Saudi Arabia fears, hates Iran’s influence: Analyst

The Al Saud regime both fears and hates Iran’s growing political and economic influence in the Middle East, a political analyst writes for Press TV.

In an article published on Press TV website on Thursday, Finian Cunningham argued that there are different reasons why Saudi Arabia fears and hates the Islamic Republic, which has a growing influence “everywhere in the region.”

The analyst stated that the Al Saud regime’s “hatred” of Iran has intensified following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which “threatened all autocratic rulers in the region,” adding that Riyadh views “Iran’s demonstratively more democratic credentials as a mortal threat to its despotism.”

“The more Iran’s political influence grows in the region, the more the Saudi rulers fear an existential threat,” wrote Cunningham.

Cunningham further pointed to Iran’s vast energy resources and its economic growth and said Saudi Arabia wants the Islamic Republic to be “prevented from developing its potential energy wealth.”

“The Saudi despots and their American patrons cannot afford Iranian development as an economic power. That directly threatens the House of Saud, politically and economically, which in turn threatens Washington to its very core,” wrote the analyst.

The analyst also wrote that the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia hates Iran, which is the “center of Shia Islam in the region and the world.”

He underlined the crimes perpetrated by Saudi-backed Takfiri militants against Shia Muslims and others religious groups in Syria, saying Riyadh’s “fear and hatred of Iran are expressed in waging covert war against Iran and its allies, including Syria and the people of Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen and anywhere else.”