DIIS Comment

Iran in intense infighting after the Saudi embassy attack in Tehran

The Iran-Saudi crisis comes at a critical time for Iranian President Rouhani

The crisis between Iran and Saudi-Arabia highlights and feeds into Iran’s intense power battle leading up to the February Parliamentary elections. Iranian media shows greatly diverging reactions to the attack on Saudi-Arabia’s embassy in Tehran – ranging from applause to condemnation. Although hampered by the crisis, Iran’s moderate President Rouhani could still use these reactions to his benefit.

The crisis between Iran and Saudi-Arabia comes at a critical time for Rouhani’s government, only one and a half month before the pivotal elections to the Parliament and Assembly of Experts on February 26. The storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad in response to Saudi-Arabia’s execution of the prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr were undoubtedly meant to undermine Rouhani’s policy of ‘prudence and moderation’. Although the attack is a setback for Rouhani, the embassy attack also serves to highlight the pivotal differences, which Iranian voters face in the elections. It shows the anxiety of Rouhani’s opponents, who have used every opportunity to obstruct the government since the nuclear deal was successfully concluded on July 14 (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA), trying to ensure that Rouhani could not translate the nuclear success into a moderate election victory in February. But the crisis may also reignite the supporters of Rouhani and emphasize the necessity of his diplomatic approach.

During the last two years Rouhani has reached out to the international community (including Saudi-Arabia) and apart from reaching a nuclear deal strongly emphasized the need for Iran to be part of the Syrian peace talks - showing Iran as a rational, serious international actor and a powerful regional mediator. In stark contrast to this policy, Iran’s hardliners now use the current crisis to applaud the deteriorating relations with Saudi-Arabia and demand an end to the government’s ‘diplomacy of compromise’. On January 5, in response to Saudi-Arabia cutting the diplomatic ties hardline newspaper Vatan-e Emruz stated on its front page: ‘Go to hell!’ - quite likely also referring to the government’s regional diplomacy. While moderate daily Ebtekar’s front page on the same day lamented the ‘Return to the age of ignorance’, hard-line Keyhan headlined its front page report: ‘Iran gets cleansed of the dishonour of ties with the Al-Saud’. Conservative daily Siyasat-e Ruz referred to the ‘holy hatred’ of the Iranian people against the al-Saud regime and emphasized that ‘The majority of the people are absolutely happy about the breaking of relations between the Saudi regime and the Islamic Republic of Iran’.

While the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has been conspicuously silent regarding the embassy attacks, Rouhani’s government and followers have been very vocal in criticizing the ‘extremists’, who retaliated ‘emotionally’, and engaged in the ‘illogical, wrong, illegal’ attacks. On his website January 3, President Rouhani said that the storming of the embassy was ‘in no way justifiable’: ‘it is deemed an insult to the system and a blow to the reputation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. His denunciation has been joined by a large part of the political elite, including former President Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi and even Brigadeer General of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Kazemeini, who on January 6 said that ‘The attack and burning of the Saudi Embassy…was very wrong, and by no means can this ugly act be justified’. Blaming the ‘completely organized’ demonstration on unnamed persons he emphasized that the protest was not carried out by ‘faithful forces’.

Most critics emphasize that the attacks gave Saudi-Arabia a ‘pretext’ and ‘excuse’ to cut off ties; that it ‘suited Saudi Arabia’s policies,’ while hampering Iran’s international reputation. Blaming Iran’s law enforcement forces for ‘its failure to control public anger’, MP Gholamali Ja’farzadeh told the Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency on January 5: ‘The cut in ties with Saudi Arabia is not important, but the subsequent “anti-Iran propaganda” is not going to benefit us, either’. The ‘emotional reaction’ of the embassy attackers ‘sweetened the Saudi’s appetite to deceive and create tension with Iran’, moderate daily Mardon-Salari stated, while other critics blamed the attackers for being ‘friends of al-Saud’ and ‘infiltrators’. A main frustration among the critics has been that the attacks ‘distracted attention from the main issue’ – Saudi’s despicable execution of the cleric - and put ‘the ball in Iran’s court’.

Few critics were as direct as Sadeq Zibakalam, who described the embassy violence as an obvious attempt to impede Rouhani’s government before the elections. In the reformist daily Sharq he said: ‘It is difficult to believe that those who planned the attack on Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Tehran were really protesting against the execution of Shaykh Nimr al-Nimr and did not have any other objectives such as harming [Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad] Zarif’s and his colleagues’ two-year nuclear talks. The risk and harms of the attack on the Saudi embassy were so much clear that one is tempted for a moment to think that the Saudis themselves might have organized the attack on their embassy in Tehran in a bid to undermine the credibility and the proper international position which the nuclear talks and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action have brought to Iran’.

The deteriorating diplomatic ties with Saudi-Arabia has in the short run embarrassed Iran’s President Rouhani and it can dangerously escalate the wars in Syria and Yemen – as the alleged Saudi attack on Iran’s embassy in Yemen on Thursday shows. However, Iran’s government can still survive a (temporary) worsening of the already bad relations to Saudi-Arabia, because it does not directly impact on Rouhani’s main objectives: The nuclear deal (JCPOA) is still on track, which will result in a lifting of sanctions within the next months. In effect China’s president Xi Jinping is travelling to Iran with a high level delegation on January 23 and Rouhani is going to Italy and France on January 26 to restore the political and financial relations with Europe. Also, although the Syrian peace negotiations will be damaged by the events of this week, Iran is still part of the negotiations: the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, arrives as planned on Saturday, January 9. The main issues for Rouhani are to keep Iran’s obligations to the JCPOA, and to steer the criticism of recent events to his benefit in the upcoming elections.

Regions
Iran Saudi Arabia
Iran in intense infighting after the Saudi embassy attack in Tehran
The Iran-Saudi crisis comes at a critical time for Iranian President Rouhani