{"id":15990,"date":"2016-01-04T21:30:11","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T02:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15990"},"modified":"2016-01-04T21:30:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T02:30:36","slug":"saudi-arabias-gruesome-provocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15990","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia\u2019s Gruesome Provocation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saudi Arabia\u2019s Gruesome Provocation<\/a><\/h3>\n

Saudi Arabia\u2019s execution of a prominent political leader of the monarchy\u2019s Shiite minority has worsened Mideast tensions and is forcing the Obama administration to decide if there are any limits to\u00a0the outrages that the longtime U.S. \u201cally\u201d may commit, as\u00a0Trita Parsi explains.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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There should be little doubt that Saudi Arabia wanted to escalate regional tensions into a crisis by executing Shi\u2019ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. On the same day, Riyadh also unilaterally withdrew from\u00a0the ceasefire agreement in Yemen<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

By allowing protesters to torch the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response, Iran seems to have walked right into the Saudi trap. If Saudi Arabia succeeds in forcing the United States into the conflict by siding with the kingdom, then its objectives will have been met.<\/p>\n

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\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

President Barack Obama walks past a military honor guard formation during an arrival ceremony at King Khalid International airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 28, 2014 (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is difficult to see that Saudi Arabia did not know that its decision to execute Nimr would not cause uproar in the region and wouldn\u2019t put additional strains on its already tense relations with Iran. The inexcusable torching of the Saudi embassy in Iran \u2014 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned it and called it \u201ctotally unjustifiable<\/u><\/a>,\u201d though footage shows that Iranian security forces did little to prevent the attack \u2014 in turn provided Riyadh with the perfect pretext to cut diplomatic ties with Tehran. With that, Riyadh significantly undermined U.S.-led regional diplomacy on both Syria and Yemen.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has long opposed diplomatic initiatives that Iran participated in \u2013 be it in Syria or on the nuclear issue \u2013 and that risked normalizing Tehran\u2019s regional role and influence.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia\u2019s Gruesome Provocation Saudi Arabia\u2019s execution of a prominent political leader of the monarchy\u2019s Shiite minority has worsened Mideast tensions and is forcing the Obama administration to decide if there are any limits to\u00a0the outrages that the longtime U.S. \u201cally\u201d may commit, as\u00a0Trita Parsi explains. There should be little doubt that Saudi Arabia wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9786,441,522,11445,701,11410,1633,1634,1899,2662,11449,827],"class_list":["post-15990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-execution","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-nimr-al-nimr","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-saudi-embassy","tag-shia","tag-shiite","tag-sunni","tag-tehran","tag-trita-parsi","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15992,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15990\/revisions\/15992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}