Jan 19, 2016

With the proxy wars between Iran and Saudi Arabia taking place across the region, the two countries’ recent head-on collision did not come as a surprise. Neither did the execution of Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr appear as the only milestone in a long path of tensions. This collision isn’t merely about the governments in Riyadh and Tehran. Their clashes of interests in Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon and other arenas have transformed hostility between many ordinary Iranians and Saudis into a state of outright enmity. As this struggle has mounted, it has sharpened various differences, from sectarian to ethnic, and has even entered the sports arena. In Tehran and Riyadh alike, many ordinary people exchange political jokes with negative depictions of the other side. Meanwhile, on state-backed media and on social networks, the Iranian and Saudi governments are waging an unprecedented war of words against each other.

“Saudi Arabia is trying to find a way out of its current dire straits and unsuitable situation,” said Alireza Miryousefi, head of Middle East Studies at the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Institute for Political and International Studies. Miryousefi told Al-Monitor that Saudi Arabia is seeking to deflect attention from its domestic and regional challenges. “Saudi Arabia has made consistent efforts to fan the flames of sectarian differences between Shiites and Sunnis, and … it tries to use Iran as an excuse to divert attention from its iron-fist policies, in particular after 2011,” said Miryousefi.

From Iran’s perspective, Riyadh has been looking to draw it into a confrontation that could force international powers to side with Saudi Arabia. “Today, some in Riyadh not only continue to impede normalization but are determined to drag the entire region into confrontation,” wrote Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a Jan. 10 op-ed in The New York Times. Zarif elaborated, “Saudi Arabia seems to fear that the removal of the smoke screen of the nuclear issue will expose the real global threat: its active sponsorship of violent extremism.”

This might be what Zarif really thinks — but it’s not what some Saudis believe. Former senior Saudi diplomat Abdullah al-Shammari told Al-Monitor that his country has not and will never start a clash with Iran. “As Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said to The Economist, war with Iran is a big disaster that we won’t allow to ignite,” said Shammari, who has a special interest in Iran and Turkey. “There were no planned or direct intentions to raise the stakes of tension with Iran; on the contrary, Iran is the one who started [the recent collision] and Saudi Arabia was only responding.” This veteran Saudi diplomat said the kingdom was intimidated by “Iran’s barefaced intervention in our internal affairs. This showed Iran as a sectarian entity. The real reason behind the severing of ties wasn’t only the burning of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and the looting of it. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Saudi Arabia has not been alone in severing diplomatic ties with Iran. Several Arab countries, including Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Sudan and Somalia, have made the same decision. Other Arab countries have taken other measures to convey their dismay to the Iranians. The United Arab Emirates has downgraded diplomatic relations to the level of charge d’affaires, while Kuwait, Oman and Qatar — all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) — summoned the respective Iranian ambassadors. An Iranian official who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said, “The Saudis wanted to show Iran as isolated, but the best they could do was to ask countries whom we respect, but are less effective, to boycott us. They weren’t even capable of convincing other Gulf countries to take such a decision.”