Iranian Revolution and the Gulf States
Introduction
Iran and the Arabian countries are separated by a water body, which was initially referred to as the Persian Gulf named after the Land of Persia which is currently known as Iran. There was a dispute by some Arabian countries over Iran. This caused conflicts between the Arab states and Iran in the 1960s. In addition, the name Persian Gulf was replaced with the name Arabian Gulf. The new name has been used by the Arabs since that period. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was famous because it saw the overthrowing of the Iran monarchy that was in power and replaced it with the Islamic republic. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was the leader of the monarch. On the other hand, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the leader of the Islam. In addition, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led the revolution. The revolution had an impact on the Arabian States and their relationship with Iran due to the links that they had even before (Esposito and Hopskins, n.d.).
Scope of the Research
The revolution of Iran became one of the most famous revolutions in the world because it was successful. Most of the previous revolutions that took place ended in failure. The impacts of most of these revolutions were slowing down the economic growth and eruption of war within the country. The Iranian revolution had some impacts especially on the Persian states. Iran had good relations with Persian states especially economically due to their commonality in oil production. Iran shipped its oil through the Gulf. After the revolution, these relations changed. It led to eruption of security tensions between the nations. The main scope of this paper is to discuss how the Iranian revolution changed the relationship of the Persian States with Iran.
Effects of the Iranian revolution on the religious relationship between Iran and the Gulf states
Khomeini is a key figure, who led the revolution of Iran in the year 1979. At the time, there was so much involvement of American Imperialism in the Gulf States. There have been two religious groups, which have been conflicting since the Iranian revolution of 1979. Khomeini, who was the leader of the revolution, was a member of the Shiite Islam religion. The Gulf States and most notably Saudi Arabia believed in the Sunni Islamic religion. The two religions had different believes. The Shiite believed that the religious believe of the Sunni was incorrect. Conversely, the Sunni believed that the Shiite believe was wrong. The Sunni Islam was the followers of Muhammad. They are said to believe in the sayings and the actions of Muhammad. The Sunni Islam religion is said to be an orthodox version of the Islam religion by the opponents of their beliefs. Islamists from Sunni believed in the Quran as well as the hadith. Shiite Islam religion is a follower of Ali. Ali was the successor of Muhammad and the Shiite believe that Ali was the right man who was appointed by God since in their religion they believe that only God is capable of appointing the right person who can safeguard the Islam, Quran as well as the Sharia laws (Fürtig, 2002).
Khomeini, the Shiite believer and the leader of Iran openly and publicly opposed the Sunni Islam religion which was dominant in Saudi Arabia. This varied believes and the open criticism of the Saudi religion by Khomeini created tensions between the two religions. The tension has been live till currently. There has been so much suspicion, and uncertainty between Iran and Saudi Arabia as a result of their different religious believes. The tensions came after the Iranian revolution. This was a period when Khomeini was crowned as a leader of Iran. He openly criticized the legitimacy of religion by the Saudi Arabians. In fact, the tension achieved a new front when the Sunni of Saudi Arabia attempted to bring down the al- Hussein shrine. Al Hussein was one of the most prominent leaders of the Shiite religion. Attempts by the Sunni to bring down that shrine are said to be the source of the modern of tensions. The tensions continued till the death of Khomeini in the year 1989 and even after his death. There have always been tensions between the two nations over the religious issues that started as a result of the Iranian revolution. It is the same religious conflicts that partly contributed to the start of the war between Iran and Iraq (Wagner, 2010).
Security relationship between the Arabian Gulf and Iran post Iran Revolution
As it has been stated earlier in this paper, the Iranian revolution was a revolution that was aimed to replace the Shah monarch and was led by Khomeini who was a Shiite believer. After the revolution, there were a number of security concerns between some of the Gulf States and Iran which now became an Islamic republic. They led to the emergence of the war between Iran and Iraq. In fact, the most notable security concern between the two regions after the Iranian revolution was the war that erupted between Iraq and Iran (Kechichian, 2001).
However, there were other security issues that will be discussed in this section of the paper. When Khomeini succeeded in leading one of the revolutions that turned out to be famous in the world, overthrowing the Shah Monarch and replacing it with the Islamic republic rule, he declared that he had intentions to overthrow the monarchs in the Gulf States. In his bid to overthrow the monarchs, Khomeini sent troops in Kuwait, Iraq and also to Bahrain. He also staged an attack on all the US territories and facilities in the Gulf States. Khomeini was particularly negative towards the West countries and particularly the U. S. A. When he took over power in Iran there was an increased tension among the Muslims all over the world as well as in America (Nosotro, 2003).
The Islamic rule in the wake of Khomeini leadership post Iran revolution started to take centre stage across Middle East countries. The effects could be felt outside the region as well by the whole world. Iraq President Saddam Hussein who was a Sunni sensing the danger that was posed by this newly formed rule by the Islam in Iran, he launched an attack on Iran to prevent its influence on the Shiite believers in Iraq. This led to the start of the Iraq- Iran war in the year 1980. It was later turned out to be the gulf war and was definitive of the security relations that Iran and the gulf states was to have through the years of 1980s. Iraq attack on Iran influenced the other Gulf States to join in support of Iraq. Saudi Arabia particularly splashed out billion of dollars to back up Iraq in the attack. It even increased the oil production so as to sustain itself in funding the attack. Apart from increasing the funds to support the attack on Iran, Saudi Arabia also increased the oil production so as to weaken the Iran capability of funding its troops and attacks to counter the Iraqis attack (Nosotro, 2003).
