Karim Sadjadpour
There are many Middle Eastern conflicts that could reshape the global political order. But the one most likely to do so is the battle between the region’s two dominant powers: the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although this rivalry was once primarily viewed as an ethnic and sectarian conflict between the predominantly Sunni Arab Saudis and the Shiite Persian Iranians, the key dividing line today is ideological. The clash centers on their respective strategic visions—Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and Iran’s Vision 1979. Each vision dictates the internal policies of its respective country, as well as how it deals with others.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are both autocratic energy titans, collectively controlling nearly a third of the world’s oil reserves and a fifth of its natural gas. Yet they are led by starkly different men with profoundly different plans. The de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, 39-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, wants to rapidly modernize a state long steeped in Islamist orthodoxy and move it away from its dependence on fossil fuel production. He created Vision 2030 to achieve those ends. The longtime leader of Iran, 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, remains dedicated to the ideological principles of Iran’s Islamist revolution. Khamenei does not call his plan Vision 1979. But the name can still aptly be applied, since his vision is all about preserving the Iranian Revolution’s ruthless commitment to theocracy.
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