[Regional Patronage and War-Fomenting Polarization: The Rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Lebanon]
The Middle East in the 2010s has witnessed rising tensions between Sunnism and Shiism. In particular, the rivalry opposing Saudi Arabia and Iran was transposed into several countries of the region, dangerously jeopardizing national political and security balances. This study deals with Saudi Arabia and Iran’s respective patronages in Lebanon and their repercussions on the latter’s political class and society. I first argue that, far from being the result of an imposed clientelism, Saudi and Iranian protections were established at the request of interested Lebanese parties and Western powers. I also explain that during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, Saudi and Iranian relations with their specific Lebanese protégés were hampered by the veto power of Syria. The Lebanese checks and balances, the relations between Lebanese actors and their regional sponsors, and these mentors’ stance vis-à-vis one another have generated systems of action with polarizing effects on the Lebanese and regional scenes alike. While these varied sorts of transnational clientelism import the region’s bellicose into the Lebanese internal game, highly destabilizing rationalities within the national context, the Lebanese local dynamics and limits reversely impact the foreign sponsors’ own arm wrestling, hence modifying the game’s parameters at the regional and international levels as well.