Areas of Recurrent Crises in the Iran-Saudi Arabia Relations

The Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia have been among the most important actors in the Persian Gulf region and West Asia, which have experienced ups and downs after the Islamic Revolution. Whereas before the Islamic Revolution, in spite of overt and covert rivalries, it pursued parallel goals and interests, and a kind of convergence and relative stability prevailed in their relations. However, with the advent of the Islamic Revolution, conflicting social and identity structures were created between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which, as a result of these conflicting structures, inconsistent and inverted realities overshadowed their relations and dominated the conflict between the two countries. Hence, the pattern of conflicting relations between the two countries has been formed in such a way that peaceful relations in their relations have become fleeting and the occurrence of successive crises has become permanent and fundamental. This research uses a descriptive-analytical method to investigate the reasons and contexts for the recurrence of the crisis in the relations between the two countries and the research data show that the recurrence of the crisis in their relations is a function of deep social structures (such as political Islam versus Wahhabi Islam) and maladaptive elements of identity (such as revolutionaryism and historical Iranism versus Saudi conservatism and Arabism) and the conflicting speech acts of the two countries' political and religious elites.