January 22-2016
Several countries close to Saudi Arabia have reduced their diplomatic relations with Iran since the mob attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, but there is no groundswell of anti-Iranian activity.
Only one Arab country and four poverty-stricken African countries have responded to Saudi entreaties and broken relations with Iran.
Most Islamic countries have simply stood mute—neither assailing nor defending Iran.
However, the 22-member Arab League condemned the attack in a statement Sunday. News reports said every member supported the statement, except for Lebanon, where the Iranian-allied Hezbollah exerts considerable power. But Shiite-ruled Iraq did support the condemnation. (Syria’s membership in the Arab League has been suspended.)
But apart from that vote, most of the Arab league members have maintained public silence, both on the embassy attack and on Saudi Arabia’s mass executions January 2. The Saudis hanged or beheaded four Shias, including cleric Nimr an-Nimr, and 43 Sunnis linked to Al-Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia is understood to be approaching other countries asking them to sever relations with Iran. So far, only five countries have severed relations—Bahrain, whose relations with Iran have been sour for years, Sudan, which used to be a firm Iranian ally but has recently turned into a Saudi toady, tiny Djibouti on the horn of Africa, the Comoros, a remote island chain, and Somalia, a barely functioning country. The last four countries, all very poor African states, presumably seek Saudi financial aid.
Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar recalled their ambassadors to Iran, a diplomatic sign of irritation, but have not severed relations. Relations will continue with an envoy of lower rank than ambassador in charge of their embassies.
Jordan has summoned Iran’s ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to hear a protest about the embassy attack. That is the mildest sign of displeasure in diplomatic terms.
In the Islamic world, it is the attack on the Saudi embassy and the execution of the Shiite cleric that have garnered the most attention, with commentators sneering at Iran for the embassy attack and generally approving the execution of the Shiite cleric.
In the West, it is the absence of accepted legal standards in the trials of the 47 men executed that has drawn official comment. Even the United States has made clear its disgust with the Saudi judicial system. Washington has not bothered to address the attack on the embassy in Tehran. Germany, Britain, France, Canada and others have all issued statements finding the Saudi judicial system to be lacking in basic protections for the accused.
Perhaps the most interesting reaction came from Ankara, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—not some ministry spokesman—personally defended Saudi Arabia over the executions. He said it was purely a domestic issue and criticized those making a big issue of it. Lest anyone not understand whom he was criticizing, Erdogan said those who remain silent over the death of a quarter million people in Syria are now making an uproar over the execution of one person in Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Nimr.
A Turkish newspaper reported that Iran’s ambassador in Ankara had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry to be dressed down over state broadcast reports in Tehran asserting that Erdogan was behind Nimr’s execution, citing the fact that Erdogan visited Saudi Arabia two days before the execution. An official at Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied the envoy had been summoned. The Turkish Foreign Ministry then issued a statement confirming that the ambassador had been summoned.
As part of the severing of diplomatic relations, both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have stopped all flights by their national carriers to Iran. But Oman and Iran agreed this week to increase the number of flights between them to 28 weekly, Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said.
Oman is an Arab state but has historically looked more to the East and South. It has always maintained good relations with Iran and has been the key figure in winning freedom for several Americans who have been arrested in Iran. It also helped get nuclear talks started between Iran and the United States, which doesn’t endear it to Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain also announced it had sentenced an Iranian, in absentia, to be hanged for spying.
Saudi Arabia also halted all trade with Iran. A few days after the Saudis announced halting trade, Iran loudly proclaimed that it would no longer trade with Saudi Arabia!
Iran also said it would continue to bar Iranians from making the minor hajj to Saudi Arabia—that is, visits to the holy sites outside the annual regular hajj. Iran halted minor hajj visits more than a year ago after two Iranian teenaged boys on the minor hajj were reportedly sexually assaulted by Saudi police. Iran has not said whether it will continue to allow Iranians on the annual hajj.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir visited Pakistan this week and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced “unconditional support” for Saudi Arabia. But he didn’t change Pakistani relations with Iran in any way.
Jubeir, a career diplomat, has not halted official rhetoric against Iran. In an interview with CNBC last Tuesday, he demonized Shaikh Nimr saying he was “as much a religious scholar as Osama bin Laden.” He charged that “Iranians have got away with murder—literally—for more than 30 years.”
Jubeir said of Nimr: “He was implicated in inciting people, recruiting people, providing weapons and munitions for people and he was involved in attacks against security people and police stations that led to the killing of innocents.” Few in the West believe that. The main concern in the West is that the trial meted out to Nimr did not allow for defense by international judicial standards.
And Iran’s complaints about the volume of Saudi executions generally fall flat as Iran has for years executed more people as a proportion of the population than any other country in the world. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said that Nimr’s execution was an example of Saudi “barbarism.”
This past week, Iranian officials have repeatedly said that the Saudi severance of relations is meant to kill all peace efforts in Syria. But even before they spoke up with that charge, Jubeir had said Saudi Arabia supports the peace process and will sit down with Iran at the same table despite severing relations.