Stocks Slump After Saudis Threaten Nukes Against “Nefarious” Iran
Most of those executed were not Shiites but that didn’t matter. Al-Nimr was a key voice among Saudi Arabia’s dissident Shiite minority and his death reverberated across the Shiite community, sparking mass protests from Bahrain to Pakistan.
Al-Nimr was executed on a Saturday. By Sunday evening the Saudi embassy in Tehran was ransacked and burned and Riyadh had cut diplomatic ties with Iran. The other Gulf monarchies followed suit and by the end of the following week, the stage was set for widespread sectarian strife.
As we wrote in the aftermath of al-Nimr’s execution, the ordeal couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Obama administration. With the countdown to Implementation Day for the nuclear deal under two weeks, the last thing The White House needed was to be thrust into the middle of a dispute between a traditional ally (the Saudis) and a new “friend” (the Iranians).
The Sunni world (not to mention the Israelis) already feared that the lifting of international sanctions against Iran and the attendant cash windfall would strengthen Tehran just as the Ayatollah looks to preserve and expand the so-called Shiite crescent by consolidating his influence in Iraq and bolstering the Assad government in Syria. The money, some critics say, will invariably be channeled to Hezbollah and Iran’s Shiite militias which effectively function as Iraq’s only effective security force. Additionally, the nuclear deal’s opponents wonder if Iran will plow its newfound wealth into the country’s famous ballistic missile program, which is alive and well as demonstrated by the test-firing of the Emad in October.
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