>> NARRATOR: Tonight, an epic journey through the most war torn region in the world.

>> The chaos has suddenly expanded into a dangerous regional war with Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other.

>> Two well-armed rivals, and neither side appears willing to back down.

>> The Saudis insist that Iran is a hostile belligerent, adventurous nation, attempting to export revolution around the region.

How do you respond?

>> Talk is cheap.

Saudis helped Al Qaeda.

Saudis are funding terrorists.

So they started this sectarian message.

Not us.

>> The Iranians say you've been busy supporting extremism.

What’s your response to that?

>> Nonsense.

The Iranians are the ones who are exporting terrorism.

They're the ones who are stoking the fires of sectarianism.

They are the ones who have been on an aggressive path since 1979.

>> NARRATOR: From the Iranian Shia Revolution that ignited the fire, to the threat felt in Saudi Arabia.

>> Khomeini described the rulers of the gulf as being like the shah.

They, who must be toppled.

>> NARRATOR: Frontline traces the roots of a deadly divide.

>> It is a power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for dominance of the Middle East and the Muslim world.

>> Iranian and Saudi citizens aren't the ones that are suffering.

There's been over a million casualties in the Middle East over the last decade.

They've been Syrian.

They've been Iraqi.

They've been Yemeni.

>> As the rhetoric escalates, as the proxy wars escalate, neither side seems to appreciate that they're destroying the region.

>> NARRATOR: Filmed in seven countries with correspondent Martin Smith, part one of a Frontline special series, “Bitter Rivals”.

>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

Major support is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.

Additional support is provided by The Ford Foundation: Working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide.

The Park Foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues.

The John and Helen Glessner Family Trust.

Supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires.

And by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler.

Major support for Frontline and for “Bitter Rivals” was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

With additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation's initiative on religion in international affairs.

And the Pew Charitable Trusts, driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems.

♪ ♪ >> MARTIN SMITH: I've reported from the Middle East for nearly two decades.

Yet I've never visited Tehran before.

I've come here to report on the intense rivalry between Shia Iran and its Sunni neighbor Saudi Arabia.

It's been nearly 40 years since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini led a revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed monarchy.

Ever since, relations with the outside world have been strained.

For an American journalist, it's not easy to report here.

This is an authoritarian state.

It takes courage for Iranians to speak out.

Many have been jailed for opposing the government.

>> One of the sight that we are going to see on the 22nd when Imam Khomeini has his lecture... >> My guide is Sassan.

Usually Sassan works with tourists, but he has been assigned to me by a media agency that operates on behalf of the government.

>> SMITH: Sassan?

>> Yes, sir?

>> SMITH: You tell me again, who is this man we're going to see?

>> This gentleman?

>> SMITH: Yes, tell me.

We've given them a list of people we hope to meet.

But it's not clear who the government will actually approve.

>> Mr. Rafighdoost is one of the living historians of the Iranian revolution.

And me as an Iranian, this is the first time I'm going to see him from the very close in person.

He wants to... >> SMITH: The man we're going to visit today, Mohsen Rafighdoost, is a founder of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC.

Today, as a result of his connections, he is one of the wealthiest men in Iran, with stakes in hundreds of companies.

In the late '70s, he led protests against Iran's unpopular shah, preparing for the day Ayatollah Khomeini would return from exile.

On February 1, 1979, Rafighdoost was in charge of Khomeini's security.

(Rafighdoost): >> SMITH: Iran's Western-backed monarch, the shah, had left the country on what he said was a vacation.

Khomeini seized the moment.

What was going through your mind and your heart about what this meant for the country?

>> REPORTER: The people were in a frenzy to catch just a glimpse of the man they revere like a god.

They clawed and clambered and ran to see and be near him for 15 miles, and no more than a tiny fraction of the multitude succeeded.

(Rafighdoost): (crowd shouting): >> SMITH: Later that same day, Khomeini gave his first major address to the Iranian people.

It was a rejection of British and American domination of the shah's Iran.

(Khomeini): (applause and cheering) (crowd shouts Takbir) >> SMITH: Khomeini would now use religion to reorder every aspect of Iranian life.

And he declared that Islam was fundamentally opposed to the whole notion of monarchy.

His message was a direct assault on kings from the Gulf states to Saudi Arabia.

Iranians believed it was the end of decades of autocratic rule and repression.

(shouting) >> I believe the revolution was a demand for dignity on the part of the Iranian people.

They wanted recognition for who they were, for their history.

For their identity.

>> SMITH: Do you think Americans generally understand the Iranian experience prior to the revolution?

>> I guess not.

I believe the American people have not been subjected to the type of indignation and lack of respect that the people of Iran were subjected to.

>> FILM NARRATOR: Today both the peaceful economy and the defensive strength of the free world are heavily dependent upon the petroleum resources of Iran.

>> SMITH: As the Iranians tell it, there were decades of exploitation and abuse.

The West had relied upon Iran to supply much of its oil.

>> FILM NARRATOR: ...which has supplied more than a quarter of Britain's needs... >> SMITH: The British had commandeered a near-monopoly of Iranian oil profits.

>> Iran becomes the center of a major international crisis.

>> SMITH: Then, in 1951, Mohammed Mossadegh was nominated by Iran's parliament to lead the country's first democratically elected government.

After Mossadegh nationalized Iran's British-run oil industry and chased the shah from Tehran, the C.I.A.

and British spies engineered a coup in 1953.

>> SMITH: Mossadegh was arrested, imprisoned, and lived in captivity for 14 years until his death.

>> We're not so great at history in America.

When we say, "That's history," it's a pejorative.

Well, the rest of the world takes history pretty seriously.

And 1953 definitely resonated in 1979.

It resonates today.

(man speaking): >> SMITH: The shah was reinstalled.

To stay in power, he built a massive police state, and relied on the West for support.

>> Iran, because of the great leadership of the shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.

>> What the United States gave the shah, aside from flattery, was military might.

>> SMITH: The U.S. sold him weapons.

And the C.I.A.

trained the shah's secret police, the SAVAK, which brutally suppressed all opposition.

>> During the trouble, I saw the police beating passers-by indiscriminately with their sticks.

>> SMITH: By 1978, the country was convulsed with protests.

(crowd shouting): >> SMITH: The people wanted control of their own destiny.

>> The fact is, the shah has failed to make civilian government work.

And until a proper solution is found here, there can be no satisfactory form of government for Iran.

>> SMITH: Then came 1979, and Khomeini's revolution.

Its impact was felt across the Middle East, wherever unpopular elites were supported by the U.S. >> A huge mob armed with rifles and shotguns and screaming, "Kill the American dogs," stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Islamabad and set parts of it afire.

>> 1979 was a crucial year, I think, for the Muslim world.

I mean, Sunnis were celebrating the Iranian Revolution as much as Shias were.

There was enormous enthusiasm and support, because Khomeini's initial line was not sectarian against Sunnis and such.

It was anti-American.

>> Iran today saw the biggest demonstration yet.

More than one million persons marched through the streets shouting, "Death to the shah, death to Carter."

>> Khomeini's vision was to annihilate America's presence from the Middle East.

He wanted this Islamic Revolution of his to spread, and to see the end of Western influence-- cultural, political, military, financial-- in the entire Islamic world.

>> It just provided the example that people, without any foreign help, were able to engage a very brutal regime, supported by, primarily by the United States, and defeat it.

(Sasson): >> SMITH: To this day, loyal regime supporters gather to celebrate their revolution.

They march down Enghelab, or Revolution Street, every February 11.

What brings you here today?

>> "My country is the best country in all over the world."

>> SMITH: What makes your country the best country in all of the world?

>> SMITH: Almost four decades of indoctrination have ritualized these anti-American sentiments.

Hello.

My name is Martin.

How do you do?

But what we didn't expect is how everyone went out of their way to welcome an American reporter.

>> I like all the people in the U.S.A. >> SMITH: They make a distinction.

(man): >> SMITH: Many people stay away in protest against the regime, but government employees are expected to attend.

(man): >> SMITH: Compared to the passions of 1979, the whole march had a kind of carnival feel to it.

There were plenty of anti-Western posters with all those familiar slogans.

(chanting): >> SMITH: More than anything, the march was about pride and defiance.

(crowd cheering and chanting) >> SMITH: But in the beginning, it was not clear if this revolution would survive.

It was the American hostage crisis that would help Khomeini secure its future.

>> The American Embassy in Tehran is in the hands of Muslim students tonight.

