The Persian Gulf States and Afghanistan: Regional Geopolitics and Competing Interests

Abstract

Together, these projects made the UAE the largest foreign investor in Pakistan in 2012, with additional multibillion-dollar agreements in construction adding to the total in 2013.17 Saudi Arabia's relationship with Iran is very different. Since the Iranian revolution that ousted the shah in 1979, the two countries have emerged as bitter rivals for regional ascendancy in the Persian Gulf, with Saudi Arabia providing large-scale support to Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.