European Sympathies Lean Toward Iran in Conflict with Saudi Arabia
By
LONDON — In the days since Saudi Arabia inflamed tensions with Iranby executing 47 people, including a Shiite cleric, European observers have been quick to condemn the action, reflecting broader concern across the Continent about Saudi policy and its role in the tumult rolling through the Middle East.
Opposition in Europe to the death penalty — and harsh corporal punishment, including the flogging of a Saudi blogger who has become something of a cause célèbre in Europe — is just one element of the criticism of the Saudi monarchy. Even as European governments continue to view Saudi Arabia as a vital if problematic stabilizing force in the region, as well as a rich market for European arms and other products, European opinion has grown increasingly critical of Saudi support and financing forWahhabist and Salafist preachers who have contributed to the Sunni extremist ideology that has fueled Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
In addition, the European Union and six major world powers reached a deal in Vienna over the summer to contain Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran is seen as essential to ending the five-year-old civil war in Syria, which has fueled a surge of migrants to the Continent, the highest number since World War II.
So for many Europeans, Iran — long a pariah because of its anti-Western rhetoric and its nuclear program — has suddenly become, at least in comparison with Saudi Arabia, an object of sympathy.
“As long as Saudi Arabia is led by its obsession to put Iran in its place, all attempts at peace in the Middle East will fail,” Rainer Hermann, a Middle East expert in Germany, wrote in a column in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, warning that Saudi Arabia might destroy the carefully wrought attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
While it was difficult to gauge broad public attitudes, a review of elite opinion — as expressed by political leaders on social media, commentators in major publications, and a few experts in interviews — suggests that many Europeans blame Saudi Arabia for instigating the latest dispute by executing the cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. The crisis quickly escalated with the ransacking of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran on Saturday and with the decision of Saudi Arabia and several of its allies to sever diplomatic ties with Iran.
Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister who was a central player in resolving the Balkans conflicts in the 1990s, warned on Twitter that the decision to execute the cleric “doesn’t bode well for the stability of the Kingdom” and called Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut ties to Iran “a distinctly bad move.” (He added, “It goes without saying that Iran gravely neglected its duties to protect Saudi diplomatic premises.”)
European governments were more circumspect in their criticism — but not much more. The French Foreign Ministry said it deplored the executions. The European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherlini,said they had the “potential of inflaming further the sectarian tensions that already bring so much damage to the entire region.”
Britain, a major supplier of weapons to Saudi Arabia, was the most cautious in its criticism of the executions.
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For average Europeans, it’s the executions themselves that are revolting to the general public.” Policy makers, he said, were more focused on not losing the momentum of the European détente with Iran.
“Iran has been, relatively, good in implementing the nuclear deal so far, and elections are coming next month,” Mr. Xavier-Bender said. “The normalization of relations with Iran is almost going too well. So Saudi Arabia is now making a show of force.”
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posted by Satish Sharma at
08:14
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