One Map That Explains The Dangerous Saudi-Iranian Conflict

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Jon Schwartz via The Intercept,

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia executed Shiite Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday. Hours later, Iranian protestors set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran. On Sunday, the Saudi government, which considers itself the guardian of Sunni Islam, cut diplomatic ties with Iran, which is a Shiite Muslim theocracy.

To explain what’s going on, the New York Times provided a primer on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam, informing us that “a schism emerged after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632” — i.e., 1,383 years ago.

But to the degree that the current crisis has anything to do with religion, it’s much less about whether Abu Bakr or Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor and much more about who’s going to control something more concrete right now: oil.

In fact, much of the conflict can be explained by a fascinating map created by M.R. Izady, a cartographer and adjunct master professor at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University in Florida.

What the map shows is that, due to a peculiar correlation of religious history and anaerobic decomposition of plankton, almost all the Persian Gulf’s fossil fuels are located underneath Shiites. This is true even in Sunni Saudi Arabia, where the major oil fields are in the Eastern Province, which has a majority Shiite population.

As a result, one of the Saudi royal family’s deepest fears is that one day Saudi Shiites will secede, with their oil, and ally with Shiite Iran.

This fear has only grown since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq overturned Saddam Hussein’s minority Sunni regime, and empowered the pro-Iranian Shiite majority. Nimr himself said in 2009 that Saudi Shiites would call for secession if the Saudi government didn’t improve its treatment of them.

shia-oil-cropped-2

The map shows religious populations in the Middle East and proven developed oil and gas reserves. Click to view the full map of the wider region. The dark green areas are predominantly Shiite; light green predominantly Sunni; and purple predominantly Wahhabi/Salafi, a branch of Sunnis. The black and red areas represent oil and gas deposits, respectively.

Source: Dr. Michael Izady at Columbia University, Gulf2000, New York

As Izady’s map so strikingly demonstrates, essentially all of the Saudi oil wealth is located in a small sliver of its territory whose occupants are predominantly Shiite. (Nimr, for instance, lived in Awamiyya, in the heart of the Saudi oil region just northwest of Bahrain.) If this section of eastern Saudi Arabia were to break away, the Saudi royals would just be some broke 80-year-olds with nothing left but a lot of beard dye and Viagra prescriptions.

Nimr’s execution can be partly explained by the Saudis’ desperation to stamp out any sign of independent thinking among the country’s Shiites.

The same tension explains why Saudi Arabia helped Bahrain, an oil-rich, majority-Shiite country ruled by a Sunni monarchy, crush its version of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Similar calculations were behind George H.W. Bush’s decision to stand by while Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons in 1991 to put down an insurrection by Iraqi Shiites at the end of the Gulf War. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained at the time, Saddam had “held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.”

Of course, it’s too simple to say that everything happening between Saudis and Iranians can be traced back to oil. Disdain and even hate for Shiites seem to be part of the DNA of Saudi Arabia’s peculiarly sectarian and belligerent version of Islam. In 1802, 136 years before oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, the ideological predecessors to the modern Saudi state sacked Karbala, a city now in present-day Iraq and holy to Shiites. The attackers massacred thousands and plundered the tomb of Husayn ibn Ali, one of the most important figures in Shiite Islam.

Without fossil fuels, however, this sectarianism toward Shiites would likely be less intense today. And it would definitely be less well-financed. Winston Churchill once described Iran’s oil – which the U.K. was busy stealing at the time — as “a prize from fairyland far beyond our brightest hopes.”

Churchill was right, but didn’t realize that this was the kind of fairytale whose treasures carry a terrible curse.

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Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:13 | 7022457 jm
jm's picture

Let's be honest.  Russia, NATO, EU, US, UK all use their mutual hate for self-serving ends.  The oil is gone or not needed. The "support" is going, going, gone.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 13:37 | 7022325 Sorry_about_Dresden
Sorry_about_Dresden's picture

Churchill was a scumbag.

He was responsible for the massacres of ANZACS in Gallipoli during WWI, a complete failure.

