Is the problem with Iran limited to Saudi Arabia? The question may seem strange to some. However, most Arab media coverage implies this. What is more strange is that there is no direct and apparent Iranian invasion of Saudi Arabia. This is a suicidal adventure anyway. However, there is an invasion of Yemen, Iraq and Syria and semi-occupation and tutelage over Lebanon through the local proxy, Hezbollah. There is destructive Iranian activity in Saudi Arabia through terrorist cells in Qatif and Ahsa, east of the country. Iran maliciously supports al-Qaeda networks which consist of Osama bin Laden’s and Zawahiri’s disciples. The fact that Osama’s children stayed in Iran where they were protected by the Revolutionary Guards is an example. In brief, this is not Saudi Arabia’s battle alone. It is the battle of all Arabs and all Muslims, or rather all humans against a regime that incites sedition. He who does not fight the battle today according to his own conditions will be eaten up by villains. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2017/11/20/Iran-the-battle-of-all-Arabs.html I too believe that the Ayatullas are the battle of all Arabs and all Muslims.. The country which support terror should be punished.. hard.
Iran has inserted themselves into world affairs in a very negative way with their financing of international terrorism for various rationalized justifications most of them related to their fantasy god Allah and their brand of Islam called Shiite. Saudi Arabia the mother of all that is Islam and their brand called Sunni is simply attacking Iran back. Iran started it. Saudi Arabia is finishing it.
It goes farther and deeper than Arab and Muslim world. It's the battle for freedom and human rights. Look at Iran's allies - the extreme left, North Korea, China, Venezuela, al-Qaeda (on and off, but still...), Putin's Russia. Persian-language reporters working abroad and their families are often threatened and pressured to perform "aesthetic surgery" on news about Iran. Truth itself is the bitter enemy of the Ayatollahs. Europeans are very naive if they imagine that short term economic interests - boosted by the recent Obama-engineered treaty - would persuade the Iranian regime to give up its hegemonic ambitions. Iran didn't renounce its nuclear weapons program, just outsourced it to North Korea.
What's pretty funny, at least here in America, most people have no idea of the hatred between Persians and Arabs, let alone Sunni and Shia. The problems and destruction between these two cultures goes back further and has more death involved than the Greek/Persian issue. Well, maybe not time wise....
Right, that's iran's magical 75 year old get-out-of-jail-card to mass slaughter and genocide people across the region and beyond, got it. How long is that card good for, 1,000 years? Along the same deep thinking lines, since UK burned down the white house in 1812, I believe the US has the right to drop a nuke on new zealand because it is part of the British commonwealth. Perhaps you can explain how the US paying iranians to remove a self-proclaimed dictator in 1953 gives iran the legitimacy of running wars in iraq, yemen, lebanon, gaza, and syria? Were they also involved in the 1953 events?
oh no, that was just the start. The shah and his secret police were real nice guys. Then of course throw in that whole sunni oppressing shia as apostates thing that has been going on since day 2. Since america was considered the great satan (with some very good reasons according to the iranians) and considering that the Saud's had their hands stuck up America's arse, and considering the Iranians have been intimately involved in a 1400 year long sectarian war its no wonder they are actively and aggressively concerned about their own sovereignty and security. That doesn't make the Supreme Council any less nasty or hostile nor excuse their actions. Funny but IIRC, the saudis have had way more to do with promoting terrorism and extremism than the Iranians. I guess the difference in attitude is the saudis are "allies", so their own culpability is ignored.
Anyway, it's a war who last for 1400 years and will last until the end of islam. Apparently, they're is a lot of athees in Iran, even if they don't claim it for obvious reasons. I hope they would be even more. Pre islamic persian culture is rather interesting, and the fact that regulary persian intellectual like Maryam Mirzakhani rise up is rather impressive considering they're living in a dark age.
Nope it is history as to how Iran developed into a theocratic State. It could be taken further. Iran would have had her own 'Spring' if she had not seen what happened to other countries with the outside interference. Everyone expected it. Had we kept our paws out we could now be dealing with a secular democratic Iran. Actions have consequences.
