‘Saudi Arabia has grown so miserable it conspires with Israel against Iran’

Press TV – Iran’s defense minister says Saudi Arabia, which has a history of teaming up with other regimes against Tehran, has now become so miserable as to ally itself with Israel against the Islamic Republic.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan made the remarks in an interview fully broadcast on Arabic-language Al-Manar TV on Monday.

Brig. Gen. Dehqan said that over the past 38 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Saudi Arabia has gone out of its way to interfere in regional affairs to oppose Iran.

He said Riyadh spent lavishly to support the former Iraqi regime and the Persian Gulf littoral states against Iran in the eight-year Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s. He also referred to the Saudi intervention in Lebanese politics and said the Saudi rulers offered massive financial and political support to the groups they wanted in power in Lebanon. The Saudis also offered weapons to such groups.

“Then, let’s looks at what they have done in Iraq and Syria today. At what they are doing in Yemen today,” Dehqan said.

Saudi Arabia has been a known sponsor of extremist Wahhabi groups wreaking havoc in the region and beyond. It has also been leading a group of its vassal states in a war on impoverished Yemen since March 2015.

“Today, what we’re seeing is Saudi Arabia has become so miserable. So much so that it has convinced itself to curry favor with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and incite it (the Israeli regime) against us,” the Iranian defense minister said.

Last Tuesday, the Saudi defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman, claimed in a televised interview that Saudi Arabia would fight what he called Iranian attempts to expand its influence in the region.

“We are a primary target for the Iranian regime,” Mohammed said.

He also accused Iran of seeking to take over Islamic holy sites in Saudi Arabia. “We won’t wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia. Instead, we’ll work so that the battle is for them in Iran,” Mohammed said in controversial remarks.

The Iranian defense minister, in his interview with Arabic-language Al-Manar, responded by rejecting the accusation that Iran was after taking over territory.

“We have never been and will never be after occupying any Arab or Muslim country,” Brig. Gen. Dehqan said.

The Yemeni conflict

Responding to a question on how the Yemeni conflict could end, Brig. Gen. Dehqan said it was easy to think of a solution.

“First [should come] a Saudi withdrawal from Yemen. Second, a Saudi refusal to interfere in the affairs of other Islamic countries. Third, accepting the collective security order in the region, and the pullout of extra-regional forces. Fourth, acknowledging the people’s control over their own fate.”