Iran-Saudi Arabia Relations and Regional Order (Paperback)

Iran-Saudi Arabia Relations and Regional Order studies relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, focusing in particular on the period since 1991. After a brief introductory section examining the record of relations between these two countries in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the authors examine four aspects of their current relationship: - the military balance and military threat perceptions - opposing views on questions of regional security - ideological competition on Islamic issues, and - economic differences, expressed through oil production and pricing policies. Each of these issues directly affects the security of both the Iranian and Saudi governments. Deterioration in one aspect has the capacity to exacerbate relations in the other three, increasing mistrust and injecting a sense of imminent crisis into many of the day-to-day issues that arise between Iran and Saudi Arabia.;The factors which tend to destabilise this relationship have been reinforced during the past seventeen years, so much so that any schemes for managing the security of this key strategic region through the co-operation of its principal states will remain extremely remote.