National Identity Analysis of Saudi Arabia in Iran’s Nuclear

Agreement

Nizzah Amalia Subchan and Siti Rokhmawati Susanto

International Relations Department, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Universitas Airlangga

Keywords: Iran Nuclear Agreement, National Identity, Foreign Policy, Salafism, Aspirational Constructivism

Abstract: Each country in the international system must have an identity that shapes its behavior. Saudi Arabia’s

negative response to the signing of Iran's nuclear deal in 2015 is seen as having a strong association with

Saudi Arabia’s national identity. This is because the government of Saudi Arabia is a Salafi country and

follows Sunni Islam. One of their beliefs is that any religion that does not fit their ideology becomes a

threat. This is what then underlies Saudi Arabia’s hatred towards Shi’ite groups. Sectarianism was then

formed in Saudi Arabia's foreign policy especially to Iran. In addition, Saudi Arabia uses legitimacy as a

custodian of the two Islamic holy sites to become a leader of the Islamic world. So the implementation of

Iran’s nuclear deal is supposed to have strengthened its position as a Shiite axis in the Middle East and

intensified Saudi Arabia's intention to dismantle the agreement. Therefore, in this paper the author seeks to

analyze the extent of the influence of identity through Anne Clunan’s aspirational constructisim and explain

how the identity is formed and how to incorporate it in foreign policy.

1 SAUDI ARABIA RESPONSE TO

IRAN’S NUCLEAR

AGREEMENT

Iran’s Nuclear Agreement between Iran and six

other world powers, namely the United States,

Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany, is said

to be a significant foreign policy achievement from

President Barack Obama’s administration. In broad

outline, the initial framework of the agreement states

that the international community will lift the oil and

financial sanctions imposed on Iran, with Iran’s

reply to limit its nuclear energy program. This then

realized by turning its nuclear plant at Fordo into a

science research center, while at Natanz is deprived

of its uranium production. The existence of other

nuclear support components such as the nuclear

reactor in Arak is then converted and designed to not

produce plutonium for weapons manufacture. In

order to ensure that Iran is subject to the terms of the

treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency

(IAEA) is granted permission to gain access and

information to harmful nuclear sites and conduct

monitoring, verification and inspection (Broad and

Pecanha, 2015).

Although the initiative received a positive

response from the majority of other countries, an

unexpected but important consequence was a

negative response by Saudi Arabia. This agreement

is considered to aggravated and raised Saudi

Arabia’s concerns about Iran’s purpose in the

Middle East region. Riedel (2016) stated that

Riyadh’s previous fears had never been too focused

on Iraq’s nuclear capabilities, this is because Iran’s

risk of using its weapons is low and that there is a

protective umbrella from the United States.

However, the main concern lies in the belief that

Iran has ambitions to become a regional hegemony

through terrorism and subversion in order to achieve

that desire. The existence of this agreement through

Saudi perspective will have some impact. One of

them is Iran will have the ability to improve its

economic position, and indirectly increase the

capability of the creation of nuclear weapons

because of the sustainability of the agreement that

only 15 years and not destroy the full Iranian

engineering capabilities. Therefore, lifting the

sanctions will provide Iran with the resources to

strengthen Iran and its allies in the region. The

context that the growing influence of Iran on weak

central government and sectarian instability, as seen

in the case of Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, is what

ISIS terrorist groups use as a capital to recruit

soldiers based on Saudi Arabia’s views (Al Jazeera,

2015).

Subchan, N. and Susanto, S.

National Identity Analysis of Saudi Arabia in Iran’s Nuclear Agreement.

DOI: 10.5220/0010280000002309

In Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations (ACIR 2018) - Politics, Economy, and Security in Changing Indo-Paciﬁc Region, pages 543-549

ISBN: 978-989-758-493-0

543

The direction of Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy

can’t be separated from its national identity. Joseph

Nevo (1998) in his article Religion and National

Identity in Saudi Arabia states that as a country,

Saudi Arabia uses its religion of Islam as a source of

its legitimacy. Therefore, Saudi Arabian policy close

with the construction of its identity namely Salafism.

