Relations across the Persian Gulf are deteriorating fast. Iran and
Saudi Arabia are once again at daggers drawn and sounding highly
menacing to each other. The last time they were on the verge of a
showdown, which they eventually averted, was in early 2016 following the
execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a populist Saudi Shi’a cleric and
political activist. Al-Nimr’s execution triggered the sacking of Saudi embassy
in Tehran and Riyadh’s breaking off diplomatic ties with Iran. The
latest round of war of words, sparked by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and
Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, points to worsening hostility
between the two countries – a situation fraught with the dangers of war.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a widely circulated interview
on May 3 last, accused Iran of harboring “an extremist ideology” and
signaled a policy shift from the kingdom’s rivalry with Iran, so long
played out by proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to a war to be
fought on Iranian soil. He said Saudi Arabia is “a primary target for
the Iranian regime” and declared:
“We won’t wait for the battle to be in Saudi Arabia. We’ll work so that
the battle is for them in Iran”. The bellicose words from the prince
predictably provoked a harsher response from Iran. Iranian Defense
Minister Hossein Dehqan, in an interview with Lebanon’s Arabic language
Al-Manar TV, hit back at Riyadh and warned: “If the Saudis do anything ignorant, we will leave no area untouched except Mecca and Medina”.
