Iranian Military Official Condemns Attacks on Saudi Embassy and Consulate
By DECLAN WALSH

CAIRO — For all the diplomatic dominoes that have fallen across the Middle East in recent days, with ambassadors from different countries flying home as a result of the explosive rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the map of allegiances has not significantly altered.

Certainly, several countries offered muscular shows of solidarity to Saudi Arabia after an Iranian mob attacked its embassy in Tehran over the weekend, prompting a crisis that has put the United States in a bind and has threatened to set back the prospects for a resolution to the conflict in Syria.

By Tuesday, Kuwait had recalled its ambassador to Iran, the United Arab Emirates had downgraded its diplomatic relationship, and Bahrain and Sudan had joined Saudi Arabia in severing its relationship with Tehran entirely.

Yet many other Sunni Muslim countries signaled that they intended to take a more measured approach to the argument — sympathizing with Saudi Arabia, a rich and powerful ally, but also determined to avoid getting sucked into a harmful conflict with Iran, a country governed by Shiite clerics, with potentially grave costs.

“The smaller Gulf states are worried they will get caught in the middle,” said Michael Stephens, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “It worries them greatly that things could go badly.”

Some countries, like Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, are already battling their own domestic insurgencies. Others are keen to guard their strategic interests or to keep the door open to trade with Iran while there is a prospect of American sanctions being lifted.

Qatar, which shares with Iran access to the world’s largest natural gas field in the Persian Gulf, has yet to declare its hand. Oman has also been quiet, sticking to its longstanding position of neutrality on Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In Turkey, where senior officials have warned about the impact of the crisis on a “powder keg” region, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu offered his country’s services to help resolve the conflictpeacefully.

“Diplomatic channels must be given a chance immediately,” Mr. Davutoglu said Tuesday at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party in the capital, Ankara. Frosty relations between Turkey and Saudi Arabia have warmed in recent months. But even in Pakistan, which for decades has had a close alliance with Saudi Arabia, there is a marked reluctance to plunge into the crisis.

On Tuesday, the Pakistani prime minister’s foreign affairs adviser, Sartaj Aziz, warned Parliament that the crisis posed a “grave danger” to the Muslim world. He did not hint at any possible diplomatic moves against Iran, emphasizing instead that Pakistan would work toward “easing tensions.” Although Pakistan has received substantial Saudi financing to bolster its flagging economy, the government in Islamabad also faces pressure from its sizable Shiite minority, and it plans to develop a major gas pipeline with Iran to solve its energy crisis.

Another Saudi ally , Egypt, has received billions of dollars in assistance from Saudi Arabia in recent years. In a visit to Riyadh on Tuesday, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, reaffirmed their nations’ alliance, saying, “The security of the kingdom is an integral part of Egypt’s security.” But Egypt’s room for maneuver against Iran is limited. Cairo severed official ties with Tehran in 1989, although there have been sporadic efforts in recent years to revive them.

Mr. Stephens, the analyst, said countries with their own insurgencies were unlikely to do much for Saudi Arabia beyond offering words of support.

“The Turks have a problem with the Kurds, the Egyptians have difficulties in Sinai, and the Pakistanis have their own issues,” he said. “They will publicly support the Saudis, but they don’t have the energy or military strength for anything more.”

There is little doubt that many Gulf countries share Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Iran, whose support for armed groups in Syria and Iraq has contributed to a burst of sectarian warfare across the Middle East. Many were also offended by the attacks on Saudi diplomatic buildings over the weekend, which followed the execution of a Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

Western countries fear that a deepening divide in the region could scupper efforts to negotiate an end to the Syrian crisis and defeat the Islamic State. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters on Tuesday that it was not in the interest of the leaders of Saudi Arabia or Iran “to continue to foment the kind of violence that often leads to radicalization and terrorism.”

Yet the showdown is another reminder of Saudi Arabia’s limited ability, despite all its great wealth, to bend its allies to its will. The two most powerful countries to move against Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, have taken diplomatic half-steps that could easily be reversed if this storm were to blow over.

And Yemen, where the Saudis are backing the government as it tries to repel a rebellion by Shiite rebels known as Houthis, has demonstrated the limits of Saudi military power.

