Saudi Arabia and Iran are geopolitical partners, adjacent in geography and capabilities, different in the model of governance, will, positions and interests, and in their relationship with the international community.

The relationship between each of them has been governed by the rule that there is no conflict without change and no strategy without conflict, since the model of governance in Iran has changed from a traditional monarchical model that believes in the nation-state, to a transnational revolutionary religious model.

This strategic conflict was, and still is, an indirect conflict managed at the same time by armed and unarmed cross-border religious non-state factors that Iran employs against Saudi Arabia, which Saudi Arabia faces with its international alliances.

Conflict is usually defined as an interactive process of incompatibility between two parties (discord or disharmony) and occurs when one of the parties desires an action that contradicts the will, need and commitment of the other party.

The interactions of the conflict with the calculation of internal and external factors include push, pull, take, give, progress and delay, in a series of stages to find a state of balance between the two parties in interests, capabilities and wills, or turn the conflict equation in favor of one of the parties, to start another round .

Conflict interactions usually begin first in the space of values, standards, and attitudes and are latent in their first stage, then turn into the field arena, so they are declared and accompanied by violence.

The common elements of conflict between the two parties include different and conflicting standards, values ​​and interests in a zero-sum game, and had it not been for an indirect conflict managed by non-state factors on the one hand, and international alliances on the other hand, it would have gone out of control, in the most dangerous geopolitical region.

The belief of the two parties that the other party is targeting it is an important element of the strategic conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and this belief is manifested by a hostile action between the two parties, and the belief confirms past cases of hostility accompanied by a feeling of superiority over the opposite and a rejection of one party’s subordination to the other.

As for the stages of the conflict, it begins in its first stage with the slogan: We and They: Then it moves to the field in a violent struggle and a mutual quest to break the will, and then reaches a dead end in its third stage.

Either the equation changes in favor of one of the parties, as happened in Bahrain in 2011, for example, in favor of Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon in favor of Iran in 2005, or the conflict enters the stage of attrition, as happened in the former Iran-Iraq war or in the Yemeni war today.

Then the conflict enters its fourth stage, which is the stage of searching for settlements through a third party, which is usually an international party, as happened in the cease-fire agreement in the Iran-Iraq war, or as events are heading towards it now in the Syrian war and the Yemen war.

And if this is the issue of the conflict, by definition, elements and stages, then the strategy of the conflict means that the two parties know themselves, their enemy and the time, in order to achieve victory without dangers, by focusing on the interrelationship between its decisions and the decisions of its enemy.

Someone calculates his resources, his alliances, his direction, the direction of the compass of events, how to reach his goal, even if the conflict is prolonged, and which files and regions deserve to be among the priorities of the conflict process.

One of the elements of the joint strategies between Iran and Saudi Arabia is that Iran rejects subordination to Saudi Arabia and sees itself within its vision as the center of the Islamic world (Umm al-Qura).

This vision includes 25 countries within what it calls (Iran’s civilizational possession), and sees Saudi Arabia as part of its strategic environment, while Saudi Arabia rejects this dependency and this unrealistic vision, and sees Iran as a model hostile not only to Saudi Arabia but to the foundations of international politics.

Among these elements as well, we find that Iran is a revolutionary, religious, polarizing, sectarian, transnational model, while we see that the Saudi model is a traditional, moderate monarchy that believes in the nation-state and a policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.

One of the elements of the joint conflict strategy between Iran and Saudi Arabia is that Iran adopts a policy of alliances with non-state factors on the one hand, and a policy of negotiation with the international community on the other hand to impose its model. As Iran weaves into this strategy, it benefits from the international community's practical need for it, until this need ends one day, and Iran's bonds are broken.

At a time when Saudi Arabia relies on building regional and international alliances, represented by the Gulf Cooperation Council, then the Quartet Alliance, the Arab Alliance, the Islamic Alliance, and the International Alliance.

And after forty years of this strategic conflict, Iran has failed to build any political or economic model, and it has gone from bad to worse, especially as it entered the era of 05/11/2018.

Today, Iran is burdened with severe economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, at a time when Saudi Arabia entered the exit phase of the 1979 era within Vision 2030. And because the two sides’ strategic conflict is a conflict managed by non-state factors and international alliances, the non-state factors are facing Trump’s sanctions that target their resources and connections. The Revolutionary Guards, at a time when the American strategy is targeting Iran's system and regional axis and its international relations.

In order for the conflict of the two parties to end, the two sides face major challenges, the most important of which is to overcome the historical interval the region is going through, which necessitates the transition from the world of non-state to the world of the state and the transition from the stage of deadlocked conflict to the stage of international settlements.

Also, structural reforms in the economic, political and social systems on both sides have become imposed on both sides, from inside and outside. If the two parties did not do it from the inside, they were exposed to it from the outside, and this is what we notice on the Saudi side, which has entered a fourth Saudi construction phase, while this is absent in Iran, which insists on its medieval model.

Writer Dr. Omar Abdel Sattar Mahmoud