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Saudi allies Bahrain and Sudan cut ties with Tehran as regional crisis deepens Saudi allies Bahrain and Sudan cut ties with Tehran as regional crisis deepens
(about 1 hour later)
BEIRUT — Bahrain and Sudan joined Saudi Arabia in severing diplomatic relations with Iran on Monday as the worst crisis in three decades between the region’s rival Sunni and Shiite powers drew worldwide expressions of alarm. BEIRUT — The Middle East slid dangerously closer to regional conflict on Monday after Saudi Arabia rallied its Sunni allies to sever diplomatic ties with Iran, prompting alarmed appeals for restraint from powers across the globe.
The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, recalled its ambassador from Tehran in a downgrading of ties to focus mainly on commercial affairs. Dubai is the base for many Iranian-run businesses. Bahrain and Sudan joined Saudi Arabia in cutting off relations with Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, a key Iranian trading partner, recalled its ambassador from Tehran, as the fallout from the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia on Saturday heightened sectarian tensions across the Middle East.
As the diplomatic storm widened, so did the efforts at international damage control. The Obama administration, caught in the middle by its quest for a closer relationship with Iran and its longstanding alliance with Saudi Arabia, said it hoped Tehran and Riyadh would wind back the hostile rhetoric that has fueled the worst crisis between the regional rivals in decades.
Russia offered to mediate, the United Nations dispatched a senior envoy for crisis talks in Riyadh and Tehran, and a growing list of nations expressed concern at the implications of the rupture — touched off by Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric as part of its largest mass execution of prisoners in more than 35 years. “We’re urging all sides to show some restraint and to not further inflame tensions that are on quite vivid display in the region,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington.
China, the European Union and Russia also called on Tehran and Riyadh to take steps to settle their differences peacefully, with Russia, an emerging center of gravity in the region, offering to mediate between them, according to Russian news agencies.
[How Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State find common ground in beheadings][How Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State find common ground in beheadings]
Iran said Saudi Arabia made a “strategic mistake” that could only further divide the region and fuel militancy during crucial battles against the Islamic State and efforts to end Syria’s civil war. The implications of the Saudi-Iranian rift extend far beyond their immediate rivalry as competing regional powerhouses, and encompass almost all of the wars currently raging in the Middle East. The current crisis could further complicate efforts to resolve the Syrian war, and strengthen, by default, the Islamic State.
In further signs of spillover: sectarian violence flared in Iraq, police clashed with protesters in Bahrain, and financial markets dropped sharply. In another sign of fallout from the dispute, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said it was suspending all flights between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a move that raised uncertainties over the ability of Iranian pilgrims to visit the important Muslim pilgrimage site of Mecca, as well of Saudi Arabian Shiites to visit Shiite shrines in Iran.
The Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain — a close Saudi ally and home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet — ordered Iranian diplomats to leave within 48 hours. Sudan said it also was severing diplomatic ties with Iran, which had sought to improve relations with Sudan in recent years to make it an economic and military foothold in Africa. Iran said that Saudi Arabia made a “strategic mistake” when it went ahead with the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, despite repeated warnings from Tehran that carrying out the death penalty against him would have repercussions.
The moves could boost pressure on other Saudi allies around the region to take diplomatic action against Iran. Already, security forces around the region were on higher alert. Iran also, however, reiterated regrets expressed over the weekend for an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, during which protesters enraged by the execution of Nimr broke into the premises, smashed windows and furniture and then set the embassy on fire. Iran says it has arrested demonstrators responsible for the assault, and has pledged to deter future attacks against all diplomatic facilities in Iran.
In Bahrain, police fired tear gas Monday at mainly Shiite protesters denouncing Saudi Arabia’s execution of the cleric, Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, on Saturday, news agencies reported. In 2011, Saudi Arabia sent troops into the island nation to back the Sunni rulers seeking to crush a Shiite-led uprising demanding a greater voice in the country’s affairs.
[Could impasse complicate fight against the Islamic State?][Could impasse complicate fight against the Islamic State?]
Global financial markets were roiled by the deepening tensions between the OPEC giants. U.S. stocks opened sharply lower Monday, and Asian markets plunged on a mix of worries over the Middle East impasse and weak Chinese manufacturing data. Oil prices seesawed amid the uncertainty. The island of Bahrain, whose ruling Sunni royal family faces a challenge from its majority Shiite population, swiftly followed the Saudi lead in breaking off relations with Tehran. The executed cleric, Nimr, had also served as an inspiration for many of the island’s Shiites. Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet
Underscoring the worries, the United Nations pulled its chief envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, away from that conflict for a round of talks with Saudi and Iranian officials. De Mistura is expected in Riyadh on Monday and will travel to Tehran later in the week, said U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq. Sudan said it was breaking off relations with Iran “in solidarity” with Riyadh, but it wields little influence in the heart of the Middle East.
In Washington, White House press secretary Josh Earnest urged Iran and Saudi Arabia “to show restraint and not further inflame tensions that are on quite vivid display in the region.” He told reporters that “all sides” could do more to bridge sectarian divides. The United Arab Emirates downgraded ties, withdrawing its ambassador from Tehran and telling the Iranian ambassador in the Emirates to go home.
Asked if the rift could harm efforts to reach a political solution in Syria, Earnest said, “We’re hopeful that it won’t.” He said a reason for optimism was that “it is so clearly in the interest of both countries to advance a political solution” in Syria. Other major regional powers such as Egypt and Turkey did not join in the diplomatic onslaught against Tehran. Turkish officials echoed the calls for restraint on the part of both Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Earnest said Secretary of State John F. Kerry has been in contact with his counterparts in the region but that President Obama has not made calls to fellow leaders in recent days. The Saudi-Iranian standoff is likely however to have repercussions in the wars ravaging parts of the Middle East — some of them directly fueled by their antagonism.