Although Saudi Arabia triggered the current dispute by executing Sheikh Nimr, a firebrand who had led popular protests in eastern Saudi Arabia, several analysts said Riyadh appeared to be acting from a position of weakness, or at least frustration. The Saudi economy is straining, the country is embroiled in conflicts in Syria and Yemen, and its leaders worry about the prospect of an American rapprochement with Iran.

“They are under pressure on so many fronts,” said Toby Matthiesen, a research fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and author of a book on Saudi’s Shiites.

There are signs that Iran is feeling the strain of international condemnation.

On Tuesday, a commander of Iran’s hard-line military group condemned the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran as an “ugly, unjustifiable act.” It was a sign, according to some analysts, that hard-liners in the Iranian regime might regret not having done more to keep the protests under control, and that they might have been taken aback by the vehemence of the international response.

The statement could have been a sign of factional inside the Iranian regime, said Mr. Matthiesen.

“This is one way of getting at the reformists inside Iran,” he said. “The two keys issues under debate are the negotiations with the United States, and reaching out to the Saudis. Now that relations with the Saudis have been severed, the non-reformists will be empowered.”

伊朗中計被孤立 驚覺沙國設局

紐約時報報導，當沙烏地阿拉伯二日斬首著名的什葉派教士尼姆時，伊朗的什葉派神權政治高層就認為這是宿敵沙國蓄意挑釁，因此拿出他們最喜歡的劇本，讓民眾走上街頭，火攻沙國大使館。但隨後的發展演變為一場外交危機，讓原本想在擺脫國際制裁後重新站上世界舞台的伊朗又陷入孤立，這才驚覺中了沙烏地的計。

在尼姆被處決的幾小時內，伊朗的民族主義網站號召民眾到德黑蘭的沙國大使館和馬什哈德的領事館前抗議。當憤怒的群眾用汽油彈燒大使館、爬過圍欄、破壞部分建築時，警察袖手旁觀。

現在，伊朗領袖必須評估是否中了沙國的計，在伊朗期望擺脫制裁，重拾強權地位之際，又陷入新危機中。

伊朗也許原本冀望從沙國處決尼姆在全球各地引起的怒火中獲利，卻發現再度被敵人在當地和海外描繪成煽動者。

部分伊朗人懷疑沙國在新的外交危機中又占了上風。

伊朗聖城庫姆的教士梅巴迪說：「他們知道我們不能袖手旁觀，他們竟然真的殺了他，這讓我們所有人都大感意外。很不幸，他們預測到我們的反應，並用來對付我們，企圖再孤立伊朗。」

在使館被攻擊後，沙國與伊朗斷交，沙國的盟友巴林和蘇丹也跟進，阿拉伯聯合大公國和科威特則召回駐伊朗大使。聯合國安理會四日發表聲明，強烈譴責伊朗民眾攻擊沙國使館，卻未提尼姆被處決一事。

沙國和伊朗的舉動使伊斯蘭教遜尼派和什葉派的對立更兩極化，為兩國在中東的代理戰爭火上加油，也迫使美國和其他西方國家必須選邊站，該挺盟邦沙烏地？還是西方為了緩和敘利亞內戰而積極交往的伊朗？

去年十二月，沙國和伊朗外長在紐約面談敘利亞和平進程，交戰各方預定本月廿五日在日內瓦和談，但未敲定由誰代表阿塞德政權或反抗軍，現在沙國和伊朗鬧翻，和談前景更令人困惑。

伊朗駐聯合國大使默阿里米試圖緩和新緊張情勢可能不利於敘利亞和葉門和談的憂慮，他說：「我們這一方應不受影響，因為我們將持續努力支持和談。」

幾家伊朗報紙暗示，伊朗強硬派精銳部隊「革命衛隊」可能涉入攻擊沙國使館計畫。駐德黑蘭的革命衛隊指揮官卡賽梅尼將軍五日否認此說，並稱攻擊使館是「全然錯誤的醜陋行為」。分析家說，卡賽梅尼這番談話是伊朗強硬派對此事最明確的表態，顯示他們對沒有全力阻止示威者攻擊使館、讓伊朗在外交戰落居下風感到後悔。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/world/middleeast/kuwait-iran-feud-saudi-arabia.html

2016-01-06．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯田思怡