Salafism is understood as a form of Sunni Islamic

purification that is back to religion when the Prophet

Muhammad without any modification of teachings

or beliefs, and becomes a desire possessed by the

Arab monarchy to unite the Middle East (Anjum,

2017). It is important to know that the division of

Islam into Sunni and Shiite also play a significant

role in the dynamics of the Middle East and the

establishment of Saudi Arabia’s national identity

that is because the Saudis have negative sentiments

to countries that has Shiite dominance, and one of

them is Iran. So the construction of this identity

must have an effect on the formation of its main

foreign policy in the denial of Iran’s Nuclear

Agreement. Based on the background of the matter,

the author will analyze Saudi Arabia’s policy that

refuse Iran’s Nuclear Agreement and support

President Trump’s remarks to renegotiate the

agreement, using the national identity level of

analysis with a focus on the influence of Islam that

contributes to shaping political relations between the

two countries.

2 NATIONAL IDENTITY AS AN

EXPLANATORY VARIABLE IN

FOREIGN POLICY

National identity certainly influences the direction of

foreign policy that taken by a country (Campbell,

1992). In the policy-making process, national identity

becomes the main instrument used to know the

policy objectives. According to Wendt (1999) each

country in the international system has an identity

that shapes its behavior. He also said that the identity

then will determine the interests. This is in

accordance with the perspective of the Clunan’s

constructivism which will use by the author to

explain the national identity of Saudi Arabia itself.

Clunan’s statement is not much different from Wendt

and emphasizes the correlation between how a

national identity is formed and its influence in

constructing a political view of national interests.

Clunan (2009) said history has an important role in

the formation of aspirations. This aspiration then

becomes the central standard for comparing national

self-image and choosing the most dominant decision.

In this case, history plays an important role in

shaping the Saudi national identity that is attached to

Salafism.

National identity is a collective identity that

constitutes a certain number of actors as a state.

While collective identity is set of ideas that are

generally accepted by other actors and used to define

what values and norms it has. For a nation, national

identity consists of the idea of the country’s political

objectives and its international status. Political

objectives include the belief in the economic and

political system appropriate to government and

universal acceptance of it. This includes the idea of

the national mission (Clunan, 2009). In this case,

Saudi Arabia has a political purpose to “unite the

Middle East under Pan-Arabism” while Iran “through

Pan-Islamism”. While international status is the

status of a country in an imaginary international

hierarchy based on economic, military, social and

political power. This is also based on the opinion of

other countries on the national identity of a country,

one of which is an example of Iran is labeled as

“state sponsor of terrorism”.

The term of national identity will only be used for

a dominant national self-image. If one self-image

succeeds in influencing intense political discourse,

the image will be institutionalized in domestic law

and regulation, government structure, up to

expectations of people’s rights, jurisdiction, bonds,

and behavioral norms when dealing with other

countries or actors domestic. If the majority of the

political elite also believe in the continuity of a self-

image with a historical aspiration, and the reality of

the country, the self-image will define the national

interest (Clunan, 2009). Aspirational constructivism

hopes that the political elite will form a behavioral

orientation to cooperate, compete, as well as

confrontation with a country based on a self-image

context, which also consists of in group and out

group construction (Clunan, 2009).

Mabon (2013) also says in establishing collective

identity, regardless of the cultural and religious

identity of a nation, the state’s ruling elite also has an

identity that serves as the base of the state’s ruler

over their legitimacy. That then regarded as a

political identity. Then elements like culture and

religion can be politicized and used as political tools.

