Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Iran Amid Fallout From Cleric’s Execution
By BEN HUBBARD

BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, marking a swift escalation in a strategic and sectarian rivalry that underpins conflicts across the Middle East.

The surprise move, announced in a news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the Saudis’ execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protesters in response.

The cutting of diplomatic ties came at a time when the United States and others had hoped that even limited cooperation between the two powers could help end the crushing civil wars in Syria and Yemen while easing tensions in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Instead, analysts feared it would increase sectarian divisions and investment in proxy wars. “This is a very disturbing escalation,” said Michael Stephens, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a research center based in London. “It has enormous consequences for the people of the region, and the tensions between the two sides are going to mean that instability across the region will continue.”

American officials have said the Saudi-Iranian split does not bode well for international peacemaking efforts that require the two powers to make compromises.

The United States called for dialogue, with the State Department spokesman, John Kirby, saying, “We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences and we will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions.”

Secretary of State John Kerry, from his home in Idaho, spoke Sunday with Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif. The two have a close relationship, developed while negotiating the Iranian nuclear accord. Officials would not describe the contents of the call, but it was clearly an effort to urge the Iranians not to escalate the situation further by retaliating.

Still, the prospects for accommodation appeared to have reached their lowest point in years. Saudi Arabia and Iran follow separate strands of Islam and have long been rivals for influence across the Middle East and beyond. That has accelerated in recent years as the Iraq war and the Arab Spring uprisings upturned the regional order and gave both nations new ways to extend their reach.

That put them on opposite sides of various conflicts, often divided by sect. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia sent tanks to support the Sunni monarchy against protesters led by the island nation’s Shiite majority. In Syria, Iran has bankrolled the government of President Bashar al-Assad while Saudi Arabia has supported Sunni rebels seeking his ouster. And in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has led an air campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels

Further straining tensions are Saudi concerns that the Iranian nuclear agreement could increase Tehran’s ability to spread its influence. And Iran remains angry over Saudi Arabia’s handling of a stampede during the hajj in September that left more than 2,400 pilgrims dead, including more than 450 Iranians, according to a count by The Associated Press.

But setting off the war of words that finally broke relations was Saudi Arabia’s execution on Saturday of Sheikh Nimr, who had called for the overthrow of the Saudi royal family and served as a spiritual leader for protesters from the kingdom’s Shiite minority. The Saudi government accused him of inciting violence and executed him with 46 others, most of them said to be members of Al Qaeda.

The reaction in the region generally broke cleanly along sectarian lines, with Shiite leaders criticizing the Saudis for killing a man they called a peaceful dissident, while Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies applauded what they called the country’s efforts to fight terrorism.

Then late Saturday, protesters in Tehran ransacked the Saudi Embassy, and Iranian leaders turned up the rhetoric. “God’s hand of retaliation will grip the neck of Saudi politicians,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in comments reported on his official website.

The Iranians did, however, appear to take steps to prevent the dispute from escalating further, arresting 40 Iranians in the anti-Saudi mayhem.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, condemned the execution, but said that the attacks on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and on the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad had damaged Iran’s reputation. “We do not allow rogue groups to commit illegal actions and damage the holy reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said in a statement. Outside the Middle East, some criticized the Saudi justice system and the mass execution, the largest in the kingdom in decades.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Saturday that he was “deeply dismayed” by the execution of Sheikh Nimr and the other men after “trials that raised serious concerns over the nature of the charges and the fairness of the process.” The European Union cited similar questions about “freedom of expression and the respect of basic civil and political rights.”

The Obama administration had appeared caught by surprise by the mass execution and scrambled at first to understand exactly who had been put to death. Privately several senior administration officials expressed anger at the Saudis, both for what one called “an apparent absence of due process” in the executions, and another for “negligent disregard” for how it could inflame the region. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic engagement with both countries. 

The Saudi Foreign Ministry responded to Iran’s criticism on Sunday by accusing it of “blind sectarianism” and of spreading terrorism. Hours later, Mr. Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, announced the ending of diplomatic ties at a news conference in Riyadh, saying the kingdom would not allow Iran to undermine its security. “The history of Iran is full of negative and hostile interference in Arab countries, always accompanied by ruin, destruction and the killing of innocent souls,” he said. Analysts said the split could further destabilize the region.

“These countries don’t trust one another, and they see every event as an opportunity to raise tensions,” said Abbas Kadhim, a senior foreign policy fellow at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Since Saudi Arabia and Iran both appear reluctant to attack each other directly, he worried that they would increase their investment in indirect confrontations elsewhere. “Both countries will try their best to try to fortify their proxies and their activities, which is going to create more trouble,” Mr. Kadhim said.

