Saudi Arabia's Involvement in the Middle East's Revolutions - Case Study Example

Hajj is the season during which Muslims from around the world gather in Saudi Arabia to peacefully pay their religious duties. Therefore, demonstrations during this time would pose challenges for both the Saudi government and religious leaders as well. 1980 also saw the gathering of liberation movement groups that attracted Saudi Shiites and led to the formation of the Saudi Liberation Front in Tehran, Iran. Further concerns by the Saudi government took root following the seizure of the Holy Mosque in 1979 by Salafis, and also through the Saudi Shiites uprising in 1980 ((Sadeghi & Amhadian, 2011).

Ayatollah Khomeini described the attacks on the Holy Mosque as having received support from America and Zionists (New York Times, 1979 as cited in Sadeghi & Amhadian, 2011). Despite this condemnation of the mosques’ seizures, the Saudi Government did not loosen up its concerns over the new nation (Fuller &Francke, 1999). Sanctions by the U.S on Iran led to a loss of $12 billion during the reign of Khomeini, but the state was able to sell its oil to non-American buyers and to some American companies that bought from them and sold to non-American customers.

Iran would have benefitted from the lost income especially during its warring times with Iraq and the subsequent drop in oil prices increased further the harm done by the U.S sanctions. The Iranian economy suffered when oil prices fell to $10 a barrel in 1986, from $40 a barrel in 1981, and also due to the cost of war with Iran whereby Iranian infrastructure was greatly crippled. Sanctions from the U.S cost Iran $1 billion annually while the cost of war and the loss from reduced oil prices ran into the hundreds of billions.

The first post-war revolution saw Khomeini's creation of a system dependent on oil and an ineffectual system of bureaucracy which had direct influence over the now increasing levels of unemployment, corruption, and inflation. The Iranian economy faced further strain when Khomeini called for an increased population which resulted in a 4% increase in population. This means that the population was increased by twenty million in a period of ten years.