Like Islam that has an important role in Saudi Arabia

and then the ruling elite uses religion as a tool to

consolidate their legitimacy. This is also assumed

because religion has a system of moral authority that

rationalizes and prioritizes certain interests while

rejecting others. Religion can also be said to have an

ACIR 2018 - Airlangga Conference on International Relations

544

effect on foreign policy if its causal impact is

represented in the intentions and beliefs of the policy

agent itself. It investigates the role of religion as an

attribute of an individual or a community, an

organized interest, and an institutional connection

within a country, let alone Saudi Arabia (Warner and

Walker, 2011).

The implications of Salafism then can be seen in

the policies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia both

national and international, i.e. anti-Shia sentiments.

Internally, Saudi Arabia’s treatment of Islam is very

oppressive. This is seen in the general norms that

have been established by limiting Shiite people’s

access to politics, economics, and freedom. This

form of Shiite and Sunni conflicts is instilled into the

easy generation through textbooks of elementary and

junior high schools, and promotes the ideology of

hatred against people, including Muslims, who do

not belong to Wahhabi sects to Islam. At the

international level, Saudi Arabia to ban the Iranian

state to perform Hajj in his country (Constantin,

2016).

3 SAUDI ARABIA’S NATIONAL

IDENTITY

Saudi Arabia has made Islam a major foundation in

its foreign policy. The evident of this statement can

be seen through its national identity contained in the

basic law of the Saudi government which states that,

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign

Arab Islamic State. Its religion is Islam. Its

constitution is Almighty God’s Book, The Holy

Qur’an, and the Sunna (Traditions) of the Prophet

(PBUH)”

Through the passage above that point Islam as the

main reference of the law, Saudi Arabia clearly states

that Islam is a value and a norm and then

incorporates it explicitly into its behavior towards the

international world (United States Institute of Peace,

2016). This is officially verified through the website

of the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry which states

that “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia derives its core

values from the Islamic social and professional

principles as its key elements in its organizational

philosophy, and inculcate the values in employees

and organizational units at all levels.” The orientation

towards religion said to be scrutinized in the history

of the formation of Saudi Arabia which represents

their national identity of Salafism (MOFA Kingdom

of Saudi Arabia, 2013).

The Islamic rhetoric in Saudi Arabia comes from

Muslim fundamentalist Muhammad bin Abdul

Wahhab. At that time, the teachings he was carrying

were used by Muhammad bin Saud, who then

brought the genealogy of the Saudi leader’s

monarchy, to expand. Through Wahhabism or called

Salafism, the interests of the territorial expansionist

bin Saud with the expansionist interests of the

Wahhab religion were successfully unified over the

structures of the already present tribes. Wahhab who

put forward the ideology of Islam according to the

Qur’an then institutionalize religion into the political

and administrative organization of the country

(Rasheed, 1992). Most of the process of the

formation of Saudi Arabia is also based on

Wahhabism creations. This flow is deeply rooted in

Saudi Arabia because of its close connection with Al

Saud’s family and the indivisible bond between the

two. Al Saud promoted Wahhabism, and the

Wahhabis would give the Al Saud family a circle of

legitimacy. In addition, the adoption of Syar’i law is

used to promote the religious narrative that exists

within the country (Sindi, 2014).

Some components of thought from Wahhab

emphasize that the need for purity of faith to Allah

SWT is through the teachings of the Prophet

Muhammad without additional or modified.

Therefore, other groups such as Christianity,

Judaism, until the flow of Islam that is deemed

incompatible with the content of the Qur’an will

threaten Muslims (Doran, 2004). In addition, the

hatred towards Shiite groups can be traced

specifically in Wahhabism. Shi’ites are considered

impure by Sunnis due to their differing views on

caliphate after the death of the Prophet Muhammad

and other factors. So at the beginning of the

formation of the Saudi state the scholars declared the

degenerative Shi’a. This became even more intense

when Iran, a Shiite-led state, declared a revolution to

be carried out in 1979, by overthrowing its pro-

Western leader and replacing it with Shiite authority.

Along with the implementation of the revolution

Tehran then began to support Shiite militants and

political parties outside the country. The change in

Iran’s foreign policy direction was quickly responded

by Saudi Arabia, which was concerned by

strengthening connections between other Sunni

governments, thus forming a regional organization

called the Gulf Co-operation Council (Poole, 2016).

