The causes of political turmoil and instability are always complex. The civil war in Syria, the insurgency of the Islamic State, and strife in Yemen, Bahrain, and other regions of the Middle East are extensions of decades-old, even centuries-old, conflicts between Sunni and Shia. Currently, Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaged in a sort of cold war scenario in which they are using proxies to fight their bigger overarching battles. Saying that the conflict is related to the Sunni-Shia divisions would be oversimplifying the case, although these ideological, cultural, and historical differences are in part to blame for the ongoing violence. As promising as it seemed at first, the Arab Spring ultimately caused uncertainty and instability, leaving power vacuums that Iran and Saudi still attempt to fill. Money, political power, and access to strategic oil reserves are also part of the reason why Iran and Saudi Arabia are fighting their proxy wars in the Middle East. The causes of the proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran include the Sunni-Shia divide, the regional instability initiated by the Arab Spring, and a realpolitik vying for regional political and economic dominance. One of the most important causes of the proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the Sunni-Shia divide. The distal causes of the Sunni-Shia divide are traceable to the founder of Islam, the prophet Muhammad. When the prophet Muhammad died in the year 632, he did not name a successor and had no heir to clarify his legacy. A power struggle ensued, with one faction believing that a blood relative should assume the mantle of power and another believing that succession should be determined by a group of elite clerics (Shuster, 2007). Both sides seemingly neglected the core teachings of Muhammad, instead opting for outright violence and bloodshed. The animosity between Sunni and Shia has ensued ever since the 7th century, and is at the root of much of the current conflict in the Middle East. Currently, Iran is the biggest bastion of Shia Islam and Saudi Arabia the hub of Sunni culture.

The Sunni-Shia divide is partly related to power, control, and subordination, which is why it is a proximal cause of the current conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Throughout time, the Shia people have been the minority of the Muslim population (Shuster, 2007). As the minority group, Shia people have frequently experienced persecution. Being persecuted systematically...

Compounding the problem was the fact that for centuries, both Sunni and Shia lived under the mantle of Ottoman colonization, followed by a brief period of colonization by Western powers like France and Great Britain. Colonization led to arbitrary lines of geo-political demarcation, precluding the ability of Sunni and Shia groups to peacefully cohabit their respective regions. Countries like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon ended up with sizable proportions of both Sunni and Shia Muslims, with resulting battles for political power.
The Arab Spring is another proximal cause of the current proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Until the Arab Spring, which started in 2010 in Tunisia, modern Muslim nation states in North Africa and the Middle East had been ruled by authoritarian figureheads and/or religious clerics, Although the discovery of oil had led to relatively rapid economic development in these regions during the 20th century, the authoritarian dictatorships also led to “dissatisfaction with the standard of living, poor labor market conditions, and corruption,” (Arampatzi, Burger, Ianchovina, et al, 2015, p. 2). The Arab Spring was not necessarily a movement to replace previous models of leadership with Western-style democracy, but the Arab Spring was a grassroots movement expressive of dissatisfaction with the status quo and a desire for meaningful change. While the upper echelons of nations reaped the benefits of robust oil economies, the vast majority of people living in Middle Eastern countries faced poverty and unemployment. The Arab Spring started in Tunisia, spread rapidly to Egypt, and then onwards to other nations. Yet in spite of the opportunity to create a more populist and democratic form of governance in these countries, the Arab Spring resulted in continued corruption and the lack of strong leadership.

A power vacuum ensued after the Arab Spring, creating just the right conditions for major Shia and Sunni superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia to fight for the spoils. Even before the Arab Spring, Iran and Saudi Arabia had been vying for regional dominance by funding local sectarian groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Palestine (Hinnebusch, 2016). By funding sectarian groups, Iran and Saudi Arabia set the ball in motion for the…