In explaining its decision to expel Iranian diplomats, Saudi Arabia cited “hostile” comments by Iran after the execution of Nimr on Saturday, as well as the subsequent attack on its embassy in Tehran. The wars in Yemen and Syria in particular are at risk of worsening as a result of the rift. Saudi Arabia and Iran back rival factions in each of those countries.
“I don’t think this is going to open warfare, but it’s going to make the proxy battles worse,” said Mohamed Bazzi, a professor at New York University who is writing a book on Iranian-Saudi relations. “The pattern has been that when one side escalates, the other escalates. Now that is going to spiral.”
One major concern is the fledgling peace process in Syria, endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution last month, which the State Department has counted among one of its greatest achievements of 2015.
The United Nations dispatched its special envoy for Syria, Staffan De Mistura, on an emergency mission to Riyadh and Tehran to see if the peace talks between rival Syrian factions will still be able to go ahead as scheduled on January 25.
With Iran and Saudi Arabia not on speaking terms , it is hard to see any meaningful peace process get underway, Bazzi said.“It was already going to be difficult. But the Americans and the Russians had got everyone to agree to at least sit at the table, and that seems to have been erased by this.”
Also at risk is the war against the Islamic State, which is often obscured by the region’s many other rivalries.
“The growing sectarian polarization across the region will primarily benefit the Islamic State, which is promoting a sectarian narrative,” said the London-based defense consultancy IHS in a commentary.
[In legacy of a revered martyr, Saudi Shiites find sustenance][In legacy of a revered martyr, Saudi Shiites find sustenance]
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair told reporters in Riyadh late Sunday that the diplomats were given 48 hours to leave the country. But Saudi diplomats had already departed Iran after angry crowds ransacked and burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran overnight Saturday, in retaliation for the execution of Nimr. In another reminder of the potential for sectarian rivalry unleashed by the Saudi-Iranian rift, three mosques were bombed overnight in the mixed Sunni-Shiite province of Babil in Iraq. A cleric was killed at one of them, according to news reports from Iraq.
As part of the diplomatic freeze, Saudi Arabia halted air traffic between the two countries, the Saudi civil aviation agency said. It was unclear how the decision could affect special flights for Iranian pilgrims seeking to visit Islam’s holiest sites, but Jubair told the Reuters news agency that Iranians were still welcome for the annual hajj and other pilgrimages. The U.N. mission in Iraq condemned the attacks as “an attempt to stoke sectarian tensions in Iraq and the region.”
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian suggested that Saudi Arabia had engineered the diplomatic break to eclipse the “strategic mistake” it made by executing Nimr. He accused the kingdom of “hasty and ill-considered approaches” that would only advance extremism and terrorism. Iraq’s Shiites also have come out strongly in condemnation of the execution of Nimr by Saudi Arabia, and thousands of people staged demonstrations on Monday calling on the government to close the newly reopened Saudi embassy.
The rupture sets the region’s two biggest powerhouses on a collision course at a critical time for U.S.-led diplomacy in the Middle East, and it raised the specter of worsening violence in the countries where they back rival factions, such as Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry said three Sunni mosques were attacked with bombs overnight in the Shiite majority province of Babil south of Baghdad, in one sign of the rising tensions. There were no casualties because they were empty at the time.
Despite their countless international feuds, it was the first time since a two-year break in 1988-1990 that diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia had formally been severed, according to Abdullah al-Shamri, a Saudi analyst and former diplomat.
China was among the countries expressing concern at the meltdown, urging the two parties “to maintain calm and restraint,” and Russia has offered its services as a mediator, according to Russian news agencies.
Nimr was among 47 people put to death on the biggest single day of executions in Saudi Arabia since 1980, but he was only one of four Shiite Muslims among the group — and by far the best known. Most of the others were Sunnis accused of carrying out a spate of attacks linked to al-Qaeda over a decade ago.
Nimr’s role as a leader in the anti-government protests that swept the Shiite eastern regions of Saudi Arabia nearly five years ago ensured both that his death sentence would be carried out, and that there would be an enraged response from Shiites across the region.
In tough comments Sunday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, predicted “divine retribution” for Nimr’s executioners, saying that the execution “will cause serious troubles for the politicians of this [Saudi] regime in a very short time.”
Saudi Arabia responded with an angry statement pointing out that Iran is often accused by the international community of supporting terrorism and of executing large numbers of people.
[What Saudi Arabia is doing — and not doing — to battle the Islamic State]
But the furor went deeper than the execution of a single cleric, striking at the heart of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry that has fueled, though not caused, much of the conflict engulfing the region.
Encouraged by Washington and by the regional realignment underway in the wake of a deal in July to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the two rivals had been tentatively exploring closer ties. It is unclear whether Saudi Arabia intended such a rupture when it carried out the death penalty against Nimr.
The execution was in keeping with a newly aggressive stance adopted by King Salman, who has worn the crown for a little less than a year since the death of his half-brother, Abdullah. It sent a powerful message that Saudi Arabia is intent on standing up to its regional rival, said Theodore Karasik of Gulf State Analytics, a consulting group.
“The Saudis hope to demonstrate that they are on the offensive in terms of the Sunni-Shiite divide, and they have just upped the ante on that significantly,” he said.
David Nakamura and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.David Nakamura and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
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