Increased intensity of anti-Shiite sentiments then

brought up to the foreign policy, especially in the

region. For example the Arab support to opposition

groups in Syria to military intervention carried out

against Bahrain as well as human persecution in

National Identity Analysis of Saudi Arabia in Iran’s Nuclear Agreement

545

Yemen (Fisher, 2016). The execution of prominent

Shi’ite political activists and clerics in Saudi also,

Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, exemplifies the reactionary

response to political anxieties that turned attention

towards the hostility toward Saudi-owned Shi’ite.

When then the Arab Spring event dropped many

governments in the Middle East, the Saudis feared

that Iran would try to fill that void. So Saudi

immediately tried to stem it with power and promised

billions of aid money to Jordan, Yemen, and Egypt to

expel the influence of Iran. It is these actions that

show the real evidence of Saudi’s sentiments (Lynch,

2016).

One of the groups that contributed to

strengthening Shiite sentiments in Saudi Arabia was

the religious leaders of the Salafi clerics. They have

strong perceptions and suspicion that Shiite groups

are conspiring to undermine the Sunni population.

The support for the preposition was seen in 1993,

when Sheikh Nassar al-Omar wrote a treatise

entitled, “Reality of Rafidah (Shi’i) in the land of

Tahwid”, and argued that Shiites are liars,

untrustworthy, and planning a scheme to rise up

against the Sunni in his country (Ismail, 2012). In

addition, scholars such as Muhammad Al-Arifi and

Yusif Al-Ahmad also criticize the Shiite population

spread through mosques and local lectures, public

lectures, to use Youtube (Al Rasheed, 2011).

Although only a few Sunni scholars who are anti-

Shiite, their deep opinions are hard to distinguish

from other scholars because they do not criticize the

treatment of the Saudi Arabian government in the

oppression of the Shiite group (Ismail, 2012).

National self-image owned by Saudi Arabia is

portrayed by its leadership through domestic and

international legitimacy to be the keeper of the two

most sacred sites in Islam, the Grand Mosque in

Mecca, and the Nabawi Mosque in Medina. The

Hijaz area which is the birthplace of Islam and a

witness to the early development of the religion has

also become an integral part of the territory of Saudi

Arabia because of Mecca and Medina which lie

within it. Seeing this fact, Saudi leadership makes it

the basis as a claim to be the leader of the Islamic

world. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s role became

increasingly central as King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz

influenced the establishment of the 1969 Conference

of Islamic Organizations which later became the seed

of the current Organization for Islamic Cooperation

(OIC). The operations center of the OIC is also

located in Jeddah (Rieger, 2016). Until 1979, no

country challenged the role of Saudi leader in the

world of Islam. However, this changed after the

Islamic revolution in Iran. Under Ayatollah

Khomeini’s new regime, he declares Saudi Arabia’s

leadership status untenable, with justification

criticizing Saudi leaders who oppose Islamic

teachings in private life and in domestic and foreign

policy, to question Riyadh’s competence in

overseeing the Hajj procedure. In response to Iran’s

insult, King Fahd changed his name from “His

Majesty” to “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”.

This then became his international status in Saudi

Arabia’s national identity (Rieger, 2016).

Looking at the dynamics of history and Saudi

Arabia’s behavior norm which until now still has a

high anti-Shi’i sentiment. It is believed to be a

dominant national self-image of Saudi Arabia that is

identical to national identity. Based on that identity,

Saudi foreign policy can be seen to have

distinguished characteristics that are also influenced

by the dynamics of regional political shifts that have

threatened the prior identity of their kingdom.