Spurred on by an anti-American speech by the Ayatollah Khomeini, they stormed the embassy, fought the Marine guards for three hours, overpowered them, and took dozens of American hostages.

>> SMITH: The fear was that the United States was preparing to reinstall the shah.

A small group of students reacted.

>> The hostages are in our hands.

>> SMITH: Masoumeh Ebtekar was a spokesperson for the students.

>> So that in the case of any military intervention, we will destroy them.

The students, they believed that there is a serious possibility that what happened in 1953, the coup d'état, could again happen.

History could repeat itself.

>> Militant Muslim students today vowed to kill the 49 American hostages if the U.S. launches a military attack against Iran.

Their demand remains the same-- return the shah to stand trial.

>> SMITH: The taking of the hostages was initially prompted when President Carter reluctantly granted the shah permission to enter a U.S. hospital.

>> The former shah of Iran is suffering from cancer, and is receiving needed treatment in this country.

>> The United States gave refuge to the person who had imprisoned thousands of people, who had killed thousands of people on the streets of Tehran.

He was a mass murderer.

Yet the United States let him into their country, took him to a hospital, and then they expected the Iranian students not to show outrage?

>> The Iranians burned the United States flag and denounced the U.S. government, saying they would stay until the U.S. sends the deposed shah back to Iran.

Earlier today... >> The students, they thought that they would take the embassy for a few hours, maybe.

But then suddenly the people poured out in millions in support of this.

And suddenly Imam supported it, too.

>> SMITH: Khomeini.

>> Yeah, Imam Khomeini.

(Khomeini): >> Imam Khomeini, he named this overwhelming response of the people, he named it as the second revolution.

He used it to actually construct the political institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

(crowd chanting): >> This was a tactical ploy, to take the embassy, to demonstrate revolutionary credentials in the face of the Great Satan.

We were just a useful tool.

And the regime fostered its legitimacy by confronting the United States.

>> SMITH: After the hostage crisis, Khomeini was fully empowered.

Post-colonial Middle Eastern states had embraced nationalism, capitalism, and communism, but with Khomeini's revolution, Iran was embracing Islam.

>> Before '79, Islam as a political phenomenon was a marginal idea in the region.

The Arab world was all about socialism and Arab nationalism, and Iran was dominated by secular forces.

Now, once Khomeini takes over, Islam is squarely put in the middle of the table in the Middle East.

>> SMITH: A few hours south of Tehran is the holy city of Qom, Iran's pre-eminent center of Shia learning.

Good, okay.

>> Then you go to the office of ayatollah, if you want to interview anything... >> SMITH: Okay, great, perfect.

Thank you.

I wanted to talk to an ayatollah here about Khomeini's revolution.

>> After Islamic Revolution, there is a movement towards religion, towards God.

And there is a new role for the religion in all the issues-- global issues, international issues.

>> SMITH: The Iranian Revolution established that Islamic law, Sharia, would now govern Iran.

And Khomeini determined that a cleric should rule as its head, a cleric who received his authority directly from God.

>> We believe that imams, they are guided by God.

And, therefore, they are able to show us the right path.

And this is the idea of Shia.

>> SMITH: Shia are a minority sect-- around 12 percent of all Muslims.

They split from the majority Sunnis 1,400 years ago following the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

>> When the Prophet Muhammad died in 632, a dispute emerged over who would succeed him.

The Sunnis believed that the leadership of the Muslim state and community would go to his best friend and companion, a man called Abu Bakr.

(men praying) But the Shias believe that Ali, the cousin, should have succeeded the prophet.

>> SMITH: Shia means "followers of Ali."

They developed a doctrine that Ali and his successors were infallible representatives of God.

>> He had a certain quality that was similar to that of the prophet in that he was impeccable, or made no errors.

He was error-free.

The Sunnis never agreed to this.

>> SMITH: While in exile, Khomeini took this Shia belief and formulated a new kind of government around it.

He called the principle velayat-e faqih, the guardianship of the jurist.

>> What Khomeini did was that he politicized what was, until then, much more of a religious-slash-spiritual doctrine, and turned it into a political doctrine whereby a jurist, a legal and theological scholar, could actually rule a state.

>> SMITH: Many Shia scholars believed Khomeini had gone too far.

>> He would rule the country, and he would have ultimate and final say over all matters.

And if he issues a command in his capacity as the supreme leader of Iran, then obeying him is required, and disobeying him is a sin.

>> SMITH: He declared his Islamic revolution in the name of all Muslims, Shia and Sunni.

But that's not how others saw it.

>> The revolution had two sides.

Certainly, rhetorically, the Khomeini's revolution, the 1979 revolution, was pan-Islamic.

But right below that rhetoric, these were Shia clerics taking over a country and remaking that country by the ideas, the beliefs, the mores of the Shia clergy.

So it was inextricably Shia.

It was outwardly Shia.

And all of Iran's neighbors saw this.

Even if it had sort of pan-Islamic ambitions, it was very much a Shia experiment.

>> The fact that Khomeini carried out the revolution in the name of Islam was a source of his popularity and power in the Arab world.

The fact that he was a Shia ruler was also the limit of his power.

And it's that limit that the Saudis, Pakistanis, Egyptians, Jordanians used in order to make sure the Iranian revolution doesn't spread.

>> SMITH: No country feared the spread of Khomeini's revolution more than here, across the Gulf-- Saudi Arabia.

It was a direct challenge for the leadership of the Islamic world, and to the royal House of Saud.

Until 1979, the Saudi royal family maintained relations with Iran.

The two countries were both Western-backed oil-rich monarchies that the U.S. saw as pillars of Gulf security.

>> We had very good relations with the shah, especially in his later years.

I remember before Khomeini came, I had gone to Tehran to see the shah.

And I remember driving to his palace, Niavaran palace.

It was after dusk.

And there were no lights in the palace, because there had been a strike by the oil workers.

And there was no fuel for the generators.

And it was very indicative of what was happening in Tehran-- that he was losing his authority.

>> SMITH: So there's a big question mark.

Khomeini comes to Tehran, and you must've been listening carefully to his words.

>> Absolutely.

Khomeini described the rulers of the Gulf as being like the shah, who must be toppled.

>> Khomeini really rattles the Saudis, because the Supreme Leader was, in essence, undermining the Saudi royal family's own credentials as the leaders of the Muslim world, because they are home to Mecca and Medina, the two holy sites in Islam.

This is what gives them a leadership role in the Middle East.

(horns honking) >> SMITH: An absolute monarchy, the Saudi royal family retains control over everything, from the country's oil to the news media.

This is the fifth time I've reported from here.

In 2005, I was allowed a rare visit inside the royal palace in Riyadh.

It was the occasion of a majlis, where the kingdom's subjects come for a royal audience.

It reveals a lot about how this country is governed.

Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, a son of the kingdom's founder, was then the de-facto ruler.

To one side sat Sunni Wahhabi clerics, guardians of tradition, who habitually resist change.

On his other side, the royal family-- allies to the West.

These are the partners in power.

(call to prayer over loudspeaker) >> SMITH: After the clerics and the royals paused to pray together, I took the chance of asking the crown prince about his family's claim to power.

If it's okay, I would just like to ask you a couple of questions.

He barely responded.

What is the legitimacy of the monarchy based on?

(Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz): >> SMITH: In fact, their legitimacy is rooted in the deal made at the founding of the Saudi state in 1932.

King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, in order to unify the warring tribes of Arabia, signed a pact with fundamentalist Wahhabi clerics.

The Wahhabis follow the teachings of an 18th-century Islamic cleric, Mohammed bin Abd al Wahhab, who had demanded a return to an older, harsher faith.

>> Being harsh, that reflects the circumstances of Arabia in the 18th century.

You know, when a religious political movement starts, always at the beginning, they are very austere, very conservative, very harsh, very radical.

(call to prayer over loudspeaker) >> Wahhabism, really, is an extremely puritan form of Islam.

The Wahhabis believe that Islam has to be cleansed of all the accoutrements, that there has to be very literal interpretation of the text.

And they are very intolerant about people who don't agree with them.

(man): >> SMITH: In Riyadh I listened as Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti, warned his faithful against deviation.

The mufti is a direct descendant of Abd al Wahhab.

>> SMITH: Fundamentalist Sunnis believe in a direct personal connection between a believer and God.

They abhor the Shia embrace of clerical hierarchy, saints, shrines, and icons.

(chanting) >> Wahhabism has a very stark anti-Shia perspective.

There's no nuance with its perspective on Shiism.

Shiites are heretics.

Shiism is a heretical strain.

