Why Saudi Arabia is worried about lifting Iran's sanctions
![Why Saudi Arabia is worried about lifting Iran's sanctions](https://www.azernews.az/media/pictures/claude_salhani_071113_1.jpg)
By Claude Salhani
Senior editor of the English service of Trend Agency
The contention between Iran and its Arab neighbors across the Gulf
waters is by no means a new phenomenon. To be sure, Arabs and
Persians find little to agree upon and have had a rocky
relationship for more than a century and a half. Indeed, the two
sides can't even agree on the name of the body of water that
separates the desert kingdom from the Islamic Republic.
There is little hope that there could ever be a serious
rapprochement between the Gulf Arabs and the Iranians. To say that
memories in this part of the world run deep would be a terrible
mistake. They run very deep. And little changes over time. The
hate, distrust and fear the Arabs and Iranians have of each other
remains as pronounced today as it was when Shiites and Sunnis first
began to mistrust each other after the death of the Prophet
Mohammad.
Today one finds those identical feelings still permeate Iranian and
Arab societies, except that today that animosity is backed up by
some of the most modern and some of the best military hardware that
money can buy. With its vast supplies of oil and natural gas
reserves, Saudi Arabia and the other oil producing states in the
region can afford to go on a shopping spree, looking for the most
modern weapon systems. Those countries have experienced no
difficulty in building and maintaining modern armies. The Gulf
Cooperation Countries -- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates and Oman -- have been eager to dispatch their
relatively small armies to conflicted areas so that their soldiers
and officers can gain first hand experience, as was the case in
1990 when the Saudi, Qataris and Emaratis participated in expelling
Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
Iran, on the other hand makes up in numbers what they lack in
hardware. With the sanctions in place, Iran has faced some
difficulty in replacing some military hardware, as its air force,
made up mostly of U.S. and French warplanes. After the horrid
experiences suffered in the Iraq-Iran War, the Iranians vowed to
never allow themselves to fall into such a situation again. This is
one of the prime reasons pushing Iran to acquire nuclear
weapons.
As a result of a breakthrough in the Geneva talks between Iran and
the West, sanction will allow Iran to receive badly needed cold
hard cash and you can rest assured that there will be a long line
of countries hoping to sell Iran the weapons it needs.
Putting aside all military issues for a brief moment, and if all
possible, ignoring the religious fervor that divides Arabs and
Persian, there remains yet one more point of contention: economics.
Some analysts believe the economic factor driving the Saudi's quest
is almost as strong as the politics surrounding the Syrian
conflict. What frightens the Saudis? The Saudis (and the other Gulf
Arabs) look at Iran with trepidation and worry that once the
sanctions are gone, so too could the U.S.-imposed stability, as
unstable as might have been, nevertheless, kept Iran economically
trailing behind the Saudis.
The House of Saud rightfully fears that with the sanctions lifted,
and production costs kept low by years of continued sanctions will
inevitably attract U.S. companies eager to do business in the
Islamic Republic. Reuters reports in a dispatch from the region
that lifting of sanctions on Iran could bring as much as 800,000
barrels of oil per day on the international market. To entice
foreign investment after years of sanctions the Iranians are very
likely to offer investors cut rate prices. This naturally worries
the Saudis.
For the Iranians, the disappearance of sanctions translates into
potential revenues worth $54.4 billion in oil exports per year and
based on statistics for the first year only.
In fact it will not be too long before Americans are joined by
their European colleagues for a stab at re-entering the Iranian
marketplace. For Iran's new president lifting the sanctions could
not have been better timed. If the businesses attracted by Iran's
bargain basement price succeed in luring foreign corporations back
to Iran, the result would trigger an important job creation
program. With the government fighting a sinking economy and rising
unemployment hovering around 15.3 per cent, this new boom will
place Iran on track to economic recovery. For Saudi Arabia however,
confronting a wobbly Iran is bad enough. Facing an economic stable
and potentially nuclear-armed opponent is no doubt Saudi Arabia's
nightmare.
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