Name: 中東的冷戰，解釋 (The Middle East's cold war, explained)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:14:29.000Z
Duration: 10 min 19 s
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The Middle East is one of the most complex
regions in the world:

情態副詞

Currently there are 4 failing states and 3
wars, with major powers increasingly taking

Countless armed militias and terrorist groups
are spreading violence across borders.

The region has seen conflict after conflict
going back well into the 20th century.

But among all the uprisings, civil wars, and
insurgencies, two countries always seem to

They're bitter rivals, and their feud is
the key to understanding conflicts in the

The Saudis and Iranians have never actually
declared war on each other.

Instead, they fight indirectly by supporting
opposing sides in other countries and inciting

And it's had a devastating effect on the
region.

Countries, especially poor ones, can't function if there are larger countries pulling strings

see these civil wars as both tremendous threats,

and also potentially enormous opportunities.

The Saudi-Iranian rivalry has become a fight over influence, and the whole region is a

It's why the rivalry is being called: a
Cold War.

The most famous cold war was fought for 40

years between the United States and Soviet
Union.

Looking forward to the day when their flag would fly over the entire world.

They never declared war on each other, but

Each side supported dictators, rebel groups, and intervened in civil wars to contain the

Like the US and Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia
and Iran are two powerful rivals - but instead

of fighting for world dominance, they're
fighting over control of the Middle East.

In order to understand the Saudi-Iranian rivalry,
let's go back to the origins of each country.

In the early 1900s, the Arabian peninsula
was a patchwork of tribes under the control

After World War I, the empire collapsed, leaving these tribes to fight each other for power.

One tribe from the interior, the al-Saud,
eventually conquered most of the peninsula.

In 1932, they were recognized as the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia.

6 years later, massive oil reserves were discovered in Saudi Arabia, and, in an instant, the Saudi

That oil money built roads and cities 
all around the desert country - and

On the eastern side of the Persian Gulf, another country was emerging, but having a much harder

Iran also had massive oil reserves and an
even bigger Muslim population.

But constant foreign intervention was creating chaos.

Since the 18th century, Iran had been invaded
by the Russians and British twice.

In 1953, the US secretly staged a coup, removing the popular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddegh.

In his place, they propped up a monarch, Reza Shah, who was aggressively reforming Iran

But he harbored corruption and terrorized
the population with his secret police, the

By the 1970s, both Saudi Arabia and Iran had oil-based economies and had governments heavily

backed by the US, but the feelings among each population were very different:

Ultimately at the end of the day, the
Shah of Iran, powerful as he was, simply

did not have the same control over his people
or ultimately the same legitimacy and affection

that the Saudi people felt towards their monarchy
at that point in time.

That's because Iran's Muslims felt stifled
by the Shah's reformations and by the end

Iran's Islamic revolution overthrew a powerful regime,

It's really in 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic revolution

overthrow the Shah, that the real tension
between Saudi Arabia and Iran begins.

Ayatollah Khomeini was a Muslim clergyman,
who preached against Western-backed secular

He advocated for a government that popular, Islamic, and led by the clergy.

And In 1979, he led a revolution to establish just that.

It was a massive international event that
prompted reactions around the world especially

The Iranian Revolution terrified the government
of Saudi Arabia.

They were fearful that Ayatollah Khomeini

would inspire their populations to rise up against them,

exactly the way he had caused the Iranian population

Up until now, the Saudis had claimed to be
the leaders of the Muslim world.

Largely because Islam's two holiest sites,
Mecca and Medina are in Saudi Arabia.

But Khomeini claimed his popular revolution
made Iran the legitimate Muslim state.

There was another divide; Saudi Arabia's
population is mostly Sunni, the majority sect

of Islam, while Khomeini and Iran are mostly
Shia.

Westerners always make a
mistake by drawing an analogy between the

Sunni-Shia split and the Protestant-Catholic
split within Christianity.

The Sunni-Shia split was never as violent.

when Sunnis and Shia were living in close proximity,

So, while the Sunni-Shia split was not a reason
for the rivalry, it was an important division.

After the revolution, the Saudi's fears
came to life when Iran began “exporting

This CIA report from 1980 details how the
Iranian started helping groups, mostly Shia,

trying to overthrow governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia.

to redouble their efforts, to fight against Iran.

They bolstered their alliance with the US
and formed the GCC, an alliance with other

20 second. Iraqi planes attacked Mehrabad Airport outside

Tehran. Iraq was gambling on a short sharp...

The rise of Iran as a regional power threatened

In September 1980, Iraq, under the rule of
dictator Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran.

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中東的冷戰，解釋 (The Middle East's cold war, explained)

ultimately

massive

ultimate

opportunity