Which makes them effectively non-Muslims.

They're not part of the tent.

Throughout the 1970s, the royal family faced dual challenges.

They were trying to modernize the country and maintain their alliance with the Wahhabi clerics.

>> One of the teachings of Islam is that every Muslim should at least once make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

>> SMITH: Their guardianship of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina had always been their greatest responsibility.

>> The fact that Mecca is the source and the shrine of Islam gives Saudi Arabia a central place in the Islamic world.

>> SMITH: But then, in November 1979, the Grand Mosque of Mecca came under terrorist attack.

>> 15,000 pilgrims were praying at dawn, when the 30 giant doors were sealed off by hundreds of members of a Muslim sect.

The first pictures of the siege showed gunfire from the minarets of the Muslim's world holiest shrine.

An eyewitness said he heard machine guns and explosions, possibly grenades, within the mosque compound.

>> The Saudi leadership saw this as a challenge to the security and the stability of the kingdom.

>> Six or seven thousand pilgrims remain inside the buildings as hostages.

>> SMITH: It was just days after the hostage crisis in Iran began.

The assumption in the West was that Iran or Iranian-inspired Shiites were to blame.

Khomeini shot back, blaming the Americans.

>> Khomeini for his part is blaming the United States for the Muslim extremist takeover in the holy mosque at Mecca.

>> But the Saudis soon found out that the attack was led by a young Saudi militant-- part of a fringe group of Wahhabi extremists.

>> RADIO ANNOUNCER: The gunmen seek to purify the religion from what they say is the corrupt influence of the current Saudi Arabian government.

>> SMITH: Then things went from bad to worse, and this time Iran was involved.

In the oil-rich Eastern Province, thousands of Shia took to the streets in protest.

(shouting) This is what the royals had always feared.

>> The Saudis rightly feared that the Shia population in the eastern provinces where all of their oil is are very quickly going to gravitate towards Iran, and they may become rebellious, they may become secessionist.

>> SMITH: A minority politically, and economically excluded for years, Saudi Shias waved pictures of Khomeini and demanded that Riyadh grant them more rights.

>> SMITH: They were encouraged by Iranian radio stations.

>> SMITH: Radio stations in Iran called for the Shia to rise up against the state here.

You weren't in government at that time.

>> I was a student.

>> SMITH: You were a student.

Do you remember it?

>> Yes.

>> SMITH: What was your reaction then?

>> It's not their business to interfere in our affairs.

The Saudis who are Shia are Saudi citizens, they belong to the Saudi state.

Their loyalty is to the Saudi state.

And Iran or nobody else either has the right to interfere.

We don't go and and try to provoke minorities in Iran.

We don't go and try to provoke the Sunnis in Iran into taking up arms against the Iranian state.

>> We did not take action against any country.

>> SMITH: The Iranians see it differently.

>> We make our views clear about the nature of governments that were submissive to the United States, governments that were presenting a message of hatred.

>> SMITH: But back in 1979, there were radio reports coming out of Iran calling for Shia in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to rise up against the monarchy.

>> Well... >> SMITH: That sounds like interference to me.

>> We always rejected the use of force against governments.

We may have encouraged people to ask for their rights.

>> SMITH: To crush the uprising, the Saudis pulled whole battalions of National Guard away from Mecca, and brutally suppressed the protests.

At the same time, back in Mecca, after a two-week standoff, the army, with the help of French commandos, moved in with heavy weapons and explosives.

And with permission from the Wahhabi clerics.

>> A religious council had to be convened to permit the assault on the holy mosque.

>> Saudi troops have been conducting a mop up operation there after driving out all but a handful of Muslim gunmen.

>> SMITH: Scores of rebels were killed.

Among those captured was the ringleader, Juhayman al Otaibi.

Juhayman and his followers had been outraged by recent social changes and liberalization condoned by the royal family.

Over the previous decade, the monarchy had permitted a gradual loosening of religious rules.

Women had been given prominent roles in the media, and were anchoring news programs without head coverings.

Western brands, pop culture, and luxury goods flooded the country.

>> As the thirst for oil grows bigger, Saudi Arabia gets richer and richer and richer.

But Western money has brought Western attitudes along with it.

Last year revenue from oil... >> The 1970s oil boom was very disruptive to a traditional society.

And the reaction of some of the zealots that they had in 1979 in the takeover of the great mosque was a reaction to that modernization.

>> SMITH: In fact, Juhayman would get his way.

After his execution, the Wahhabi establishment pressured the royals to put in place many of the conservative Islamic practices Juhayman had called for.

>> The consequence of that siege, the government started to be more conservative than it was before.

I think the government was trying to absolve themselves and that, "We are not anti-religious.

We are not anti the religious establishment."

They emphasize their religious credentials.

>> SMITH: Women announcers were banned from TV.

Even Western companies within Saudi Arabia were discouraged from employing women.

Movie theaters and music shops were shut down.

>> There was a reaction.

Religious authority in the kingdom promoted stricter practices of Islam, whether it is in prayers, in the performance of religious duties, and social mores.

Meaning, for example, women had to be more veiled, if you like, than had previously been practiced.

>> SMITH: As Iran had embraced Shia Islam, Saudi Arabia now fully embraced its own fundamentalist Sunni Islam.

The double hit that Saudi Arabia took, both the revolution of 1979 and the siege of Mecca, did result in increasing sectarianism coming out of Iran, but also coming from Saudi Arabia.

Is that a fair statement?

>> I think perhaps in some social context.

But also, there were some who saw Khomeini's efforts must be countered by similar sectarian thrust from Saudi Arabia.

>> SMITH: The Saudi government would grant their religious establishment billions more Saudi petrodollars to spread Wahhabism around the world.

>> They have to double down after 1979 because they have these zealots internally, they have the threat of Iran.

So they mobilize all their religious resources.

They pump a lot of money into religion, basically, both domestically and internationally, in order to boost their legitimacy, and in order to ward off and fight the Iranian threat, which was very serious.

>> SMITH: And then came an historic opportunity to promote Wahhabi ideas in a country back across the Gulf.

A country that had been founded as an Islamic republic-- Pakistan.

(horns honking) The King Faisal Mosque in Islamabad is the largest mosque in Pakistan, and among the largest in the world.

Evoking a Bedouin tent, it's named after Saudi King Faisal because he funded it.

(praying) >> The King Faisal Mosque is a very powerful symbol.

It was built at the height of the relationship between the Pakistanis and the Saudis.

Khomeini's revolution was a religious revolution in favor of Shi'ism.

And that really prompted the Saudis then to spend so much money around the Sunni world to build up support for Saudi Arabia and support for Wahhabism.

>> SMITH: Since the 1960s the Saudis have funneled over $100 billion into funding mosques and religious schools all over the world.

(children praying) 60 years ago, there were two 244 madrassas in Pakistan.

Today there are 24,000.

Many of them are still teaching conservative Wahhabi doctrines.

A majority Sunni country with a large Shia population, Pakistan has become increasingly sectarian over the years.

>> You know, when I was a young boy, I didn't know who was a Shia in my class or who was a Sunni.

It didn't matter.

It was not an issue.

But after the Iranian Revolution and after the Saudi money pouring in here, we split between the Shia and the Sunni.

It is after that, '79, that this this became a major issue in Pakistan.

>> Of course, the Saudis, they wanted to stop Iranian influence, and Pakistan became the junior partner.

But I think for the Saudis, the great opportunity was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

>> ABC News has learned that a massive buildup of Soviet troops is taking place in Afghanistan, leading some intelligence analysts to conclude that a Soviet invasion is underway.

>> SMITH: In the same year as the Saudis were confronted with the Iranian revolution and the siege of Mecca, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

The Saudis seized the opportunity to defend their Muslim brethren against the godless communists, and to gain regional influence.

They found a perfect partner in Pakistan's president, Zia al Haq.

>> President Zia al Haq is very much the man in charge of Pakistan these days.

He rules the country with his own particular style.

>> SMITH: Zia had come to power in a coup and begun a campaign to Islamicize every aspect of Pakistani society.

>> When Pakistan was founded, equal rights for women were enshrined in the constitution.

Women were accepted in many professions.

Under General Zia's martial law regime, the orthodox Muslim view is gaining ground that a woman should be completely covered and veiled.

>> We'd never had such a transformative military dictator who wanted to change the whole British inherited colonial system of state institutions, the legal system, the constitution, and change it all towards an Islamic system.

Zia introduced Sharia courts and set up a parallel Islamic system of punishments.

