| 沙特担忧伊朗日益增长的区域影响力-1 Empowering Iran was not one of aims of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, analysts say, it has become one of its unintended consequences. In an interview with a pro-Saudi group, Flynt Leverett, former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council, said it has been especially worrisome for Saudi Arabia. "I think that the Iraq war has been almost disastrous from a Saudi perspective," he said. "It has completely upset the balance of power in the Gulf, enabled Iran's rise, created a dynamic in post-Saddam Iraq where the most powerful political forces are Islamist Shia with ties to Iran." Chas Freeman, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, says Iran's growing influence is not just among the Shi'ite factions in Iraq, but extends to other pressure points in the region. He said, "Friends of Iran are now in power in Baghdad, Hezbollah has become the dominant political force in Lebanon, and Western attempts to isolate Hamas and the government it runs in Palestine have forced that government and Hamas into the arms of the Iranians." "So on every level, Iran has seen its influence in the region enhanced. And this is naturally disturbing to other countries in the region, which see it as producing a serious imbalance in power," he added. The rivalry is rooted in both religion and politics. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim Arab state controlled by a royal family. Iran is a country of Persian Shi'ite Muslims that has been under the theocratic rule of Islamic clerics since 1979. Both are major oil-producing nations. Secular Iraq, under the autocratic thumb of Saddam Hussein, was kind of a counterweight that kept regional power in check. Analysts say Saudi Arabia was quite content to see Iran and Iraq slug it out in a bloody war from 1980 to 1988 in which thousands died but no one emerged the clear victor. Afshin Molavi, a fellow at the New America Foundation, says both Iran and Saudi Arabia harbor ambitions to be leaders in the Islamic world. |