Formerly before the Iranian Revolution was echoed,

Saudi Arabia described itself as the sole and

legitimate leader of the Islamic world. But after

1979, the Kingdom of Arabia needed to adopt a strict

self-identity of its Sunni doctrine to remain distinct

from Iran while retaining its role as a political

negotiator in the region and seen as the true leader of

the Islamic world. This dynamics continues in 2012

with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,

which succeeded in overthrowing Saudi allies and

challenging the Kingdom’s claim as Sunni ruler. This

incident caused the Kingdom to face another identity

crisis and reform its international status from the

rulers of the Islamic world into the champions of the

Salafi-Wahabbi school, thus counteracting the

Muslim Brotherhood’s claim to replace the Sunni

Muslim world representation. These two political

shifts then erode the distinctive features of Arabia

and lead to increased conservatism in the country. In

addition to maintaining its position Saudi Arabia also

raised the intensity of Wahhabism’s da’wah abroad

(Darwich, 2016). Therefore, sectarianism for Saudi

Arabia is used as a tool to create a distinct narration

so that the Kingdom can secure the dominant

presence of their country in the Middle East.

4 ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL

IDENTITY IMPLICATIONS IN

SAUDI ARABIA’S FOREIGN

POLICY MAKING

In this section the author discusses the implications

of national identity on Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy

ACIR 2018 - Airlangga Conference on International Relations

546

towards Iran’s nuclear agreement. In previous years,

Iran’s progress in nuclear technology and its

apparent experiments to develop it as well as trying

to achieve its minimal capability in order to launch it

have become the single most significant

international developer in the eyes of Saudi

leadership. Despite the signing of a nuclear

agreement in 2015, the Saudis have fears that Iran

will remain a nuclear weapons state. If Iran later

succeeds in achieving that goal, then Tehran can

expand its strength in the Gulf and the Middle East

in a wider scope. Moreover, the capabilities of Iran’s

nuclear weapons will reduce US forces in the

Middle East and the protection of the United States

against Saudi interests themselves. Saudi Arabia is

also fearful of a nuclear arms race in a region that

has traditionally been prone to conflict (Black,

2013).

However, Saudi Arabia’s concerns actually

outweigh the ambitions of Iran as a nuclear country,

this is because of the deeper fears that geopolitical

trends in the Middle East are allying against them,

threatening regional or domestic security from Saudi

Arabia itself. The Saudi government sees the

dominant image of Iran intensified every day, be it

from its influence in Iraq and Lebanon, helping its

allies in Syria, until now in a relationship with

Washington, a rival for the Saudis. In short,

however, it removes obstacles to achieving desirable

regional dominance and favors other Shiite

populations in Gulf states in the form of a monarchy

including the Saudis to oppose their Sunni rulers

(Gause, 2013). In addition, Saudi Arabia stressed

that by uplifting sanctions, it would release Iran

from isolation and allows Iran to take advantage of

its financial revenues and allocate it to support the

Lebanese Shi'ite and Houthi movements in Yemen

(Haaretz and Reuters, 2017).

Saudi Arabia is concerned that Iranss growing

confidence will allow it to intervene more easily in

various situations and recruit additional players to its

regional axis. In this context, Iran has been tried to

create a gap between the Gulf states and Saudi

Arabia. This is increasingly seen with the tendency

of Qatar and Oman to start opening alliances with

Iran. This is also the background of increasing Saudi

activism aimed at strengthening Sunnis, using

religious ideas to fight Iran and recruiting additional

actor such as Turkey and Hamas (Guzansky, 2015).

Saudi foreign minister Abed al-Jubeir stated that the

track record of Iran has been proven to consist of

war, destruction, terrorism, destabilization,

interference in the affairs of other countries, and the

concern is that the funds received will be used to

improve the condition of “its people”. Hostilities

between the two also have deep roots in view of

Hezbollah’s support in Lebanon, for Bashar al-

Assad in Syria, and the dominant Shiite government

in Baghdad, Iraq. This has led to the assumption that

Tehran controls three Arab capitals and also uses its

subversive influence in a predominantly Shiite state

but is controlled by Sunnis, such as Bahrain and

Yemen. So in broad outline, the government in

Riyadh accused Iran of pushing for disputes in the

region, and expanding its influence among the Shiite

community in the Middle East. Thus the Saudis

believe that its history as a “guardian of Sunni

Islam” has an obligation to prevent expansionism

(Fakude, 2017).

