An Exploratory-Structural Analysis of Securitization of Irans' Threat in Arab Countries

Inherent dynamism, the interaction of interests, multiplicity of actors, and universal adjustment in the security patterns of countries has brought about radical security changes in the west Asia region in the last decade. Among them, however, the security contradiction between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been amongst the most important ones that, due to Saudi’s part role in constructing Iran as a security threat among Arabs, added to the security intricacies of the region and in addition to the parties involved, affected some Arab countries to a greater extent. Despite that, the literature studying this issue is scarce and the thin bulk of research conducted around it suffers from some methodological and epistemological deficiencies. Thus, the present research has been an attempt to employ the theory of security construction in Copenhagen school and employ some methodological innovations in humanities, particularly exploratory and structural interpretation, and validating findings through appropriate software and experts’ judgment to identify main components and variables in this threat construction. It was revealed that Saudi’s construction of Iran as a threat had three main components of ontology (including 2 variables), epistemology (including 4 variables), and methodology (including 7 variables). Also, structural interpretation showed that these variables are distributed in a group of critical variables, target variables, risk variables, output variables and leverage variables. These findings were discussed from a variety of perspectives.

Introduction

Security patterns in the Middle East have undergone significant changes over the past decades, particularly after the Iranian Islamic revolution. Iran and Arab countries have been in the middle of these shifts due to their complex interactions with regional countries, the West, and the Zionist regime. Among these changes, the security conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia was the one that not only had negative effects on both countries but also had devastating effects on Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. This was primarily the result of Saudi Arabia's efforts to securitize Iran's threat in Arab countries. Despite the significance of this topic, few studies have been conducted, and the ones that have been done suffer from obscurity or methodological flaws. Therefore, the present study aimed to adopt a robust theoretical framework and avoid previously reported methodological flaws to investigate this securitization's principal components and variables. To that end, the primary inquiry should be, "What are the main components and variables in Saudi Arabia's securitization of Iran's threat in Arab countries, and what the nature of each variable is?"
 

Theoretical Framework

The current research was enlightened by the "securitization" framework of the Copenhagen school, which was first devised by Buzzan et al. (1998). According to this theory, securitization results from two primary factors: the manifestation of the threat, most importantly, the perception of the threat as existential, and public acceptance of the threat. This theory postulates that using securitized language by political elites and the media is the primary tool for creating a threat and then instilling it as a security and existential threat. This theory also suggests that threat is not created as an internal process but rather as external and tangible evidence, such as military power.
 

Methodology

This study adopted a multi-phase and multi-methods design to answer the question. A systematic literature review and a semi-structured interview with a panel of experts were conducted during the initial qualitative phase. The findings underwent content analysis, and after the identification of components and themes, they underwent a quantitative phase including reliability estimation and exploratory factor analysis in which Eigenvalue and factor loading were used to extract components and variables of the securitization of Iran's threat in Arab countries. To shed light on the nature and weight of each variable in the system, a final qualitative phase was run in which obtained variables were rated in the structural interpretation of the cross-impact matrix. The results were reported as follows.  
     

Results & Discussion

 Based on the findings, it is clear that Saudi Arabia is employing a three-pronged strategy to securitize the Iranian threat in Arab countries. The first (ontological) dimension involves two variables: reinforcing the existential threat posed by the Shiite minority in Arab countries and highlighting the fundamental contradictions between Wahhabism and Shiism. The second dimension (epistemology) consists of four variables, including developing Arabs' collective political identity, emphasizing shared racial, cultural, and linguistic commonalities, stressing the threat of exporting a revolutionary model of governance to Arab countries, and underlining the threat of Iran's leadership over the Muslim world. The third dimension (methodological) entails seven variables, including highlighting the threat of non-state actors under the auspices of Iran, highlighting regional imbalance in favor of the Shiite crescent, extensive use of media for legitimizing Iranian's threat, shifting patterns of friendship-enmity, highlighting Iran's rivalry in the economic and energy sector, magnifying Iran's nuclear threat and missile program, and establishing inter-state and international coalitions and treaties.

Conclusions & Suggestions

After September 11 and the Arab uprising known as Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia's conflict with Iran entered a new phase and reached its peak. Due to the factors mentioned earlier, Saudi Arabia could gain the support of other Arab nations, which may exert serious impacts on the security, political, and economic status of all countries involved. These historical variables remain intact despite some rapprochement in the bilateral ties between the two nations. The structural interpretation of the findings revealed that each of these variables plays a unique regulatory role in the securitization system under study. Therefore, Iranian policymakers and authorities need to consider each behavior's weight, nature, and role in this system and then manipulate and invest in those variables that exert more extensive and less costly impacts. These findings have implications for researchers, practitioners, and strategists. Future studies are suggested to add a scenario writing phase to the findings of this and similar studies.