{UAH} SAUDI ARABIA AND IRAN RECONCILE

TWO MORTAL ENEMIES SAUDI ARABIA AND IRAN RECONCILE – A SLAP IN BIDEN’S FACE

Posted by Ernest Dempsey | Mar 17, 2023 | 0 

Last week, a historic deal of reconciliation was achieved between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two mortal enemies in Middle Eastern politics. The deal, negotiated by China, is seen not only as a landmark step in the initiation of long-term peace in the region but also a slap in the face of the Biden administration.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been political foes since day one, owing mainly to their opposing versions of Islam with Iran representing the Shia version of the religion and Saudi Arabia representing the Sunni version.

In January 2016, the two Middle Eastern powers severed all diplomatic ties after Saudi Arabia rounded up and executed dozens of Shia Muslims in its country, including the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Seven years later, China attained the next-to-impossible task of bringing the two arch rivals together via a reconciliation deal whereby both nations would restore diplomatic relations and work to “regional and international peace and security.”

The two countries will reopen embassies in each other’s capitals in the next two months and reestablish trade and security relations. 

This deal literally opens the door to long-term peace and stability in the Middle East since both sides are heavily invested in targeting each other’s political interests in the region, particularly in the embattled Yemen, where Saudi coalition forces have been actively combating Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2015.

At the same time, this development is being called by many sources as a setback to the United States in the current political atmosphere in multiple ways. Business Insider, a left-wing news publication, called the China-brokered peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran “a middle finger to Biden” citing a former American diplomat.

The story wrote:

China and Iran are top US adversaries. The deal signals Beijing’s rising influence in the region.

The story cited former diplomat Aaron David Miller, who has served in both Republican and Democrat administrations, as he tweeted: “It’s a middle finger to Biden and a practical calculation of Saudi interests.”

Russian media commented on the Saudi-Iran reconciliation deal as well as China’s role as the mediator, both seen as “a blow to US influence in the Persian Gulf,” and added:

It effectively ruins a US led campaign to pressurize and isolate Iran and hinders American efforts to shape regional politics in Israel’s favor via the Abraham Accords.

On Wednesday, Iran’s English-language daily The Tehran Times wrote that the Saudi-Iran reconciliation deal marks a point of political isolation for the United States that has aggressively pushed for war in Ukraine while China has taken the lead as the peacemaker in the Middle East.

Israel, an arch political foe of Iran, has shown frustration with the new development between the Saudi and Iranian sides and has called it a result of the combined weakness of the Biden administration and the previous Israeli government of Naftali Bennett.

On the contrary, Bennett has already blamed Netanyahu’s government for the development.

According to the BBC, the US has “cautiously welcomed” the Saudi-Iran deal toward normalizing relations and working on regional peace.

 

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