HENNER FÜRTIG, Iran's Rivalry with Saudi Arabia Between the Gulf Wars, Durham Middle East Monograph Series (Reading, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 2002). Pp. 306. $49.50 cloth

Extract

The author, a former German diplomat now affiliated with the Center for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin, presents a detailed and readable account of bilateral relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia from the Iranian Revolution through the mid-1990s. The work is based largely on English-and German-language secondary sources, with some reference to the secondary literature in Persian and to newspaper accounts in Arabic and Persian. The first section of the book is a chronological account of the relationship, with chapters on the immediate post-revolutionary period, on the Iran–Iraq War, and on the first Gulf War and its aftermath. The second section of the book focuses on main areas of rivalry, both geographic and issue-oriented. It includes chapters on Saudi–Iranian competition in the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia, and for “religious and economic leadership.” The latter chapter focuses on the Iranian revolutionary challenge to Saudi claims of leadership in the Muslim world and on conflict within OPEC over oil policy.