FINANCIAL TIMES: ….the more threatening regional rival to the House of Saud and its absolutist brand of Sunni Islam is Iran – which, since the 2003 US-led Iraq invasion installed a Shia government there, has forged an Arab Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut, with influence, too, in Saudi neighbours Yemen and Bahrain.
Wahhabi Saudi Arabia’s visceral hatred of the Shia – as well as its rivalry with the Persian and Shia Islamic Republic for hegemony in the Gulf and the Levant – should be factored into the oil price equation. Riyadh, sitting on foreign exchange reserves of more than $750bn, can ride out lower oil revenues. Iran, which needs the price to be twice the current level to make ends meet, is haemorrhaging. Already economically hobbled by sanctions, Tehran is by some estimates spending $1.5bn a month supporting its allies in Syria and Iraq.
Iran, of course, is aligned if not allied with the US and its European and Arab partners, including Saudi Arabia, in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. And President Barack Obama continues to pursue a rapprochement with Tehran through negotiations over its nuclear ambitions. But the US cannot be in any doubt about Saudi sentiments towards Shia Iran and the idea of a regional thaw. According to a well-placed Arab figure, a senior Saudi official told John Kerry, US secretary of state, while he was talking to Sunni Arab leaders this summer about a coalition against the jihadis: “Isis is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa” – the Tehran-aligned Shia Islamist ruling party of Iraq… (more)