Saudi Arabia is a despotic, war mongering country who are allied with the demonic powers of Israel and it's puppet the USA....they are ruthless Arabs, who think nothing of murdering innocent people such as is happening in Yemen, under the guise of "religion".... Iran is fighting for it's very existence, and have been ever since 1979 when they overthrew the ruthless dictator "the shah" who was sponsored and installed by the USA in the late fifties...the Iranians are Persian people, who are very creative and productive, unlike the Arabs who are ruthless and death orientated.
pfft... both sides are so dirty I'm glad I don't have to touch any of it ISIS was suppose to weaken Iran's position in the middle east and now with the help of Russia and the US it's stronger than ever. Their (ISIS) cruelty towards the local population, Christian, Shi'ite and Sunni helped the recruiting drive for Hezbollah. Whilst the Saudis want a religious war between Shi'ite and Sunni to unite all Sunni's against Iran, the Saudi's funding of ISIS and their siding with Israel will divide the Sunni's, which is what Iran is counting on. The Saudi's need Israel because they are no match for Iran who has patience and a long term strategy beyond the Saudi's comprehension, Iran is chasing it's Persian empire.
After Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the pro-Western shah, the new Islamic Republic established an aggressive foreign policy of exporting the Iranian revolution, attempting to foment Iran-style theocratic uprisings around the Middle East. That was a threat to Saudi Arabia's heavy influence in the Middle East, and perhaps to the Saudi monarchy itself. "The fall of the shah and the establishment of the militant Islamic Republic of [founding leader] Ruhollah Khomeini came as a particularly rude shock to the Saudi leadership," University of Virginia's William Quandt writes. It "brought to power a man who had explicitly argued that Islam and hereditary kingship were incompatible, a threatening message, to say the least, in [the Saudi capital of] Riyadh." https://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10718456/sunni-shia You can see the same thing unfolding in Syria. The violence at first had little to do with religion: It was about the Syrian people versus a tyrannical government. But the Syrian government is allied with Iran, which means it is hostile to Saudi Arabia, so the Saudis see it as their enemy. The Saudis and other Sunni Gulf states armed Syrian rebels who are Sunni hard-liners, knowing the rebels' anti-Shia views made them more hostile to Iran and more loyal to Saudi interests. Iran used much the same strategy, portraying the Syrian war as a genocidal campaign against Shia. This helped Tehran attract Shia militias from Iraq and Lebanon that would fight for Iranian interests. Making the Syrian civil war as sectarian as possible also ensures that the Syrian government, which is Shia, will remain loyal to Iran. French Ambassador to the US Gérard Araud put it pretty well when he said, commenting on Hasan's video, "As usual, religion is a mere instrument of state ambitions."
It is important for people to realise that it was only once the Yemen war got started that sectarianism began in Yemen and that was the Houthis who are loosely a branch of Shia together with Sunni Muslims fighting Al Qaeda. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/1/21/houthi-conflict-in-yemen-and-fight-against-aqap.html
Yemen profile - Timeline 1 November 2017 A chronology of key events: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14704951 This timeline should dispel most of the sloppy propaganda about Yemen.
and The important bit comes here. It was the Iraq war which upset the balance Then going back to where the Sunni Shia thing began https://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10718456/sunni-shia
Yeah, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, all countries fully in peace. Argumentation seems rather weak. First, I would have liked a bibliography, because the author claims a lot of things but prove few. Secund, BTW, religion is not the only one factor, otherwy the sunni hezbollah and the shia iran wouldn't unite and Iran sided with sunni many times. Third, however, driven out the religious aspect is as mad. What do you think a suicide bomber except when he blow himself up in a shia mosque in Pakistan. Political calculus ? Muhammed had an obsession for religious purity, and many quran verse show a great hatred for what muhammed called the "hypocrites", muslim who weren't fully hearted muslim, calling to fight them and promissing them hell. It's logical that this quest of purity is among his followers. Al Khattib Al Baghdadi narrated that the founder of one of the most important school of sunnism, Malekism, was threatened of death because of one of his interpretation of a hadith. So it's not only among the shia and the sunni, even sunni on sunni violence exist.
Hezbollah is Shia not Sunni... IMO Iran is OK.. They just have a terrible government. Look at how they straddle the oil corridor.
There might be a degree of truth to that but Saudi Arabia isn't exactly a shining beacon of freedom either. They'd probably be grouped right up along with all those other countries if it wasn't for the fact that the U.S. needs them as a dependable ally in the region and to help create a counterbalance.
Iran has been buying gasoline from VZ for 15 years or so. They have very little refining capacity. Currently they are rebuilding an old BP refinery from 1918 and that should boost refining capacity to 350,000 bpd. The Saudis don't want a Sunni Shia war.. Only 13% of all Muslims are Shia. ISIS declared war on Saudi Arabia about 4 years ago and have carried out many attacks and suicide bombings in the kingdom. Nothing wrong with Iran except their government.