The Iraqi Institute For Dialogue Held A  Symposium Entitled” A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq” on 22 May 2022.

Dr. Abbas Radhi Al-Amiri, Director of the Iraqi Institute for Dialogue, welcomed Dr. Katherine Harvey, Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and turn the discussion over to her to talk about her brand-new book “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq“.

Dr. Harvey talked about the polarisation between a Saudi-led Sunni camp and an Iranian-led Shia one, assuming that a predominantly Shia state like Iraq would automatically ally with Iran. In this compelling account, Katherine Harvey tells a different story: Iraq’s alignment with Iran was not a foregone conclusion. Rather, Saudi efforts to undermine Iran have paradoxically empowered it.

Harvey investigates why the Saudis refused to engage with Iraq’s post-2003 Shia-led government, despite continual outreach by Iraq’s new leaders and considerable pressure from the United States. She finds that certain deeply ingrained assumptions predisposed Saudi leaders to see a Shia-led Iraq as naturally beholden to Iran: the view that Iran is inherently expansionist, and the belief that Arab Shia tend to be loyal to it. This outlook was simplistic, even downright inaccurate; and, in refusing to engage, the Saudis created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A number of researchers and specialists enriched the symposium with their perspectives and substantive inputs.