When the eyes of the world focused last week on the recent outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, another story of great proportions was brewing in the Middle East.
And it is that diplomacy seemed to advance between two other great antagonists: the past 10 in May, the government of Iran publicly confirmed for the first time that it is in dialogue with its, until now, archrival: Saudi Arabia.
During 40 years both countries have competed to have the greatest regional influence and to impose on the Muslim world the supremacy of their own branch of Islam (Sunni vs. Shiite).
Saudi Arabia and Iran have experienced a long confrontation that some experts have come to describe as “the new Cold War in the Middle East”, supporting rival groups in the conflicts in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria, among others.
Now, they both surprise the world by sitting down to talk.
“This is unprecedented” , says Ayham Kamel, head of the Middle East research team and North Africa of Eurasia Group , regarding these conversations that have been taking place at least since January but had been kept secret.
The first clue of what was happening was offered in mid-April by the newspaper Financial Times , which revealed that officials from both countries were They had met in Baghdad with a view to repairing their relationship.
Although initially this information was denied by Saudi Arabia, a couple of weeks later, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, considered to be the de facto ruler of the kingdom, he said in an entrance Evista on television who was looking for “a good and special relationship with Iran.”
His words caused great surprise. It was no wonder, since they came from someone who just three years ago had said that the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, “makes Hitler look good.”
But how is such a turn possible? What are the reasons that have led these archrivals to sit at the same table in a direct dialogue?
Changes in US policy
One of the main impulses for the shift of Saudi policy towards Iran , comes from the new US policy towards the Middle East: specifically from the Biden government’s manifest desire to reduce its involvement, especially military, in that region of the world.
“A factor weighs more than everyone else: growing signs that the United States is serious about changing ive focus on the Middle East, ”said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , a Washington-based think tank, at a article in the journal Foreign Policy .
He highlighted that during the presidential campaign of 2020, the current US president promised to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, to remove supporting Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war and seeking to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal. Since his arrival at the White House, Biden has followed that agenda.
“The factor that most prompted the actors in the region to follow the diplomatic route is not the commitment of the United States to support the Riyadh against Tehran or some new diplomatic initiative for the region. Rather, what catalyzed the talks is the exact opposite: the increasingly clear signs that the United States is withdrawing from the Middle East , ”Parsi wrote.
Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group attributes much of Saudi Arabia’s turn to Biden’s new policy towards Iran.
“I believe that the less aggressive policy of the Biden government towards Tehran has pushed Riyadh to consider alternative strategies for the regional situation and that includes the search for a new framework to manage the Iran issue. That, undoubtedly, led the Saudis to make new calculations, ”Kamel tells BBC Mundo.
He explains that seeing that the United States is seriously considering returning to the nuclear agreement with Iran, Saudi Arabia does not wants to stay behind. “They want to find their own framework for de-escalation with Iran, as Washington does for its part,” he adds.
The threat of the alliance with Israel
Although better relations with Saudi Arabia may favor Iran’s goal of reaching a nuclear agreement that will lead to the withdrawal of the economic and oil sanctions against him, Kamel points out that the greatest motivation for Tehran is another: to prevent the emergence of an alliance against Iran in the region.
In recent years, fear of the Iranian nuclear program has prompted the rapprochement between its regional rivals leading to confluences that until recently seemed unthinkable as the growing alignment ion of the Sunni monarchies with Israel.
“Tehran knows that its power has limitations in competition with Saudi Arabia and does not want to see the emergence in the region of a coherent anti-Iranian alliance. They would prefer not to see the normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel and that this effort (of dialogue) would serve to convince Riyadh not to seek that normalization, ”says Kamel.
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas seems to favor this Iranian objective, as the political climate in the region has become more hostile towards Israel, leading Saudi Arabia to harshly criticize the “flagrant violations” of the Palestinian rights and making normalization of relations less likely in the short term.
A costly rivalry
Another element that favors the dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia, although according to analysts it has less weight, are the high economic costs that this permanent confrontation implies.
Although it is not known precisely how much Iran spends to support its allies in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, estimates released in 2018 by David Adesnik, principal analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a think tank based in Washington, placed that amount between US $ 15. million and US $ 20. 000 millions per year .
Although in itself it is an appreciable amount, it is much more so for a country that is subject to strong sanctions that affect its economy.
The pulse with Iran It is also one of the factors behind the huge Saudi Arabian military spending that exceeded US $ 57. 000 million in 2020, representing 2.9% of world spending in this sector , according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
This enormous investment consumes valuable resources that could be invested in the modernization plan of the Saudi economy promoted by Bin Salman with a view to reducing the country’s dependence on oil wealth.
In fact, this is a point where the interests of Riyadh and Tehran coincide because it is about two countries that depend on the export of hydrocarbons in the context of a world that, due to the fight against climate change, is moving towards reducing the consumption of fossil fuels.
Thus, both countries It would be beneficial for them to cut their military spending and redirect those funds.
The limits of dialogue
Although they have been on opposite sidewalks for four decades, relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have severely deteriorated in the In recent years, when the confrontation they have maintained through third parties (supporting opposing forces in different conflicts such as Syria) has given way to some more direct incidents.
At the beginning of 2016, Following the execution by Saudi Arabia of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr – considered the cleric with the greatest influence over the Shiite minority in that country and convicted on charges of “terrorism” and “sedition” – a mob attacked and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, causing the breakdown of diplomatic relations between both countries.
Other serious incidents have been the attacks on Saudi territory carried out by the Houthi rebels of Yemen, allies of Tehran.
So was the attack by a drone squad against oil installations in Saudi Arabia, which occurred in September 2019, and that forced that country to temporarily reduce its oil production by almost 50%. Riyadh holds Tehran responsible for this attack, which, in turn, denies being involved.
In this context, the objective of these dialogues is “exploring ways to reduce tensions in the region,” as admitted by Rayed Krimly, head of planning at the Saudi Foreign Ministry, on May 7.
According to leaked information to the press, until now the talks have focused mainly on the war in Yemen , although they have also addressed other issues such as the Iran nuclear agreement or the situation in Syria and Lebanon .
To be clear: experts do not expect that the strategic, religious and economic rivalry between the two countries will disappear.
“I don’t want you to believe that this is already close to anything concrete. This will not be a great deal. Rather, it will be a de-escalation framework, a situation in which both parties agree on some things while they can continue to disagree on others ”, says Kamel.
According to the expert, if things go well, The favorable effects of this dialogue could be seen, for example, in Yemen, where the Houthi militias could become more receptive to a diplomatic solution; or in Lebanon, where a political agreement between the different factions can be facilitated to solve the serious crisis in that country.
“It would be a situation in which Iran and Saudi Arabia are not constantly fighting over each issue in the region, something that in itself would not put an end to their rivalry,” says Kamel .
“ Their differences are and will continue to be large , but the de-scaling framework would make it it was more manageable and would create less insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa ”, he concludes.
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC News Mundo. Download our app and activate them so you don’t miss our best content.