Before the revolution, there was a fall out between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. However, Iran was seen as a threat to Saudi Arabia more than Iraq since it was going to threaten the survival of Saudi Arabia in the gulf region. Other Arabian Gulf states joined to support Iraq. Some countries, which joined include; Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Security relations in the Persian Gulf region and Iran continued to fall out as Iran sent aircrafts across the Gulf in the aim of posing threats to any country that provided any form of support to Iraq.
The involvement of the other gulf countries increased when Iran attacked the oil tankers of the gulf nations. Iraq was the one which first attacked the oil export terminal. In counter to the attack that Iraq made on the Iran oil export terminal, Iran attacked the oil tankers of the gulf nations. This angered those nations which included Saudi Arabia and Kuwait among others. These attacks further weakened the security relations between the Persian Gulf States and Iran since all the Gulf States directed their attack on Iran. The US also got involved in the war whereby it supported Kuwait in the attack of Iran tankers (January, 2008).
The main reason that led to the decline of security in the Gulf States following the Iranian revolution was the Iraq attack on Iran. Saddam Hussein staged the attack in fear that the revolution similar to those that took place in Iran could happen in Iraq as well due to influence from the Iranian Muslims. A protest by the Shiite in Iraq would have led to Saddam Hussein being removed from power just as Shah was overthrown in Iran (Kamrava, 2011).
Another incident that increased security tensions in the Gulf region was the Hajj Incident that took place in the year 1987. The incident that took place outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca took away the lives of about 400 pilgrims. Two thirds of the pilgrims were Iranians. It was a crash between demonstrators and the Saudi Arabian law agencies. As a result of that incident, Saudi Arabia put regulations on the activities that normally take place at the pilgrimage. This further indicated the poor security relationship between Iran and the Gulf States. In fact, the aftermath of the incident was the revenge of Iran by attacking the Saudi diplomats (Moaddel, 1993).
The Gulf war lasted for up to a decade, but the nations later made up, came into terms and ended the tension. The end of the war was experienced in 1988. This occurred when Iran accepted the conditions set by UN resolution 598. The peace terms did not last for long, and Saddam Hussein staged an attack on Iran in 1990. This time the president of Iran was Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who had taken the post in the previous year (Molavi, n.d).
Discussion
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the leader of the Iranian revolution of 1979. He led to the replacement of the Monarch which was led by Shah. The revolution marked the start of the shift in the relationship between Iran and the Gulf States. The Gulf States are internationally referred to as the Persian Gulf states. The term Persian came from the original name of Iran which was referred to as Persia before it changed to Iran.
Many writers have done so much research and have written articles regarding the Iranian revolution. Most of these writers have mostly concentrated their work on the Gulf war. There are also a number of writers who have written on the relationship of Iran and America after the revolution. This paper has gone a step further to address the religious relations of Iran and the Gulf states after the revolution. It is one of the key factors that led to the emergence of Gulf war (Naghshpour, 2011).
The paper has also addressed a number of security concerns, which have previously been overlooked by most writers. It has given an overview at the Hajj Incident that took place at Mecca in the year 1987. It is an incident that worsened the already delicate security between Iran and the Gulf States. In addition, when the Sunni attempted to destroy the al-Hussein shrine, this worsened the security tensions. The tensions were eased at some point in the year 1988 when Iran accepted the UN resolution, but it erupted again in 1990.
Analysis
The break down of security and region relations between Iran and Gulf states had a number of implications on the involved nations. The revolution led to the attack of Iraq on Iran after Iraq suspected that the same revolution could happen in their country. It raised the tension between two Islamic religious versions; the Shiite and the Sunni which were the main causes of the fear developed by the Iraq President Saddam Hussein.
It is this attack by Iraq on Iran that led to the emergence of the gulf war. Gulf nations backed Iraq to attack Iran, and they provided financial support to Iraq to enable the attack. These attacks had some impact on the economy of the nations since there were several attacks on the oil tankers which meant losses. The price of oil also went down during those years further slowing down the economy of the nations.
Conclusion
The Iranian revolution, which is referred, to as the Iranian revolution of 1979 marked a turning point in the relationship between the Gulf States and Iran. Most Arabian Gulf states turned against the Islamic rule that came to being after the overthrow of Shah Monarch rule. Saddam Hussein, the Iraq president, was the first to attack Iran and the other Gulf nations followed suite by supporting Iraq. The events led to the emergence of Gulf war in which America also intervened at some time. In their intervention, America supported the Gulf States due to the fear that development of the Islamic rule will increase the chances of terrorist attacks on them. The tensions continued for up to a decade. There were several other security concerns which occurred in between the war period for instance the Hajj Incident that took place in Mecca among other incidents.
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