Source: European Council on Foreign Relations
“When you look at the main conflicts in today’s Middle East—Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Iraq—one common element that transcends all these conflicts is the Iran-Saudi rivalry,” said Carnegie’s Karim Sadjadpour at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He explained that this conflict has three dimensions to it: ethnic, sectarian, and ideological. Both countries are confident that they’re the natural leader of the Islamic world and the Middle East, Sadjadpour continued.
In regards to the relationship between the United States and Iran, he argued that while both countries have shared numerous adversaries, such as the Soviet Union, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and now the Islamic State, the strategic enmity between the United States and Iran has prevailed, driven more by Tehran than Washington. There’s a real fundamental incongruence between the urgent national security concerns of Iran, such as radical Sunni jihadism and Iran’s revolutionary ideology.
This presentation was originally published by European Council on Foreign Relations.