Page 96 - The Origins of the United Arab Emirates_Neat

5 Saudi Arabia and Iran:
Outside Pressures

During the first decade after World War I, while Britain adjusted
its perception of its interests on the Trucial Coast, the pressures
being created by its policy in the area were far from obvious.
It was not until the air-route to India was actually being established
and oil concessions were being obtained that a major clash over
it occurred. Prior to that, there occasionally were minor collisions
between the British authorities and the local rulers, but these usually
concerned local matters and were of little significance in imperial
terms. Added to this, the area’s internal affairs were still not regarded
very seriously by policy-makers in London and Delhi.
Other powers, however, were beginning to have a significant
influence on the internal development of the shaykhdoms. No longer
remote from the daily life of the Coast, Saudi Arabia and Iran
were gradually taking their place as important components of the
political structure of the area and showing themselves serious threats
and possible rivals to British supremacy in the Gulf region. They
were alike in the way in which they came to prominence: during
the 1920s they were consolidating themselves, and did not hesitate
to use force as a means of self-assertion; but during the 1930s
they mellowed their respective strategies, finding diplomacy their
most effective weapon. Three striking differences between them must
be pointed out, though. First, although both countries laid claim
to part of the Arab side of the Gulf, it was not until it became
known that oil might be discovered there that Saudi Arabia clearly
voiced its claim; Iran, by contrast, upheld its own claim unremittingly
(recently, though, it relinquished part of its claim, at almost the
same time as it occupied the remainder). Second, Saudi Arabia’s

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