At the heart of the new crisis is Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iran and its allies militarily since King Salman took power a year ago, say diplomats, choosing with his son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to abandon years of backroom politics.
Advertisement
But Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates proceeded to downgrade their ties with Tehran, one day after Saudi Arabia’s lead.
THE UNITED NATIONS – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Saudi Arabia and Iran to support peace efforts in Syria and Yemen and avoid escalating tensions.
Nobakht also criticized the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions, saying they were unbecoming of Iranians.
“Pro-Iranian extremist groups in Iraq and Bahrain have threatened terrorist attacks if Nimr is executed, which he indeed has been”, said David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. That prompted violent protests in Tehran as Shia demonstrators – some suggest with official encouragement – attacked the Saudi embassy. The response from the Saudis, cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, hardened the dispute along sectarian lines.
He was referring to the execution for “terrorism” Saturday of Nimr al-Nimr, who had been behind anti-government protests among Saudi Arabia’s Shiite Muslim minority. Iran, for its part, expressed “regret” after the attacks on Saudi posts.
The last time Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister visited London, the Foreign Office gave him a lecture on reconciling the kingdom’s differences with Iran, its bitter regional rival.
Analyst Salman Shaikh agrees that biggest losers in Iran from the spiking tensions are the moderate and pragmatic factions, including Rouhani.
Iranian President Rouhani says Saudi Arabia should not respond to criticism of its regime by beheading people.
The deterioration of relations with Saudi Arabia “will have no impact on Iran’s national development”, Nobakht said, without elaborating.
GERMANY – Berlin has called on Saudi Arabia and Iran to work to mend their diplomatic ties, while condemning both the mass executions in the kingdom and the storming of the Saudi missions in Iran.
That message, Badran said, is sent in conjunction with the Obama administration’s vision for a new Middle East order – one in which Iran plays a central, if not leading, role. “But in a region that is already in ferment, with the brutal civil wars in Syria and Yemen and the threat from Daesh [Isis], the minister must surely recognise that the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other people has caused a major diplomatic and political crisis”, said Benn. Conveniently ignoring the fact that the ayatollahs have a far worse human rights record than the Saudis (per capita the Iranians have carried out more executions – including juveniles – than the Saudis in the past year), they argue that, now Iran has agreed a deal over its nuclear programme, Tehran could become a vital ally.
Advertisement
Domestic Politics: The Saudi and Iranian actions can also be viewed through the lens of their own domestic politics.
