Due attori di primo piano: Iran e Arabia Saudita

Traditionally, the political balances of the Persian Gulf are based on the “competitive coexistence” of the ambitions of regional leadership of Saudi Arabia and Iran, a Shi’a, Persian-speaking “anomaly”, laying along the northern shores of a basin too often hastily characterized as culturally and socially “Arab” and Sunni. Frozen during the 1990s, this state of things revived after the “great realignment” that has followed the 9/11, the military interventions in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), and due to the increased “Western” involvement in the events and the dynamics of the region. Th is complex scenario charges with a special value every question around the role that the Atlantic Alliance and NATO could play in the Gulf region. A long list of factors, combined with the increasingly close ties exist between the diff erent areas of the “wider Mediterranean”, makes urgent the need to find new room for dialogue and collaboration. Especially in the light of the results actually achieved by the partnership projects launched by the Atlantic Alliance, a key factor of success will be, however, the will to meet the specific interests of the different parties involved, i.e. the possibility that they could get – at least – one part of the objectives that they pursue.