His only redeeming quality was his wit. 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:18 | 7022483 HowdyDoody
HowdyDoody's picture

"His only redeeming quality was his wit."

That only came out when he indulged in his primary passion - getting as drunk as a lord.

 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:35 | 7022542 shovelhead
shovelhead's picture

What's wrong with that?

He WAS a Lord.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 15:01 | 7022624 Your guess is a...
Your guess is as good as mine's picture

Nothing wrong at all, the best people I know enjoy getting drunk as lords. I think it's actually good for your mental health and booze should be more widely drunk in the region.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:23 | 7022497 __Usury__
__Usury__'s picture

"We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers." So David Lloyd George explained the British government's demand at the 1932 World Disarmament Conference to keep the right to bomb for "police purposes in outlying places". Airpower had shown its value in spreading what Winston Churchill, when defending in 1919 the use of poison gas against "uncivilised tribes", had called "a lively terror"

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/07/britains-empire-richard-got...

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 13:45 | 7022362 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

Shi'a is an abbreviation of the phrase 'the faction of Ali'. The Sunnis claim that Muhammad died without appointing an heir. Ali ruled for 6 years 656-661, years of internal strife. He was murdered, whereupon the Umayyad dynasty took over and ruled from 661-750. To this day the Shi'ites see that as a criminal and despicable usurpation and the reign of the first 3 caliphs as an arbitrary confiscation of the Prophet's inheritance. The Shi'a were born as victims of injustice.

Get out of this one without bloodshed mein host!

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 13:52 | 7022383 Dr. Bonzo
Dr. Bonzo's picture

Beard dye and viagra. Now that's analysis. You got my vote bro.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 13:54 | 7022387 besnook
besnook's picture

first, pierre omidyar, the owner of intercept, is neck deep in bringing democracy to ukraine so all his endeavors are suspect. second, it is disturbing that israel has somehow been given a free pass in this conflict even though they are the greatest benefactor politically if the zionazis can pull it off(which putin has determined they won't). deflecting blame to the saudis only works with the bottom half of the class even tough i will admit it has broadened its base. the bottom half of the class has become much bigger. the strategy so far has been brilliant. even pat buchanan ignored israel's role in this conflict as if saudi arabia is acting in a bubble of its own making.

the usa is trying to play both sides of the coin. it cannot abandon sadi arabia but extracting iran from the clutches of the sco is super important to influence in the region. syria is still the key to controlling the region(and expanding israel) but . they will need penn and teller to pull this off.

milleniels better buy some warm clothes. it is getting drafty in here.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:00 | 7022407 Twee Surgeon
Twee Surgeon's picture

Plankton? decomposing Plankton? whatever happened to the rotten Dinosaur theory of oil, now it is decomposing plankton being drilled from as deep as 55,000 feet beneath the Russian tundra,refilling abandoned oil wells from Cali to Louisiana.I will leave a bowl of crude out on the porch and see if it attracts any Shiites.

Why did the old school plankton fail to decompose and gathered together in great lakes unlike the modern plankton that is,I guess,distributed randomly on the Ocean floor?

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:30 | 7022506 NotApplicable
NotApplicable's picture

Funny, to me, those oil field patterns all look like fault lines where the Arabian Plate meets the Eurasian Plate, allowing deeply sourced oil to pool up close to the surface.

But yeah... I guess it's gotta be the plankton.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 15:47 | 7022762 Money_for_Nothing
Money_for_Nothing's picture

Lets go full hollow Earth (HE) + Ancient Alien (AA). The HE is an AA construction (think inflatable tent). The AA are spining the HE up and greased the expansion plates (fault lines) to make things go smoothly. We are burning lube the AA injected and boy are they pissed about it. :-)

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:33 | 7022531 2bit Hoarder
2bit Hoarder's picture

although vegetation actually makes up the bulk of oils origins, plankton is in fact the primary animal source of oil.  as far as where oil depsoits end up, that has more to do with areas of lower pressure etc under the earths skin, as it can and does slowly migrate due to changes in those pressures, allowing it to end up almost anywhere.  Oil is not in lakes underground .. it is oil saturated soil/permeable rock.  I can only assume that whoever upvoted you knows as little about oil as you do. 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 18:01 | 7023247 Kefeer
Kefeer's picture

The people who tell the lie were never there, but they have a PHD's so they must be right; right?!

