Genuine Fear or Securitization: Iran and Saudi Arabia’s Threat Perception

Saudi Arabia expresses fears from Iran that are in some cases genuine and in other cases insincere. To see whether or not Saudis are sincere in their fear expressions from Iran, an analytical tool is developed in this paper linking securitization theory to theories of truth-verification. Analyzing Mohammad bin Salman’s interview about Iran with Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic using the indicators extracted from context-oriented theories of deception-detection, this paper demonstrated that the assertions the Saudi Crown Prince made about Iran reflect both true apprehensions and unfounded misrepresentations, with the balance in favor of the latter. This study demonstrated that context-oriented truth verification theories of social sciences are useful in foreign policy studies to distinguish states’ securitizing moves from their sincere fear expressions. The methodology of this article is based on a descriptive-explanatory approach that seeks to shed light on how Saudi leaders try to securitize Iran’s identity in the region.