>> There are public floggings in Pakistan and the authorities put microphones around the necks of those being flogged so their screams could be amplified to the crowds watching the flogging.

>> We started out with an open hand, hand of love and affection for the people of Pakistan.

But then I find that at times a squeeze has to be applied.

>> All this Zia carried out with his own agenda, but which was very lavishly funded by the Saudis.

>> SMITH: Funded by the Saudis, with the support of the United States.

>> In addition we are deeply grateful for President Zia's visit.

He's a military man who received part of his training in our country.

He's familiar with our own nation.

His knowledge of the sensitivities and ideals of America make him particularly dear to us.

>> SMITH: Beyond his expression of friendship, President Carter pledged to defend Pakistan and Saudi Arabia against Soviet expansion into the gulf with its oil.

It became known as the Carter Doctrine.

>> An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America.

(applause) >> The United States wanted Pakistan and the region to become a bastion against communism.

And in order to become a bastion, they thought that these religious forces were the best to act as some sort of a great break against the expansion of communist forces.

And that resulted in creating a monster in Pakistan and in the region.

>> SMITH: President Carter approved a covert operation in which the U.S. and Saudis would jointly fund the Afghan mujahedeen.

>> And it was Pakistan and its intelligence service, ISI, that identified the Afghan rebel groups that they wanted most to support.

And so Pakistan really affiliated itself with some of the networks that regarded Shiism as, you know, heresy.

>> SMITH: So basically the Americans outsourced the selection of who to back to the ISI, to the secret service of Pakistan?

>> Yep.

>> SMITH: And they chose the most radical elements of the jihadists.

>> That's right.

Partly because... Pakistan chose the most radical elements among the jihadists because it saw that radicalism as a potential instrument of control in post-Soviet Afghanistan.

If they won the war, these were groups that would be loyal to them.

>> In Afghanistan, the Soviets are continuing their heaviest offensive of the war against the Afghan rebels.

>> SMITH: The war dragged on for years.

Following Carter, President Reagan celebrated the efforts of the Afghan fighters... >> Thank you very much.

>> SMITH: ...and dramatically increased their support.

>> You are not alone, freedom fighters.

America will support you with moral and material assistance-- your right not just to fight and die for freedom, but to fight and win freedom.

>> Intelligence sources have told NBC News that the administration is now sending secretly more than $600 million worth of military supplies to the resistance fighters in Afghanistan.

>> Now we know, of course, that every billion that the Americans were giving to the Afghan mujahedeen to fight the Soviets, the Saudis were matching that.

>> SMITH: And the Saudis did even more.

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia had decreed the war a jihad, and encouraged thousands of Saudis to become holy warriors.

One of the first to go to Pakistan and join the Afghan cause was this man.

>> When bin Laden came to Pakistan, his first job, which was given to him by the C.I.A.

and Pakistani intelligence, was actually to create ammunition dumps and arms dumps on the Pakistan-Afghan border but just inside Afghanistan.

And he dug out these caves, which eventually became, of course, the famous caves of Tora Bora, where he escaped to after the Americans bombed him and invaded Afghanistan.

>> The last major convoy of Soviet troops from Kabul has crossed the border from Afghanistan into the Soviet Union on its way home.

The last Soviet soldiers... >> SMITH: By 1989, after ten years of fighting, the mujahedeen had succeeded.

>> 13,000 Soviet soldiers killed and the Afghan guerrillas stronger today than when it all started.

>> The moment the war ended, the Americans handed over Afghan policy to the Pakistanis and the Saudis, and literally told them, I mean, "We're out of here now.

You do what you will.

You do what you want."

And what we had then was Pakistani-Saudi joint support for bringing in extremist Afghan mujahedeen into power.

And, of course, everything stems from there.

If you see the growth of Al Qaeda and the acts of terrorism against the West, it all stems from this original cardinal sin whereby jihad is elevated, and is then supported at the global level by everyone.

>> SMITH: Many of the jihadists trained for the Afghan war would mature into the jihadists of Al Qaeda and ISIS, encouraged by Saudi Wahhabi teachings.

Why was it that this extremism came from your schools and from your mosques?

>> It was the provocation of the Iranian revolution created a reaction in the Sunni world that then translated into extremism and violence on our streets.

>> SMITH: So you blame the Iranians?

>> In part, yes.

And in part I blame ourselves also, in hindsight.

Because are there things that we could have done?

Probably.

But at the time that... that this was all... that all these forces were being unleashed, you deal with them at the time.

30 years later, you can go back and say, "Could things have been done differently?"

Of course.

>> SMITH: That's an important reflection on your part, I think.

I think a lot of Americans feel that they never hear that from the Saudis.

>> But that's the reality.

That's the nature of life.

You learn as you go.

>> SMITH: While the Saudis supported jihad in Afghanistan, Iran took sides in another regional war.

Across the Middle East, west of Iraq and Syria, and bordering Israel, is Lebanon.

(horn honking) I drove south into Lebanon's Shia heartland and the town of Nabatieh.

Lebanon has had a large Shia minority for hundreds of years.

>> There's been a linkage between the Lebanese Shia and Iran that goes back centuries.

So there are family connections that continue to persist.

The followers of Khomeini going back to the 1960s have been there.

>> SMITH: The Shia had been a poor and disenfranchised group compared to Lebanon's Christians and Sunnis.

>> Shia was the marginalized group in that society.

Population wise, they were big enough, but their share of power was not that much.

So Iranian revolution really was a turning point in a type of identity revival.

And then, of course, many other issues came, including the Israeli aggression.

>> The Middle East appears dangerously close to all-out war tonight, with thousands of Israeli troops deep inside Lebanon.

>> SMITH: In June 1982, Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon in order to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had been shelling Israel from here.

The residents of Nabatiyeh remember those days.

What do you remember of the time during the Israeli occupation?

(man): >> SMITH: Within weeks of their invasion, Israel had advanced on Beirut.

>> Israeli warplanes pounded the area around the headquarters of the PLO in central Beirut today, leaving scores of people dead and wounded.

>> The Israelis fired shell after shell into the western part of the city.

Some analysts said that the Arab world had reached an all-time low if it was prepared to stand by and see an Arab capital taken by the Israelis.

(crowd chanting): >> SMITH: Seizing an opportunity, Khomeini immediately sent around 1,500 Islamic Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon.

(chanting) (Rafighdoost): >> SMITH: Mohsen Rafighdoost, one of the founders of the IRGC, made more than 30 trips to Lebanon.

>> SMITH: The IRGC, which had started as Khomeini's private militia, was always meant to spread Iran's influence throughout the Islamic world.

Now they began recruiting Shia fighters from other local militias.

>> We had Iranian revolutionary guards coming into Lebanon.

And they were very much the impetus to get things going.

This was a very small, nascent organization back then.

They would inspire the Shia population there living in these little hill villages to embrace the cause of Iran.

And they marshalled them into military units.

They gave them basic training and some weaponry as well.

And gradually the ideology of Hezbollah spread from the Beqaa to the Shia areas of southern Beirut.

(men singing song): >> SMITH: Why was Lebanon given such a priority?

>> Well, I think they recognized... first of all, there's the obvious ideological struggle against Israel.

And there was an opportunity to be had.

>> Hezbollah, the Party of God, the most fanatical of Lebanon's Shiite Muslims, are now firmly, openly and successfully established in Beirut.

Day by day their following grows.

>> SMITH: When exactly Hezbollah was formally established is still contested, but a turning point for the group came by accident in 1983, during the Ashura festival in Nabatieh.

Ashura in Nabatieh is particularly dramatic.

The Shia faithful cut and beat themselves bloody to honor the death of Husayn, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, who was martyred in the 7th century.

But on this day, an Israeli military convoy lost its way and drove into the crowd.

People began throwing rocks.

The Israeli soldiers fired back.

At least two people were killed, and many injured.

Tensions had been escalating for months.

>> This just in from Beirut.

At least 40 U.S. Marines and ten French soldiers are dead after two explosions.

>> SMITH: A week later there was an attack on Israel's allies France and the United States.

>> A truck filled with explosives crashed through the gate... >> SMITH: A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with TNT blew up the barracks of U.S. Marines who had been stationed as peacekeepers.

>> A minute later, the same happened here at a French military headquarters.

>> SMITH: At almost the same time, another suicide driver crashed into the French barracks a few miles away.

>> In Lebanon the death toll has been steadily climbing all day-- 125, 135... >> SMITH: 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers died.

>> The explosion was the worst attack on the Marines... >> SMITH: The era of suicide bombings had begun.

The attacks were widely attributed to Hezbollah acting under Iranian direction.

And they continued.

>> The latest attack brings to more than 100 the number of people killed in bombings in Lebanon this year.

>> SMITH: The attacks seemed to be working.

Hezbollah won new followers.

>> More and more fundamentalist Shiite Muslims are volunteering to blow themselves up in what they see as the holy fight against oppression.

>> SMITH: The U.S. pulled out and Israel was forced to retreat.

Israel would eventually withdraw all its troops from Lebanon.

(shouting) >> Never before had we seen an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territory.

So that was basically the big turning point-- the image of Hezbollah as a successful force, which achieved what other other Arab militaries were not able to achieve.

(singing) >> SMITH: Hezbollah marks their victories every year in a celebration they call Liberation and Resistance Day.

>> SMITH: Hezbollah's security would not allow us to bring our own camera crew, so they assigned us one of their own.

(man singing): >> SMITH: Hezbollah has grown into a major political party with a powerful militia.

Designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Hezbollah is widely seen as controlled by Iran.

But Hashem Safieddine, one of the party's highest ranking officials, disagrees... (Safieddine): >> SMITH: The connection between Hezbollah and Iran is hard to deny.

Hezbollah's name, the Party of God, was given by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Its emblem is modeled on the IRGC's.

And they hold allegiance to the current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

(man): >> The ideology comes very much from Iran.

Not just the military training, but the very intensive religious lessons that they undergo.

Even after they've become full-fledged fighters, they're still learning about Islam and about the velayat-e faqih and all this kind of thing.

>> SMITH: Velayat-e faqih, "guardianship of the jurist"-- Khomeini's core doctrine that gave him ultimate religious and political authority.

>> Velayat-e faqih, this is really the backbone of Hezbollah that binds all its constituents parts together.

They have to subscribe to this central ideological pillar.

(man): >> SMITH: With Iranian funding, training, arms, and exported ideology, Iran turned Hezbollah into a powerful militia that serves Iran's interests.

For security, Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, almost always speaks from an undisclosed location.

(Nasrallah): >> SMITH: Was it as clear at the time that this was to be a major Iranian project?

>> I don't think the Iranians necessarily planned that, you know, in 35 years, by 2017, we will have turned Hezbollah into this massive military machine that is even stronger than the Lebanese army that Israel has called for the first time in January of this year its greatest threat.

Today, my guesstimate on their strength is a standing army of 20,000 fully trained fighters.

>> SMITH: And it's a force that projects outside of the borders of Lebanon.

>> And it's now a force that projects outside.

And it allows Iran to project its influence across... across the region.

>> SMITH: One can't fully understand Iran and the bitter divides in the region today without looking back to the 1980s and the Iran-Iraq war.

(man speaking over loudspeaker) Each year Iran rolls out a huge military parade to commemorate the eight-year-long conflict.

They see it as instrumental in shaping their foreign policy stance today.

>> This event is also an opportunity for Iran to show off its military power... >> SMITH: Here is where they parade their latest long-range missiles.

>> ...uniting to keep out foreign invaders.

>> We are required to produce our own means of defense because the United States conducts a campaign of preventing Iran from acquiring its means of defense.

(man shouting on loud speaker) That campaign started during the Iran-Iraq war.

So we have to do our own defense.

>> SMITH: I don't think it's a war that Americans understand very well.

Your generation, that now leads Iran, you were all shaped by that experience.

>> But it's a very unfortunate fact that people have short memories.

And, actually, some of them may not want to remember what happened.

>> Iraq declared today that its fighting with Iran is now a full-scale war.

Twice today Iraqi warplanes bombed Iranian air bases.

Iran retaliated with heavy damage to both sides.

>> SMITH: In the year following Khomeini's revolution, Saddam Hussein suddenly attacked Iran.

(loud explosions) He sensed an opportunity to both capture territory and possibly topple the regime before it became a threat.

>> Are they interested in knocking off, in toppling the Khomeini regime?

>> Absolutely, they'd like to see Khomeini gone and a moderate regime embedded... >> This was a shock and awe operation almost.

Everybody expected the Iranian government to fall within seven days.

>> Under Khomeini, Iran's armed forces are a pale shadow of their former selves.

The best officers have been purged, shot or escaped.

>> SMITH: Iran's military was woefully unprepared.

Without money or allies, Iran focused on building up their ground troops.

>> The same way that the revolution succeeded, Imam Khomeini brought people by millions to the war against this aggression.

(crowd chanting) >> SMITH: Ayatollah Khomeini told his people that Iran's troops were "equipped with divine power."

(crowd chanting) Many of those encouraged to sign up were just boys.

>> How old is he?

How old this guy?

He must be 14, 14 or something.

But he has come here to fight.

He has left his mother, he has left his father, just to fight the Iraqis.

>> SMITH: Boys as young as 12 were sent into battle with keys to wear around their necks-- keys they were told that as Shia martyrs would get them into heaven.

Poorly trained and barely armed, these young soldiers were meant to clear the way for the more experienced regular troops in what became known as human wave attacks.

>> Young boys aged ten and upwards sent in human waves by the Iranians against the Iraqis.

They're told of the glory of martyrdom.

God will make them invisible to their enemies.

(gunfire, explosions) >> Hi, I'm Mohammed.

>> SMITH: Mohammed, good to meet you.

One of the few reporters to witness these human wave attacks was Mohammed Salam, who had been reporting for the Associated Press.

>> Come on in.

>> SMITH: Thank you.

I found him at his home in Beirut.

Did you see these waves of children?

>> Oh, yes, oh my god, they gave their little children, the children soldiers-- 12, 13 years old-- these keys to heaven.

I mean, that's-- that's-- that-- that's really-- that's-- that's something that made me cry.

I mean, usually the group was a group of children with an elder guy who had the imama, religious-- who was the leader.

They go through these minefields.

Then they go through the-the Iraqi... fortifications that were actually protected by a network of napalm mines.

Then they enter Iraq, and during all this process, they were under shelling.

They were being blown up.

Earth up, sky down.

(helicopter rotors whirring) They were being bombed by helicopters, by warplanes, by Howitzers, by rocket launchers, and stepping on mines.

And they kept coming!

They kept coming.

They kept coming.

They were like actually like sea waves.

And there were more humans than bullets.

They were stepping on their colleagues' bodies.

(explosions) >> SMITH: These human wave attacks turned out to be extremely successful.

Iran learned that by sheer force of numbers they could compete against Iraq's superior military power.

Over the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of Iranian boys would be sent to the front lines.

♪ ♪ By Spring of 1982, Iran succeeded in pushing Iraq back.

>> The Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein announced a voluntary withdrawal from all captured territory.

>> SMITH: Iran was then faced with the decision to either accept a ceasefire or advance into Iraqi territory.

>> Iranians are showing signs of resistance to the very idea of a ceasefire.

>> SMITH: Khomeini chose war.

He declared that Iran would not be satisfied until Saddam Hussein was toppled.

(singing): >> SMITH: Taking the holy city of Karbala in Iraq-- that became the battle cry for Iranian troops.

Karbala is where in the 7th century the revered Imam Husayn was martyred.

It's an event depicted in Iranian films.

>> So Imam Hussain is the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

He claimed to be the successor to the prophet.

♪ ♪ And there was a very famous battle that took place in Karbala between him and the Sunni army.

The Army surrounded him and his supporters, many of his supporters abandoned him, and he was brutally murdered by this Sunni army.

(man in film): >> His murder, his abandonment by his followers has become a great tragic tale for the Shia community.

For most of Shia history, that story, the story of Hussain, was one of admitting defeat, of accepting your fate as having to live under unjust circumstances.

What Ayatollah Khomeini did was that he reinterpreted this story.

It became a source for activist politics for Shias to not accept their permanent fate having to live in an unjust state, but rather one in which they could take matters into their hands and try to change the world.

>> ...a dawn raid by Iranian jets.

>> Fighting on a massive scale is continuing this morning along the Iraq-Iran... >> SMITH: With Khomeini's push into Iraq, the war entered a dangerous new phase.

>> ...heavy casualties on both sides.

>> SMITH: Sunni Gulf states who had mostly stayed out of the fight now became involved.

>> No let-up in this war is in sight.

>> When Khomeini began attacking Iraq and declaring, publicly, that his aim was to topple Saddam and liberate Baghdad, that's when Saudi Arabia and the other G.C.C.

countries decided to support Saddam Hussein, along with European and-and-and American countries as well.

>> Their nations running into millions from countries like Saudi Arabia enable Saddam Hussein to buy the arms to keep the war going.

>> We supported Saddam Hussein, because Saddam Hussein was an ally.

It was a war between Iran and Iraq.

Iraq is an Arab country.

We had difference agreements within the Arab League, and so we supported Iraq.

Iran at the time publicly called for the overthrow of the Saudi government.

>> They want to export their revolution.

They want to topple the monarchies.

They want to send their militias.

Of course, the Saudis will support Iraq.

>> Iraq buys weapons around the world.

Countries include France, West Germany, Russia, Jordan, and China and many more.

>> We were up against a regime that was receiving equipment from almost everybody.

The Americans provided it with AWAC's intelligence.

The French provided it with mirage fighters.

The Russians provided it with MiG fighters.

>> SMITH: And the Saudis?

>> The Saudis provided it with all the money they need.

>> The Ayatollah Khomeini has called on the Iraqi Army to desert and overthrow Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein.

>> SMITH: Khomeini had hoped Iraq's Shia-- a majority of the population-- would support Iran.

But as Iraqis, they opposed Khomeini's invasion of their country... >> When the revolution happened in Iran, a lot of Arabs sympathized with the revolution for various reasons.

>> SMITH: Sunnis as well as Shias?

>> Sunnis as well as Shias.

But once Iran started the war machine and started trying to export the revolution, then people started to realize gradually that this is really a sectarian way to dominate.

>> War has become a way of life for both sides, as has as hating each other.

>> This bloody war, which has cost 200,000 lives... >> SMITH: Saddam Hussein, now fully emboldened by his Arab and Western allies, did not hold back.

>> Iraq said it will use any means at its disposal to vanquish the Iranians.

>> Saddam Hussein was not a joke, that was a regime.

A real tough, cruel regime.

I mean you cannot... >> SMITH: Mohammad Salam was in Iran with Iraqi troops after one notably brutal battle.

>> After the battle, I went into the battlefield.

And I found something strange.

I found thousands and thousands of Iranian soldiers in trenches holding their AKs and dead.

I couldn't understand what happened.

They had no bullet wounds.

They had nothing.

They simply had blood up their noses and mouth.

And they had urinated in their clothes.

And we started counting and counting and counting.

Was a full day counting bodies.

Lines of bodies, like the photos of World War I in trenches.

But obviously it was the first evidence I saw of the effect of chemical weapons.

>> SMITH: So you reported this.

>> Yes.

>> SMITH: There was no outrage?

>> Oh, no, nothing.

No, nothing.

No, nothing.

>> SMITH: In the Arab press there was no outrage?

>> Iraq came out victorious, period.

>> SMITH: That chemical attack was one of the first of a series launched by Saddam Hussein.

Recently declassified C.I.A.

documents have revealed that the Reagan administration knew about Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons.

And they suspected he might get away with it.

At least once the C.I.A.

gave Hussein the intelligence he needed to target Iranian combat units, despite knowing he could again use chemical weapons.

>> These dead Iranians soldiers lie where they fell.

But they do not bear the mutilation or obvious signs of artillery or small arms fire, a possible indication that chemical weapons have been used.

>> These were crimes against humanity.

American officials should be in prison for these crimes because they gave Saddam Hussein the technology.

I was a victim of chemical attacks personally, and I survived two attacks.

Where was the outrage?

There was no outrage.

>> In the Persian Gulf today, both Iran and Iraq have staged new attacks against each other while diplomatic efforts intensify in an effort to bring about a ceasefire.

>> SMITH: Finally, in 1988, eight years after it began, with the war at a stalemate, Khomeini agreed to a ceasefire.

>> Just as a UN team arrived in Tehran to discuss a truce in the eight-year-old Gulf War, Iran said that Iraq... >> SMITH: As many as one million people had died.

>> This has cost more lives than any conflict since World War II.

>> SMITH: Both Iran and Iraq's countries and economies had been devastated.

Iran had been internationally isolated by the war.

But six years before, Iran could have stopped it.

You had a chance to bring that war to an end in 1982.

And yet you made decisions at the top of the government to continue the war.

>> No, no, no, no.

It was important that they confess.

Our condition was that, no, we do not stop the war unless you confess that Saddam Hussein is started this war.

>> SMITH: Was it a mistake to reject the ceasefire?

>> No, no, in 1988, we had a resolution, 598, which addressed Iran's major demand.

That Iraq was responsible to initiate this war.

That was very important for us.

>> SMITH: But a lotta lives were lost in the interim.

>> It's the unfortunate situation.

>> SMITH: For that principle... >> That's a question that the Iranian people need to ask the international community.

Why didn't anybody in the international community say a word about the Iraqi use of chemical weapons?

I believe the international community owes Iran an explanation for its disastrous behavior.

Iran doesn't owe anybody any explanation for defending itself.

>> From Iran came a statement reportedly from Ayatollah Khomeini, who admitted that changing his position and agreeing to a ceasefire was like taking poison.

He indicated that he only did it because things had become so desperate in Iran that the survival of the revolution depended upon it.

>> I think more than any other historic event, it's been the Iraq war which has really shaped the worldview and attitudes of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And it's notable when you look at the last will and testament of Ayatollah Khomeini, he reserves the most amount of hatred not towards America, not towards Israel, but towards Saudi Arabia.

And I think it was really as a result of Saudi Arabia's support for Saddam Hussein.

>> SMITH: Khomeini's mausoleum is just south of Tehran.

After accepting the ceasefire, his son wrote that the Ayatollah "never again spoke in public."

A year later he died.

But for Iranians, the survival of the revolution was its own victory.

>> And the fact that they didn't win that war, but they didn't lose that war, was a testament to them of their resolve and of the strength of their ideology.

Of the strength of their faith, that they could basically fight the entire world.

They could fight the United States.

They could fight Iraq.

They could fight chemical weapons.

They could fight Saudi Arabia and do it all with not having to capitulate on their ideals, on their beliefs, or even on their geographical integrity.

>> SMITH: 14 years later, Iran would have another chance to extend its power into Iraq, this time thanks to the United States.

>> This was, once upon a time, the Fertile Crescent.

Saddam's turned it into a desert.

>> SMITH: I came to Iraq for the first time in 2003, right after the fall of Saddam.

I was with the Iraqi writer and activist Kanan Makiya who, for more than a decade, had been at the center of efforts to topple Saddam.

He hadn't seen Baghdad since he was 19.

How do you feel coming back here?

>> I feel that the size of the task is overwhelming, facing reconstruction of this country.

>> SMITH: I was with you in 2003.

>> Yeah.

>> SMITH: Just as the American soldiers had taken down Saddam.

We followed on their heels, drove up from Kuwait.

You favored that invasion.

>> I did.

For me that kind of regime was an abomination that I was... I-I was prepared to say, and I still think is true, the country had no future whatsoever until-until that abomination was eliminated.

(crowd cheering) (gunshots) >> SMITH: For years, Makiya had been watching as Saddam's Sunni Arab regime had suppressed all opposition, including the majority Shia population with threats, expulsions and a routine brutality.

(shouting) >> (translated): In accordance with the law, we say he who collaborates with a foreign party is sentenced to death.

(gunshots) >> SMITH: Back in 1991 the Shia had risen up against Saddam.

The U.S. had just driven Saddam's army out of Kuwait.

>> Out with that brutal dictator in Baghdad.

(crowd cheering) >> SMITH: But President George Bush Sr. had decided it would be unwise to take out Saddam.

He encouraged Iraqis to do it themselves.

>> ...the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.

(man speaking on loudspeaker) >> SMITH: The Shia believed the U.S. would come to their aid.

They were wrong.

(loud explosions) Saddam came after them with extreme violence.

>> We used to calculate the casualties of the 1991 uprising at 40,000 to 60,000 people in human rights reports and so on.

We now are talking 100,000 people killed.

The regime did something for the first time that it hadn't done before.

It attacks Shiites as Shiites.

(crowd cheering) >> SMITH: Saddam held on to power.

But Makiya and other Iraqi exiles continued to press the US to help remove him.

>> And I said this at the time, the chances of something dramatically better than Saddam was a very small chance.

I personally felt morally obligated to struggle for that five percent, ten percent chance that the transition from Saddam to something better might be possible.

♪ ♪ >> SMITH: And then came 9/11, and its consequences... >> The war on terror is not confined strictly to the Al Qaeda that we're chasing.

The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein.

>> SMITH: This President Bush would do what his father had not.

>> ...the history of Saddam Hussein.

>> Saudi Arabia has publicly opposed U.S. military action against Iraq and says the U.S. won't be allowed to use Saudi air bases.

>> SMITH: The Bush Administration sent Vice President Dick Cheney to Saudi Arabia to get their support for an invasion.

But Crown Prince Abdullah warned against it.

>> ...change in the Saudi stance.

>> Abdullah, in particular, felt that we were actively working against Saudi national security interests.

>> SMITH: To destabilize the neighborhood and allow for Iran to move in.

>> Yeah, and not to heed Saudi counsel, which was, "Don't do this."

>> We do not want people to rush into something that could have disastrous consequences.

Do you know what will happen the day after?

What if... >> Saudi Arabia knew that if you smash the state in Iraq, you would open up a Pandora's box.

They just knew it that Iraq would implode.

And then it would offer an opportunity to the Iranians to take it over, which is exactly what happened.

>> SMITH: But U.S.-Saudi relations were tense.

15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were Saudis.

>> The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia at that point was so poisoned by 9/11, there was really very little willingness on the American side to heed this advice.

They felt that the Saudis, while maybe not directly complicit in 9/11, were indirectly complicit.

But the momentum for the invasion out of the Pentagon and elsewhere, as we well know, was unstoppable.

>> This was central Baghdad today as Saddam Hussein's regime finally lost control.

>> The statue of Saddam Hussein is still hanging on the pedestal, but as it collapsed a great roar came out from the crowd.

There it goes, it is falling down to the ground.

It has come apart.

The crowd is going mad, rushing towards it, they've been pelting it with stones.

>> SMITH: Taking Baghdad took just three weeks.

But the Bush administration failed to anticipate what would come next.

(chanting) >> There was a complete failure to understand the Sunni-Shia equation that existed in Iraq at that time.

I think the Americans have never really understood, even as late as after 9/11, when there should have been much greater understanding of the Muslim world, the depth of the antagonism between Shi'ism and Sunnism.

>> SMITH: With Saddam suddenly gone, the fervor and strength of the Shia population was on view for the first time.

(man singing) Just days after Baghdad was taken, Shia poured into the streets to begin one of their holiest pilgrimages, the Arbaeen.

It commemorates the 40th day after Imam Hussein's death.

(chanting) An estimated two million pilgrims turned out.

Shia themselves were surprised at their numbers.

>> The Shia power came as a wave, no one was expecting there is this majority here in the country.

We didn't know there had been Arab Shias.

We thought Shi'ism is Iranism.

And then we recognize that we have, we have Shi'ism in Iraq.

So the fall of Saddam Hussein really exposed the whole situation.

This made it a direct fight between Shi'ism and Sunnism.

(shouting): >> SMITH: Leading the pilgrims that day was an ayatollah just back from years of exile in Iran.

He and other returning exiles were eager to remake Iraq into another Shia Islamist state.

(chanting): >> Basically, very early on, you have Shia political groups that become very important in Shia politics, after Saddam Hussein.

Groups that had just spent the last 20 years learning Persian becoming very close friends with Iranian leaders, with leaders of the I.R.G.C., and trusting them as much as they trusted any government.

(crowd cheering) >> What the 2003 invasion did was give Iran an opportunity that it could never have dreamt of having, which was to bring Shiites into power in Iraq who were beholden to the Iranian state.

(man): (crowd chanting) >> SMITH: The Americans did you a favor.

They took out Saddam Hussein.

>> Oh, yes, you are right.

They did us a favor.

>> SMITH: In Tehran they were elated.

>> To take Saddam Hussein that we wanted to do.

So you were sacrificing your own soldiers for our aim.

>> The American role in Iraq is just a puzzle, I think for me and I think... >> SMITH: In Saudi Arabia they were dumbfounded.

>> Why would the American hand the government to the allies of Iran?

Iran is considered a sponsor of terrorism by the Americans.

>> And those who were on high before, in particular the Baathists, who used their power to repress the Iraqi people, will be removed from office.

>> SMITH: Then, American envoy, Paul Bremer, handed Iran another gift.

>> Shortly, I will issue an order on measures to extirpate Ba'athists and Ba'athism from Iraq forever.

>> SMITH: 30,000 to 40,000 members of Saddam's Ba'athist Party-- most of them Sunnis-- were banned from holding any public office.

And the Iraqi army was dissolved.

Protests broke out immediately.

Moderate Shia leaders had warned the U.S. against de-Ba'athification.

>> I considered what happened as a very wrong mistake and is going to be disastrous for the country.

(Abdul Latif al Humayem): (shouting) >> The way it was applied it became an instrument to intimidate people, even people not Ba'athists.

It became really a way to-to push people out.

(siren blaring) >> SMITH: Violence followed Bremer's orders.

First a car bomb detonated outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 18 people.

12 days later, a second attack.

(debris falling, shouting) This one was on the UN headquarters.

>> The attack was similar to last week's bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.

>> SMITH: The attacks had been planned by radical Sunni extremists.

Their leader was a Jordanian who had been trained in the mujahedeen camps of Afghanistan-- Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Later he would tell Osama bin Laden that he aimed to begin a sectarian war.

(people shouting) Ten days after the UN attack, a massive bomb exploded outside the holy Shia shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf just after Friday prayers.

More than a hundred people were killed.

Embittered Sunnis and officers once part of Saddam's regime now joined Zarqawi's cause.

>> We saw Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and we are seeing a proliferation of these groups, like-minded ones springing up and joining the cause.

>> For the officers who served during Saddam regime, I cut his salary and I put him in the street.

What do you expect from him?

Of course, he-he will fight.

He will join all the military groups who try to destabilize the country, because he lost all of his rights.

>> These guys are spreading and growing.

They have hundreds if not thousands of new Iraqi recruits.

>> There was a sense in the region that Sunnis had lost and that Iran was on the rise because suddenly Shias had more power in Iraq.

Sunnis, in principle, should not feel like they are helpless.

They represent 80% of Muslims in the region.

And yet, many of them are feeling wronged, and it's hard to argue with that perception.

(chattering) >> SMITH: Samarra, in central Iraq.

During much of the ninth century, this was the capital of the great Sunni Abbasid dynasty, an Islamic empire that stretched from North Africa across the Middle East and into Central Asia.

The Great Mosque of Samarra completed in 851 was then the largest mosque in the world.

It could hold more than 10,000 worshippers.

(Mahmoud Mohammad): >> SMITH: Samarra is a majority Sunni city, but it's also an important Shia pilgrimage site.

(radio chatter) They come to worship under the golden dome of the Al Askari Mosque, one of the most sacred sites in all of Shia theology.

Local Sunnis used to join them.

(Mahmoud Mohammad): >> Iraq got worse today, a lot worse.

Terrorists committed a uniquely shocking act of religious violence.

>> SMITH: In 2006, two bombs set off by Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq destroyed the dome.

Shia took to the streets and began a new wave of sectarian reprisals.

(chanting) These were among the darkest days Iraq has ever endured.

>> The anguish and rage of the Shia crowds soon turned into bloody retaliation.

>> The attack has sparked rage and revenge across the country.

The majority Shia are venting their fury on the minority Sunni Muslims.

>> Many Iraqis have been killed in the last two days; 47 men were pulled from buses near Baghdad and executed.

Sunni mosques are pock marked by bullets, some still smoldering after grenade attacks.

>> SMITH: Within a week of the Samarra bombing, scores of Sunni mosques were reported attacked; Sunni imams were killed.

Bodies were dragged through the streets.

The violence would only escalate.

The police lost control.

(gunshots) (crying out in pain) (shouting) (sirens blaring) (radio chatter) >> SMITH: I was in Iraq a few months after the bombing.

By that point, the bodies of Sunni men were turning up regularly on the streets of Baghdad.

>> Bravo Charlie, this is Alpha, we found a dead body, over.

>> SMITH: Shia militia, many of them funded and trained by Iran, were operating death squads from within the Shia-led government.

>> He has no eyes, his ear's been cut off, his nose has been cut off.

Tore off part of his skin.

>> SMITH: You see a lot of this?

>> Yes.

>> How often do you find bodies?

(exhaling) >> Um... every day, every other day.

>> There was a particularly gruesome style of murder, basically a Shia tool, where it was death by power drill.

That's kinda how you could tell who was the victim.

The guy had drill holes in his head, he was probably a Sunni taken by the Shia.

I mean, what-what the Sunnis did was no nicer.

But it had sunk to that level.

It was a... it was a horrible, horrible period.

>> SMITH: And who were the Shiites that were doing this?

>> Well, there was quite a collection.

Certainly, the Badrs, the Badr Brigade was involved in it.

(chanting) >> SMITH: The Badr Brigade was just one of many militias operating under the guidance of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

>> The I.R.G.C.

is the branch of the Iranian military that does foreign operations.

Not doing direct fighting themselves, but supporting allies.

Helping with training.

Helping with logistics.

Helping with funding.

Where Iran excels is that ground game.

Is working with people outside of Iran's borders being able to create actual relationships of trust, and being able to get those groups to do what Iran wants to do.

(car horns honking) >> There were hundreds of different armed groups.

On the Shia side, far more so than on the Sunni side.

(chanting) And the Iranians were having a field day playing or arming this group, contacting this group.

All of them were turning back to the Iranians.

>> SMITH: Qais al Khazali runs one of the most powerful Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq today.

He claims to have launched 6,000 attacks against American and allied forces.

Following the bombing of Samarra, he turned his sights on al Qaeda.

(Qais al Khazali): (man shouting) >> SMITH: Khazali, who has never spoken to an American TV reporter before, was open about the support Iran gave to his Shia militia in those days.

(Qais al Khazali): (horn honking) >> The tensions are sustained by violence committed on both sides.

The Shiite militias have not been disarmed.

Sectarian scores are settled.

From 2006 to 2007, each month some 3,000 Iraqis were killed.

(sirens blaring) >> The removal of Saddam Hussein created this perfect opportunity for Iran to establish leverage over an important Arab capital, Baghdad, and that forced the Saudis to try to, you know, counteract that and to confront Iran.

This Saudi-Iranian competition is primarily a competition about the direction of politics in the Middle East.

The two never fight, but they have access to proxy forces throughout the region that can do the fighting on-on-on their behalf.

>> SMITH: Within Saudi Arabia the royals were conflicted about how to respond to the situation in Iraq.

>> The Saudi royal family was in a real difficult position and it was on the defensive-- worried about sanctions, worried about other forms of pressure if it were accused again of supporting violent groups like Al Qaeda.

(indistinct chatter) On the other hand, it had a restive population, full of radical ideas, which it had funded over many years.

You know there were certainly some people in Saudi Arabia who thought that it was just and important to counter Iran's influence in Iraq after the U.S. invasion.

>> SMITH: This Saudi insurgent was encouraged to go to Iraq to fight the newly empowered Shia.

>> So you had young Saudi men turning up as volunteers in Sunni territory of Iraq facilitated by the same kinds of networks that have facilitated the jihad in Afghanistan, preaching networks, charity networks, volunteer networks.

>> SMITH: Networks that got money from the government.

>> Networks that were funded by the government.

Very much.

And those volunteers would turn up and the next thing, you know, a Saudi father would know he'd be getting a call from somebody on a cell phone in Baghdad saying, "Your glorious son was martyred in a car bombing yesterday, you know, here's a video of his last moments."

♪ ♪ >> SMITH: From Riyadh and other Gulf capitals, money also streamed into Iraq for the Sunnis taking up arms.

(Al Humayem): (loud explosion) (speaking foreign language) >> And Abdullah, in particular, was still so bitter toward us for having carried out the invasion in the first place.

I'm sure he was paying people here and there, but without a clear policy objective that we could determine.

>> SMITH: Paying whom?

>> Various Sunni leaders.

They were supporting the tribal leaderships.

Those were the allegations.

I mean, you know, there was never any evidence for that.

>> SMITH: I understand there was no evidence, but what was your belief?

>> I... my belief was that the Saudis, at... were not funding Al Qaeda directly, by any means.

Did some of their largesse get to Al Qaeda?

Probably.

(loud explosions) >> Shock and awe, but this time Sunni insurgents were sending in the bombs.

The series of coordinated blasts were in mainly Shia areas have claimed more than 50 lives.

>> An Al Qaeda group claimed responsibility today and warned of more attacks against Iraq's government.

>> Saudi Arabia was joining the great struggle against Shi'ism.

And they were successful in so far as, you know, the sectarian genie had been let out of the bottle.

>> The situation in this country has done nothing but deteriorate from Al Qaeda, the local insurgency, the death squads buried within this government, to to Iranian influence.

All of it... >> But the Iranians had much greater influence.

Because they had an influence over the majority Shia population and the new Iraqi government, which was Shia.

>> SMITH: At the end of that year, the Shia-led government in Baghdad cemented their power and pushed their sectarian agenda further by rushing forward to execute Saddam Hussein.

It was a decision carried out despite U.S. and Arab concerns.

>> We were worried that something will happen.

We don't know what's that something happen.

The Americans will change their mind.

Saddam will run away from-- "run away"-- from the American prison.

All sorts of things he can be done.

>> SMITH: You had bodies showing up on the streets of the neighborhoods in Baghdad every day.

I was here, I saw it.

And in the midst of this, you have a Sunni Arab leader who is up for execution.

I mean, the sectarian component of this or dimension of this wasn't lost on you?

>> I can assure you that there was no shred of settling scores or revenge in my heart or in my mind when we carried the execution.

(man speaking foreign language) >> SMITH: But it was just that.

The government released an official video of the execution.

But that is not what most of the Arab world saw and heard.

>> The government said a number of the relatives of those who were killed by Saddam's were asked to attend his execution.

But they started filming-- through their iPhones and so on-- the scene and started shouting sectarian slogans.

(shouting) >> SMITH: Muqtada referred to the militant Shia cleric whose father had been tortured and killed by Saddam.

Saddam responded: "Muqtada?

Is this how you show your bravery as men?"

(shouting) >> Saddam, throughout the whole incident, handled himself very well.

The rope was put around his neck.

He refused the hood.

He asked to be allowed to read verses from the Koran.

>> In the meantime this jeering shouting crowd hurling insults.

>> And halfway through the reading of the Koran, the trapdoor was released.

(man): >> The only person who emerged from that scene, that piece of theater, with dignity was the arch-criminal himself, Saddam Hussein.

>> SMITH: So you were the man that pulled the lever.

>> That's right.

>> SMITH: That released the door.

>> Yes.

And Saddam came down.

>> SMITH: But clearly then there was a sectarian tone to the taunting and his response.

>> I didn't see it that way.

>> SMITH: Many Sunnis did see it that way.

(chanting): (gunshots) >> SMITH: Around the world they came out to protest.

India, Sri Lanka... (chanting) In the West Bank, demonstrators carried the green Saudi flag and railed against Iran and Shia.

(shouting): >> SMITH: The execution was meant to mark the end of Saddam's reign of terror.

Instead he emerged as a Sunni hero who had stood up to both the Americans and their Shia partners.

(chanting) >> Really we shouldn't have given him that status.

I mean, this dictator, this criminal, to turn him into a hero, you see, and courageous, with all this slogans, you see, of sectarian content.

It's bad.

It helped him; it damaged us.

(chanting): >> I was physically sick that day.

And any lingering doubts and hopes, et cetera, dissipated.

♪ ♪ >> SMITH: So this weighs heavily on you?

>> It did, for many years.

And, naturally, for a year or two I wouldn't admit to the failure in all its magnitude.

But that was a turning point for me personally.

It's sickening, you know, to think that I had-- you know, I had a role in this was... was shameful.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Next time, in part two, our journey continues into the war torn landscape of Syria.

On one side, Iran.

>> So Iran becomes basically the war ministry in Syria.

>> NARRATOR: And on the other, Saudi Arabia.

>> We support the Syrian people.

The Iranians are killing the Syrian people.

>> NARRATOR: And into a devastating war in Yemen.

>> Yemen was taken over by a militia allied with Iran and Hezbollah.

The Iranians have no business in Yemen.

>> We know that Yemen is important for Saudi Arabia and we never want to stab Saudi Arabia in the back.

>> That’s another destroyed building there.

>> When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.

There's been over a million casualties in the Middle East over the last decade.

They've been Syrian.

They've been Iraqi.

They've been Yemeni.

>> Where did the missile hit?

>> Iranian and Saudi citizens aren't the ones that are suffering.

>> NARRATOR: Next time, a dangerous rivalry and its tragic consequences.

>> Go to pbs.org/frontline to learn more about the making of “Bitter Rivals”.

>> What brings you here today?

>> Read the interview with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and others about the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

>> Abdullah, in particular, felt that we were actively working against Saudi national security interests.

>> To destabilize the neighborhood... >> Connect to the Frontline community on Facebook and Twitter, and if stories like this matter to you, then sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org/frontline.

>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

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And by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler.

Major support for Frontline and for “Bitter Rivals” was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org >> For more on this and other programs, visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

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