Iran and Saudi Arabia: Analysis of Divergence

Subsequent to Mena incident in 2015 and the victimization of several thousand citizens of Muslim countries with nearly half of Iranian nationals, diplomatic and political relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia deteriorated. Although the relations between the two countries at both previous eras and prior to the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 is not a new phenomenon, a historical review is indicative of the fact that this divergence was exacerbated in the aftermath of the September 11, and reached its climax with the emergence of some issues such as the US invasion of Iraq and the Arab revolutions in South West Asia and North Africa in 2010. The current article seeks to explain the real nature and underlying causes of the divergence of the relations between the two countries of Iran and Saudi Arabia in the post-September 11. The paper hypothetically considers the substantial ideological difference as the main explanation for all of the soft and hard conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia.