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Behind much of the Middle East’s chaos — the wars in Syria and Yemen, the political upheaval in Iraq and Lebanon and Bahrain — there is another conflict.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging a struggle for dominance that has turned much of the Middle East into their battlefield. Rather than fighting directly, they wield and in that way worsen the region’s direst problems: dictatorship, militia violence and religious extremism.

The history of their rivalry tracks — and helps to explain — the Middle East’s disintegration, particularly the Sunni-Shiite sectarianism both powers have found useful to cultivate. It is a story in which the United States has been a supporting but constant player, most recently by backing the Saudi war in Yemen, which kills hundreds of civilians. These dynamics, scholars warn, point toward a future of civil wars, divided societies and unstable governments.

Continue reading:  How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East

3 thoughts on “How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East”

  2. The true powers of the U.S. want unrest all over the world. The simple reason is that they profit from it by financially by selling weapons of war, but more important than that is the issue of control. By keeping other regions of the world in turmoil, they prevent them from uniting as a powerful block of nations. This cuts down the competition to put it in terms of our state rligion – Capitalism.

    Imagine a United States of Africa using their vast mineral wealth to compete with the Western powers. Imagine a united middle east using wealth obtained from their oil resources to build infrastructure and an advanced education system throughout the region and giving the U.S. and European nations a run for their money in technology. Imagine a union between China and Japan competing in the global market.

    Kissinger instructed people about this in one of his books a while back. I believe it was “Diplomacy”, if I’m not mistaken.

    Thanks for an interesting post.

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