That risks derailing a new round of international peace talks aimed at ending the civil war in Syria, a process that Mr. Kerry has worked hard to get going.

The talks, meant to begin this month, were to be the first to bring together the Syrian government, the opposition and a range of countries that include Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“We’re obviously concerned this could blow up the process,” one senior Obama administration official said. “But it’s too early to say what the impact could be.”

Saudi officials have long said they think that Mr. Kerry’s effort is doomed to failure, and that was before Sunday’s diplomatic breach with Iran.

Still, Obama administration officials noted Iran’s efforts over the weekend to keep the situation on the streets from spinning out of control. “The Iranians, in this case, acted responsibly,” Michael Morell, the former deputy director of the C.I.A., said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “The police showed up very quickly. They made a number of arrests.”

Despite that, officials believe that the Sunni-Shiite proxy war that was already underway in Syria and Yemen may only grow more intense, at least for a while. And in coming weeks the United States and its negotiating partners in the Iran deal are preparing to carry out that accord, including an end to sanctions that have tied up more than $100 billion in Iranian assets frozen in overseas bank accounts. Critics are already arguing that will give Iran more money to fund the conflict in Syria and beyond.

Shortly after announcing the execution of Sheikh Nimr on Saturday, Saudi Arabia said it was ending a two-and-a-half-week-old cease-fire in Yemen that had never really taken hold.

Saudi Arabia launched a military campaign in Yemen almost 10 months ago, largely driven by fears that Iran was supporting the Houthi rebels who had driven the Yemeni government from power and sought to turn them into a proxy military force on the kingdom’s southern border.

But Western diplomats say the Saudis vastly overstated the Iranian role, at least at the war’s start. Nonetheless, a Saudi Arabia-led military coalition, backed by the United States, has killed thousands of civilians in airstrikes. The Houthis remain in control of large parts of the country, and the Saudi-led coalition has struggled to secure the areas it has managed to capture.

Peace talks held in Switzerland last month ended in failure, and there is little hope that a second scheduled to begin next week will deliver a better result.

忍無可忍 沙國與伊朗斷交

沙烏地2日處決沙國知名的什葉派反政府教士尼姆，大批伊朗人隨即硬闖並縱火破壞沙國駐德黑蘭大使館後，沙國3日與伊朗斷交，同時限令駐沙國的伊朗外交官員48小時內離境，駐伊朗大使也已離開德黑蘭。

沙國外長朱貝爾表示，沙國絕對不容伊朗破壞它的安全。他說：「伊朗的歷史充斥對阿拉伯事務的負面干預與敵意，而且始終伴隨破壞。」他並指控伊朗企圖製造「區域動盪」。

朱貝爾又說，沙國當局曾經要求伊朗確保沙國駐德黑蘭大使館的安全，對方卻未予配合。

不僅兩國關係因為尼姆遭到處決而急遽惡化，中東與南亞地區的什葉派教徒也群情激憤。

瞭解沙國官方立場的消息人士說，沙國不止對伊朗已經「忍無可忍」，更因為美國未就伊朗在中東地區肆行干預有所回應而極為不滿。他說：「伊朗一再對西方國家嗤之以鼻；持續資助恐怖主義，試射彈道飛彈。各國卻視若無睹。」

沙國與伊朗為爭奪區域影響力而長期為敵，沙國處決尼姆顯示，它對伊朗的立場已更強硬。美國鼓勵雙方保持外交接觸，同時呼籲區域各國領導人以「集體措施」降低緊張。

美國國務院稍早表示，沙國處決尼姆可能導致「宗派對峙惡化」。歐盟擔憂區域恐出現「危險的後果」。

聯合國秘書長潘基文表示驚愕，德國及法國外交部也譴責沙國處決。國際特赦組織說，此事顯示沙國正「利用處決來解決政治宿怨」，以反恐作為幌子來箝制異議。

沙國強調，尼姆因為從事恐怖活動而受刑。如果沙國王室特赦，尼姆可免一死。伊朗官員曾經多次設法代他求情，沙國國王薩爾曼則拒絕介入。沙國官員認為，尼姆企圖煽動沙國居少數的什葉派教徒。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-arabia-execution-sheikh-nimr.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/world/20160104/c04saudi/zh-hant/

Video：Protesters gathered in Tehran on Sunday to denounce Saudi Arabia’s execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, an outspoken Shiite cleric.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000004123151/iran-protests-execution-of-sheikh.html

2016-01-04．聯合晚報．A6．國際焦點．編譯陳世欽