Yale University Press NEW HAVEN & 9 780300"089028 - Sito Mistero

SHIA VERSUS SUNNI: IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA ~ 19715SHIA VERSUS SUNNI:IRAN ANDSAUDI ARABIAThere was a sense of change and renewal in Tehran in the spring of1999. For nearly 20 years since the Islamic revolution, Tehran'swomen had shrouded themselves in the dictated garb of hijab - theuniform black tents. Now suddenly the Ujab was sprouting faux-leopardskintrimmings and fur. Some women were wearing raincoats or donningthe hijab like a cape revealing short skirts, tight jeans, black silk stockingsand high heels. Rather than an imposed dress code, female modesty nowappeared to be up to the individual. The loosening up of the hijab wasonly one sign of the transformation of Iranian society after the electionof Saved Mohammed Khatami to the Presidency in May 1997, when hetook 70 per cent of the popular vote in a stunning victory against a morehardline conservative candidate. Khatami had garnered the votes of theyouth, who were fed up with 25-per-cent unemployment and high inflationand hopeful that he would usher in economic development and amore open society.Khatami's victory created an immediate thaw in Iran's relations withthe outside world as it opened up to the West, wooed its old enemy theUSA with the need for 'a dialogue between civilizations' and sought animprovement in relations with the Arab world. Afghanistan was tobecome the primary issue in helping thaw relations between Iran, theUSA and the Arab world. During his visit to Kabul in April 1998, USAmbassador Bill Richardson had already signalled that the USA saw Iranas a dialogue partner to help resolve the Afghan crisis. Iran was alsotalking to an old foe, Saudi Arabia.'The positive climate between Iran and Saudi Arabia is encouragingand both sides are ready to co-operate for the resolution of the conflictin Afghanistan,' Iran's new Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in May1998. 1 A suave, English-speaking diplomat who for 11 years had representedIran at the UN, Kharrazi's soft diplomatic manner and style wererepresentative of a revolution that had mellowed.Iran's new leaders were deeply antagonistic to the Taliban, but theywere pragmatic enough to realize that peace in Afghanistan was necessaryfor economic development and political liberalization in Iran. Stability intheir neighbourhood would also help Iran end its international isolation.Khatami was far from looking for a fight with the Taliban, yet just sixmonths later, after the Taliban killed nine Iranian diplomats in Mazar,Iran had mobilized a quarter of a million soldiers on its border withAfghanistan and was threatening to invade. As tensions with the Talibanescalated, the new relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia took oneven more importance.Afghanistan has been just one area of conflict in the intense rivalrybetween the Persians and the Arabs. Both peoples have conquered andruled one another against a background of dispute between Sunni Arabiaand Shia Persia. In 1501 Shah Ismail of the Safavid dynasty turned Iraninto the first and only Shia state in the Islamic world. Both the Persiansand the Arabs had ruled over Central Asia and Afghanistan, althoughPersian rule and its culture and language was much more long-standingand left a permanent mark.In the twentieth century the long war between revolutionary Iran andIraq (1981-88), which led to some 1.5 million casualties, only deepenedthis rivalry as all the Arab states had supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq.As that war began, another was just beginning in Afghanistan and heretoo the age-old rivalries would continue - this time in the context of theCold War and the US aim to isolate Iran with the help of the Arab states.Ostensibly both Iran and Saudi Arabia were on the same side in theAfghan conflict. They strongly opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,supported the Mujaheddin and backed international measures to isolatethe Afghan regime and the Soviet Union. But they supported opposingfactions of the Mujaheddin and Iran never severed its diplomatic linkswith the Kabul regime. Saudi support to the Mujaheddin was in line withthe US and Pakistani strategy of providing the bulk of funds and weaponsto the most radical Sunni Pashtun groups and ignoring the Shia Afghans.The Saudis also separately funded Afghans who promoted Wahabbism.Dollar for dollar, Saudi aid matched the funds given to the Mujaheddinby the US. The Saudis gave nearly US$4 billion in official aid to theMujaheddin between 1980 and 1990, which did not include unofficial aidfrom Islamic charities, foundations, the private funds of Princes andmosque collections. 2 There were also direct funds given to the ISI, as in1989 when the Saudis handed over US$26 million dollars to bribe Afghan