The Saudis suck at proxy warfare. The Iranians are Hamas, Hizbollah and Fatah. Meanwhile the Saudis are reeling from the ill effects of $35/bbl oil while the Iranians are due to have their sanctions lifted. Nowhere does it suggest that the Iranians sacked the embassy as a state action, while the Saudis whipped their dicks out without even thinking about how it would look. Saudi Arabia is unstable and scared right now, while Iran, which survived 30-plus years as a rogue nation, is coming into the daylight. MY guess is the Iranians are making a play to provoke Saudi Arabia into shaking itself apart. Something Americans never remember is the Persians haven't fought a war of aggression since the Sassanid Empire. Intrigue and skullduggery? Hell to the yes. You're talking about a country that overthrew their American puppet without the US seeing it coming... and then two years later, capturing the CIA station chief for the Middle East. I'll bet this goes exactly as far south as Iran wants it to go.
Maybe. However, with the vacuum in Iraq and Syria, and the U.S. in an awkward situation of straddling deteriorating SA and improving Iran relations, I am not sure that Iran can keep things from spiraling beyond their control. They can influence Shi'ite areas, but they cannot orchestrate what the Sunnis are doing, and it looks like they are falling in line. Sudan and Bahrain just cut ties with Iran, and the UAE withdrew their ambassador. This is an area where a lot of people have weapons, and religious tensions run deep. Is there an Archduke Ferdinand driving about?
Meh. The UAE belongs to Saudi Arabia. They've always been the sea pirates to compliment the land raiders. Bahrain is the place Saudi Arabia allows the US to keep their military. Sudan, meanwhile... So far no Arab aid has been definitely granted for the Jonglei Canal project, but sources in The Sudan say substantial financial backing is forthcoming and, in any case, the project has been launched. In August, 1978, work began with the assembly of the giant excavator, a 450-foot machine weighing 2,000 tons. Built by West Germany's Siemens Company, and used only once before, the excavator looks and functions like an enormous ferris wheel: as the wheel turns, huge buckets mounted on it take great bites of earth out of the ground and dump them onto a conveyor belt that carries them away. The excavator can shift about 159,000 cubic feet of earth every hour - enough to fill the New Orleans Superdome to a depth of 11 feet. Engineers expect completion of the canal in 1981 - just in time, Arab aid officials think, to provide irrigation for the new breadbasket of the Middle East. Sudan has belonged to Saudi Arabia for so long there are Saudi ruins there. Saudi fingers have been in Sudanese pies since before the Shah fell. Meanwhile, the Iranians can say calm things like "Iran said Saudi Arabia made a “strategic mistake” that could only further divide the region and fuel militancy during crucial battles against the Islamic State and efforts to end Syria’s civil war" (from your own linked article) and remind the world they still have a WaPo journalist for sale . The Saudis being off the chain is entirely an American problem, with two prongs the US has near total control over (Bahrain, UAE) and one they have none (Sudan). Iran, meanwhile, gets to publicly point out that they condemned the execution and the sacking of the embassy, and there haven't been any articles about their nasty tendencies to hang homosexuals and drug users in almost a year. The Iranians are leaving it to the West to keep the Sunnis in line. Since they signed the treaty, that's their card to play. They're playing it. Any destabilization in Saudi Arabia (and let's be honest - if you were the Saudis, would you make a play like this if you weren't experiencing a great deal of destabilization?) only serves to make Iran's oil more attractive. Them crazy Persians can't help but come up on top. C'mon, now. You have to drive through Kuwait and Iraq to get to Iran from Saudi Arabia. Along the way you have to go through the Zagros, which the Kurds own by the way. Meanwhile, Iran has two navies bigger than Saudi's one and the Saudis are currently having a rough time quelling rebellion in Yemen, site of a ceasefire they also rolled back while executing Shia. The more I watch this, the more certain I am that the Iranians successfully provoked Saudi Arabia into lashing out and overreaching for their own geopolitical gain. The Saudi embassy burned because the Iranians wanted the Saudi embassy to burn because it was useful to chase some spies away and piss the Saudis off. Now that they've got the Saudis going batshit they can sit back and let the US spin their wheels in Riyadh. So much more efficient than firing Katyushas at Tel Aviv.The Rahad project has cost the Sudanese government about $333 million - but almost a third of it was provided by the Saudi and Kuwait Funds and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.
This is an area where a lot of people have weapons, and religious tensions run deep. Is there an Archduke Ferdinand driving about?
You are probably right that this won't lead to a larger regional conflict. However, just how desperate are the Saudi's for distraction? What steps will they take to prevent a collapse? Their crazy cheap oil has been a pain for US oil and natural gas development. The US media is increasingly unfriendly. But, Israel is not pleased with the US getting cozy with Iran... I do not think that Israel will sit by while the US swaps the Saudi Arabian alliance for an Iranian one without playing some cards of their own. I'm not saying that Iran and Saudi Arabia will divide Iraq and collide, but what if the Saudi's Sunni coalition against militancy decides to start 'fighting ISIS' in Iraq with boots on the ground? Will the Iraqi Sunnis be upset by that development? Will the Kurds? Will the Israelis?
I think the House of Saud lives in petrifying fear of a Muqtada al Sadr. Of an ibn Taymiyyah. Of an Abd al-Wahab. The House of Saud has been buying baubles for the rich and sops for the poor but one charismatic fundamentalist interested in burning out the impurities and the fat Benz drivers running things now are going to do a poor impression of TE Lawrence's nobles. I think, in many ways, they dwell in a cage of their own creation, which is one reason they frolic abroad so much. I think Netanyahu made a grave misstep when he aligned himself with the GOP against Obama. Traditionally, Israelis practice skullduggery. Traditionally, democrats practice skullduggery. Traditionally, Republicans go boots on ground and get mired in grand adventures and every time the Israelis roll out the troops they lose face and influence. Boots-on-ground in the Middle East right now is a fuckin' mess while skullduggery runs the world. Iran views Israel as an unfortunate historical anomaly, but they also celebrate "Death to America Day" and they seem to be able to overlook that in the interests of capitalism. I think now that they no longer need an Ahmadinejad, they're going to return to pragmatism. Iran is repressive and hidebound but Iran remains staunchly Persian. Fully a third of Saudi Arabia is foreigners and most of them hate being there. Iran is in zero danger of an uprising at the moment while Saudi Arabia... ...well, my money's on the Persians.
And there is always the specter of 9/11 hanging over the Saudis. As long as they stay all nicey-nicey with the US, nobody is gonna bring up their involvement. But the instant we decide Saudi Arabia is no longer a critical ally (oh, probably about the time we lift sanctions against Iran's oil), everyone in politics and the media is going to pile on the Saudis. This may become THE surprise issue for the Presidential election, in fact. Everybody is all cozy with the Saudis right now, but once the media machine turns, and decides to shine a bright light on the Saudi involvement in 9/11, we are going to see a lot of political movers get totally run outta town on a rail.
Yeah... I've read way too many books about the middle east and not a one of them has so much as pretended we have anything but selfish self-interest in our relationship with Saudi Arabia. I've seen a bunch of Hubbert Peak curve fits on Saudi oil production that lead me to believe we don't really know... but we do know that our relationship with Saudi Arabia and our dependence on fossil fuels are positively correlated. Open up Iran and things get interesting, especially as there's been a lot of shuffling amongst the oil and defense ministries of Saudi Arabia. Stephen Kinzer went as far as suggesting we ditch Saudi Arabia and Israel and align ourselves with Turkey and Iran. Turkey is making that harder lately... but Iran...