U.S. initiatives at risk as Mideast tensions rise

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s key Middle East initiatives – ending Syria’s civil war, combating Islamic State and implementing the Iranian nuclear deal – could be undermined by the explosion of tensions between the region’s two powerhouses, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

A historically fraught rivalry between Sunni Muslim-dominated Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran, previously fought mostly through proxies, now is more direct than ever and threatens to engulf the region in a new spiral of bitter confrontations, analysts said.

Saudi Arabia took the drastic measure of cutting off diplomatic ties with Iran over the weekend, after Shiite Muslims infuriated by the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia torched the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.

Sunni-dominated governments in Bahrain and Sudan also severed relations with Tehran on Monday, while the United Arab Emirates downgraded its diplomatic ties to the attache level.

On Monday, the government in Riyadh went a step further, barring its citizens from traveling to Iran and ending air traffic and other commercial relations, although it said Iranians would still be welcome to make the annual religious pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.

Iran must behave “like a normal country” and not “a revolution,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir said, according to Reuters.

The Saudi kingdom’s decision last week to execute an outspoken Shiite cleric and government critic, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, along with 46 other dissidents and militants, apparently caught Washington by surprise.

The Obama administration had worked hard to bring Riyadh and Tehran into negotiations aimed at finding a political solution to the civil war in Syria. Iran has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Saudi Arabia is supporting some of the armed groups fighting to oust him.

Peace talks are still expected to start at the United Nations this month, but the long-shot prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough now appear considerably dimmer.

“It was essential to bring Saudi Arabia and Iran together, and there was some progress,” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “That is all sort of shot. This is going to complicate just about everything the administration is trying to do” in the Middle East.

Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, acknowledged Monday that the escalating conflict poses problems for the U.S. strategy to find a diplomatic solution to the war in Syria.

“There will always be reasons to be reluctant to engage,” Earnest said. But the White House is “hopeful” that won’t happen, he said, because “it is so clearly in the interest of both countries.”

The administration is urging both sides to “de-escalate” their conflict and “not further inflame” tensions, Earnest said.

Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by telephone Monday to his Iranian counterpart and was attempting similar contact with the Saudis, spokesman John Kirby said.

Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies view Iran with growing distrust and anger, and worry that the Obama administration’s nuclear deal will allow Tehran to end its global isolation and gain access to more than $60 billion in frozen funds this year.

A more powerful Iran, combined with low prices for the oil that props up the Saudi economy, and the largely unsuccessful war Saudi Arabia is waging against what it claims are Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Yemen, has pushed the kingdom to act more aggressively.

“The Saudis have their own agenda, which they are carrying out without regard for what we say or do or need,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran U.S. diplomat in the Middle East who is now with the nonpartisan Wilson Center in Washington.