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:22 | 7022495 dogbreath
dogbreath's picture

Can someone help me shut off the ads that keep running continuously in the side bar.  I the audio overrides youtube links.  I don't know if its google or ZH or ??

 

cheers

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 15:27 | 7022702 cheech_wizard
cheech_wizard's picture

Adblock+ Ghostery and any other adblocking software...

Standard Disclaimer: Google is your "lesser evil".

 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 16:49 | 7022961 xrxs
xrxs's picture

I presume that's how ZH pays the bills.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 20:22 | 7023717 dogbreath
dogbreath's picture

with swiffer ads that run non stop??

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 21:23 | 7023726 dogbreath
dogbreath's picture

//

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:22 | 7022496 InsanityIsWinning
InsanityIsWinning's picture

Saudi's are between the proverbial rock and hard place. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to see the fossil fuel alternative that makes that entire region irrelevant.  When their oil is relatively worthless they'll be back to living in tents and chopping one another's heads off. Then maybe we'll can just ignore them.  

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:29 | 7022517 Burticus
Burticus's picture

SueMe's, Shitites and oil,   oh my!

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:39 | 7022557 Sudden Debt
Sudden Debt's picture

the lack of money always makes it explode.

It would be a beautifull thing of that region could liberate itself from the Saudis.

Actually, America should stop being the lapdog that thakes it up the ass from the Saudi's and overthrow those dictators once and for all!

 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 15:27 | 7022703 daveO
daveO's picture

Toppling SA and pivoting to Iran to preserve the petro dollar. I'm guessing SA's reserves are much less than on this map.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:49 | 7022594 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

The Sodomites are very backward with only the upper echelons of society who can travel abroad. The one's who do travel are placed in various military western academies and primed to rule with an iron fist for another generation in their barbaric manner.

The Persians on the other hand who travel abroad are of much a greater class diversity and therefore can freely mix and adapt to the norms of any society.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 14:52 | 7022603 Totentänzerlied
Totentänzerlied's picture

Iran is facing a water crisis, I recall one or two token articles about general MENA water shortage, but why hasn't ZH covered this specifically? Also ignored is Iranian marginal production cost - higher than KSA's, for lower-quality crude; they have outdated and inadequate infrastructure in need of a total overhaul right now, but the money is not there. Point is, KSA is not the only one in serious trouble with no way out. The difference is that Iran might have some kind of modest future as a semicoherent polity/society, whereas KSA certainly does not.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 16:43 | 7022939 lolmao500
lolmao500's picture

Who cares. These saudi fucks are like a couple of hundred... kill em all, give the country to the people.... wipe out the wahabists, then the terrorist problem will disappear... which is exactly why the west doesnt what that to happen.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 17:21 | 7023080 Wahooo
Wahooo's picture

A tiny number of people over there create hell for the rest. Send em to allah.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 17:29 | 7023115 Arnold Babar
Arnold Babar's picture

Know religion, know peace.  Yeah, right.

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 18:11 | 7023282 pc_babe
pc_babe's picture

What possess a man to go to a building 5 times a day, take off his shoes, walk in, bend over and sniff another man's ass?

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 19:42 | 7023602 Libertati Aut A...
Libertati Aut Ad Mortem's picture

The Council on Foreign Relation via Obama's triangulation with Iran, not unlike Nixon and China, has deftly and adroitly designed this coming war between the Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.  There will be no tears for Wahhabi Saudi Arabia that has been screwing the American consumer for decades, not to mention supporting international terrorism including ISIS.  Oil will continued to be supplied during this coming war since the proceeds of which will be required to fund the war.  Other oil assets will benefit though. 

Sat, 01/09/2016 - 20:53 | 7023817 Pimp My Cannon
Pimp My Cannon's picture

You can buy Viagra over the counter in Saudi, you don't need a prescription.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!