Who Is More Powerful: Saudi Arabia Or Iran? – OpEd |
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed says the puzzle—why poorer, sanctioned Iran can “fight” more than Gulf states—is the wrong test of strength: Iran spent 30 years on missiles, drones, a nuclear program, and militias from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea; Saudi Arabia spent on the economy, cities, and absorbing more than 10 million foreign workers.
He contrasts railways and Ceer EVs with IRGC tunnels and a converted drone carrier (Shahid Bagheri); rial at 2 million tomans per dollar; billions for Hezbollah while households suffer. Iranian official defense totals look smaller, he argues, because wages, Guard off-books funding, and proxies hide the real war bill.
The model, he writes, copies Saddam and ends like Cuba or North Korea: military first, state last. June 2025 destroyed Iran’s largest project—the nuclear program—while Vision 2015 cushions Saudi oil-revenue shock. Riyadh avoids a major war, he says, because it has assets above ground; Iran’s assets are buried weapons.
In the midst of the current war, a question is frequently raised as to why Iran — a country with fewer financial resources and that is under siege — is more capable of fighting than Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and whether there is something amiss behind that. This conclusion — that Iran represents a model of “superiority” — has been repeated for many years due to the supposed military victories it has achieved against more than half the region’s countries, not just Israel.
Partially, this is true. Iran is a dangerous regional power. Over the past 30 years, the reach of its influence and militias to the borders of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, as well as its hegemony over Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, have demonstrated that it is an offensive power that has surpassed the influence of both Nasserite Egypt and Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq at the peak of their powers.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are two major oil-producing nations but they have chosen two different paths to build power. Each country has a different vision for success:........