5 CONCLUSION

Based on the above explanation, it can be conclude

that the explanation of national identity can be used

to explain the policy of Iran’s nuclear agreement

rejection by Saudi Arabia. This rejection is clearly

visible with Saudi Arabia's vowel against Obama's

initiative which is also considered as rapproachment

effort with Iran after 30 years of exile. Also in 2017

when President Trump expressed his desire to

withdraw from the agreement, Saudi Arabia became

one of the first countries to give support to the

decision. If using the process of establishing a

Clunan national identity, a red thread could be

exposed to Saudi Arabia’s hatred with Iran up to

now, and clearly visible in its foreign policy.

First, as Clunan claims, the history of Saudi

Arabia has an important role in shaping its anti-

Shiite aspirations. The history is closely linked with

the teachings of Wahhabism embedded in the

establishment of Saudi Arabia into a state. In

Wahhabism itself, the doctrine to purify Islam is

emphasized so that other religions as well as the

flow of Islam that do not fit their ideology, threaten

the survival of Muslims. In Wahhabism, hatred

against Shiites is also specified. Yet such aspirations

can only become national identity if it is a collective

identity. So the second point is illustrated by a

collective group which then incorporates it into a

country, the descendants of Al Saud, the monarchy

of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A set of ideas from

Wahhabism itself then generally accepted as the

values and norms it possesses. Thirdly, the anti-

Shiite sentiments embedded in Wahhabism then

form the two components of the national identity,

the political objective of being the leader of the

Islamic world and the international status that

National Identity Analysis of Saudi Arabia in Iran’s Nuclear Agreement

547

supports that goal as “the keepers of the two holy

mosques of Islam”. The purpose and status is not

separated from the history where the Prophet

Muhammad built the Kaaba and the Nabawi Mosque

in the land of Saudi Arabia. Looking at these factors

a national self-image for Saudi Arabia was formed

as a Salafi/Wahhabi state.

Even so, as Clunan claims only the dominant

self-image will be chosen as its national identity.

This dominant criterion seen from the time period of

self-image can survive and be viewed by the

international world. Seeing that the Saudi self-image

as a Salafi state was then accepted by the

international community and attached with no

change since the establishment of the country in

1932. In addition, because it also influences intense

Saudi Arabian political discourse, the Salafi image is

institutionalized into its domestic laws and

regulations, visible in his country’s constitution and

the purpose of his foreign ministry. Self-image upon

receipt defines the country’s national interests, and

helps construct in groups along with their out group,

which also affects the behavioral orientation to the

cooperation and the confrontation made by it. In this

case Saudi Arabia, has defined a Sunni country as

well as their Sunni friends who lead the Shiite state

as an alliance that needs to be preserved and

defended. While countries that do not fit their Shii

states self-image like Iran, Lebanon, and Syria later

categorized as their out group.

The anti-Shia rhetoric that has long been

implanted both domestically, then extends and

integrates with its foreign policy in the Middle East.

Iran’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia has served as a

proxy for the wars that hit the Middle East.

Although sectarianism is not the only stimulus for

such political action, sectarianism allows for

“othering” and can be used by chauvinistic actors to

build collective sentiments, one thing which Saudi

Arabia then did through the establishment of the

GCC. It can be said that Saudi Arabia implements its

repressive and skeptical pattern of domestic policy

towards Shi’ites into its foreign policy. This stems

from the fear of widespread Shi’i values and can be

traced to the history of the kingdom who had bad

experiences of Shiite rebellions in his country.

Therefore, Saudi Arabia’s national identity which is

a Salafi state and upholding the anti-Shiite

sentiments can be used to explain Saudi Arabia’s

policy towards Iran's nuclear pact.

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