kingdom’s place as the epitome of Islam. However, even during the opulent reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, his ambitions to “westernise” Iran, were seen as heresy in the conservative Kingdom. Both however have been accused of exploiting their sects for geopolitical gains.

This upsurge of tensions was evinced when the Kingdom executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a well-known Saudi Shia cleric, in 2016. This lit fires in Iran, and quite literally too, as protestors set the Saudi Embassy in Tehran ablaze. Those are not the only fires that have been lit. The cold war earned its name for proxy battles fought between each power bloc with both the United States and the erstwhile USSR having its set of allies and corridors of influence.

Why a Cold War?

In Lebanon, Iran backs Hezbollah, a Shiite paramilitary force that has been had loggerheads with states like Israel, while Saudi has cajoled the political Hariri family. In war-torn Syria, the Assad government gets patronage from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), while Saudi backs Sunni militia and rebels. Where they clash vigorously is in war-torn Yemen. The Persian state backs the Houthi rebels, which have attacked Saudi oil facilities that Riyadh says it takes akin to an act of war, but Tehran denied involvement. The Kingdom backs the central government. In Tunisia, Saudi had backed Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the Arab Spring of 2011, fearing the protests would fuel its dissidents at home. Iran backed the protestors since Tehran has been an agent of chaos and has been vying to topple regional order.

These proxy conflicts have been exacerbated by both Riyadh and Tehran and left a sense of leadership vacuum and a trail of humanitarian disaster.

Beijing’s Adroit Statecraft

Beijing’s role as a peacemaker is both surprising and par for the course. Surprising since Riyadh’s biggest ally has been Washington, with whom it has largely been in lockstep, even when fissures could have ruptured the relationship. Saudi Arabia didn’t back the US-led invasion of Iraq, Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals, and even the dismemberment of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi didn’t downgrade diplomatic relations. Washington arms Riyadh handsomely and for many decades the petrodollar and dependence on the oil economy and a gateway to the Middle East and Sunni Islamic world were enough to assuage the antithetical relationship between a “beacon of democracy” and a monarchy-ruled conservative Islamic state.

China is the largest oil importer and depended on both the Kingdom and the Persian Gulf for energy security. Beijing doesn’t carry the historical baggage of the West in colonial powers like Britain and France, or Washington’s cudgel of being involved in regional conflicts. Beijing seeks its own rendition of economic pragmatism through its nebulous infrastructure investments in roads, railways, and ports through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which are not dependent on Washingtonian lenses of “friendshoring” in dealing with nations with similar democratic values.

As I wrote earlier, Biden’s first few phone calls to world leaders from the Oval office signalled Trans-Atlantic priorities over Middle East concerns. The war in Ukraine has directed the political-military leadership to focus on Eastern Europe and Moscow’s belligerence, leaving a vacuum in the Middle East, which Beijing has shown alacrity to fulfil. Furthermore, the priorities to curtail Beijing plays out in the Indo-Pacific theatre and despite an I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE and the US) initiative, Beijing and Tehran have a 25-year strategic cooperation in play.

Sanctions on Iran are only carrots for Moscow and Beijing, other Washingtonian adversaries, who continue to invest in the Persian state.

So, What Now?

Iran and Saudi Arabia will resume diplomatic relations and now have envoys in respective capitals. Both countries have also added that they will work to resume previous security pacts and revisit agreements on trade and technology. The Abraham Accords were epochal as Israel normalised relations with the Gulf States such as the UAE and Bahrain and paved the way for initiatives such as the I2U2.

While both Tehran and Riyadh publicly state that they support the Palestinian cause, Riyadh has gotten increasingly closer to Tel Aviv, speculating a sense of normalisation with the Jewish state, given the nature of the Abraham Accords and mutual tensions with Tehran’s nuclear programme and kinship with Washington. Tehran is seen as the biggest threat to Israel and funds Hamas in the Gaza strip. The leadership in the Knesset has been increasingly hawkish on any rapprochement with Iran including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iraq, which has hosted several proxy wars between the two sides since the downfall of Saddam, now played host to the peace talks and welcomed the reconciliation. Riyadh could also tone down its hawkish foreign policy, one that got synonymised with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2015. Washington had its pivotal moments in the Middle East with the famed Oslo Accords of 1993. It didn’t fructify within the grand scheme of things, in fact, there was the Second Intifada.

Negotiation experts teach you an acronym titled ZOPA, which stands for the Zone of Possible Agreement. Beijing may have had its own Oslo Accords moment, and Washington is the least amused, both that an adversary in Tehran was entertained, and Beijing brokered the deal. But de-escalating tensions in a literal and metaphoric hot region could just be the ZOPA that all parties will be happy to entertain.

Akshobh Giridharadas is a Washington DC-based former journalist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.