Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir says his country is severing diplomatic ties with Iran amid spiking tensions over the execution of a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric.
Al-Jubeir said late Sunday evening that Iranian diplomatic personnel had 48 hours to leave the country and all Saudi diplomatic personnel in Iran were being recalled home.
Demonstrators in Tehran broke into the Saudi Embassy early Sunday morning to protest the execution of Shiekh Nimr al-Nimr, a leader of the country’s Shiite minority.
Iranian officials harshly condemned the execution, with Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying that Saudi Arabia would face “divine retribution.”
The ultraconservative Sunni kingdom and Shiite powerhouse Iran have waged a bitter struggle for regional power for years. The two countries each back opposing sides in civil wars in Yemen and in Syria.
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The US is long past due to switch friends in the region. The Saudis interests are not ours. Most seriously, they support radical Sunni groups, and radical Sunni groups, like ISIL, are a much bigger threat than radical Shia groups. The US shouldn’t try to antagonize either alignment unnecessarily, but insofar as they are in conflict, our interests are much closer to those of Iran, Iraq, the Assad regime and the Hezbollah, than they are with the Saudis and Israel.
The world is a mess.
Here’s the headline I’d really like to see:
U.S. Announces It’s Severing Ties With Saudi Arabia, Israel
I think you make valid points, but tell that to the 47 mutinous senators who take their marching orders from Netanyahu.
I agree that we need to be pragmatic and do what’s best for US, rather than the Sunnis, Shites, or even Israel for that matter.
If you were a True Leftist™, you would have written “…Saudi Arabia, The Zionist Entity.”
Please remember that for the future.