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Science | Geography | RE | PSHE

‘The Islamic world is facing a new civil war’

Which of the two great enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia is stronger? Many now fear the simmering conflict between the region’s dominant powers is on the brink of breaking out into open warfare. "No place for traitors in the age of Salman," roared the front page of Al Jazirah, a Saudi broadsheet, as the country woke up to last week's great purge. Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the crown prince and son of the king, rounded up opponents in an unprecedented power grab, arresting 11 princes. MBS, as he is known, is now supremely powerful. And his rise will have ramifications for the rest of the Middle East, and therefore the rest of the world. His foreign policy is aggressive - and his main target is Iran. The split is about religion and territory. Saudi Arabia is the home of Sunni Islam, while Iran is a Shia theocracy. This means that in every country with high numbers of both Sunnis and Shias (ie, most Middle Eastern countries), the Saudis and the Iranians vie for influence and supremacy. Take Lebanon. Last week the Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri was summoned to Riyadh and ordered to resign. The official reason was that he feared assassination by Hezbollah, a Shia militant group in the country. But the real reason is the Saudi government was furious at him for holding talks with both Iran and HezbollahA militant organisation based in Lebanon, classified in the UK as a terrorist group. It has made direct attacks on Israel and is believed to have been responsible for assassinating Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.. The hotter frontier of this proxy war is Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has intervened on the side of the Sunni government against the Shia Houthi rebels. And amid all this tension, Saudi Arabia is striking up an alliance with the most unlikely country: IsraelA country in the Middle East, and the only Jewish nation in the modern period. It is seen by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the Holy Land.. As John Bradley writes in The Spectator, "They have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear Iran is exploiting the opening created by the fall of ISIS." The Israel Broadcasting Corporation reported that a Saudi prince, possibly MBS, paid a secret visit to Israel. And a classified Israeli memo reportedly instructed Israeli diplomats to back the Saudi line in Lebanon and Yemen. Military hostilities have already started. Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh, which was intercepted by the Saudis, who then announced that both Lebanon and Iran had "declared war" on the kingdom by arming the rebels. So if war does break out, which side should the West fear most? Daggers drawn Saudi Arabia by far, say some. The country holds the world to ransom through its oil wealth, all the while funding terror, bullying its neighbours and beheading homosexuals. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writes in the Independent, the forbidden kingdom is "degenerate, malignant, pitiless and dangerous". But for all the talk of Iran being the more secular, Westernised society, fundamentalist Islam holds sway there too. Iran funds terrorism in just the same way as Saudi Arabia, but its ascendancy would cause chaos in a region used to Saudi hegemony. Add to that Iran's nuclear ambitions, and it is clear who the real danger is. KeywordsHezbollah - A militant organisation based in Lebanon, classified in the UK as a terrorist group. It has made direct attacks on Israel and is believed to have been responsible for assassinating Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.

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