Saudi Arabia and Iran: the Islamic Awakening Case

The Middle East has always been influenced by internal changes in regional countries, existing interactions at the regional level and power equations in the international system. Similarly, today we witness how changes in the political systems of some Arab countries, although considered internal affairs, have influenced the nature of interactions at the regional level. Developments called an «Islamic Awakening» have led to regime change in some Arab countries and posed a serious challenge for other ones, undermining the regional status of some countries and enhancing that of others. This article aims at studying the impact of the Islamic Awakening on relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia as two major regional states. The author, while assuming that the Islamic Awakening has undermined Saudi Arabia''s regional status and in contrast has enhanced that of Iran, argues that Saudi Arabia has adopted a balancing policy against Iran in dealing with this problem. The main goal of this article is to study the different aspects of Saudi Arabia''s balancing policy.