With the rising tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the execution of Sheikh Nimir al-Nimir, there is a wonderfully ironic element as Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of stifling free speech by a cleric who merely disagreed with the regime. Iran of course is the government that has beaten and killed protesters calling for basic rights. We have regularly commented on Saudi Arabia’s medieval Sharia system as well as Iran’s suppression of free speech. Both countries regularly decapitate people and hang or crucify people in the name of Islamic values. Now both countries are exchanging insults about how the other is an extremist regime.
Al-Namir was a key leader in the Arab Spring protests in Saudi Arabia before his arrest in 2012.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the execution and said that al-Nimr “neither invited people to take up arms nor hatched covert plots. The only thing he did was public criticism.” You will recall that this is the same Khamenei who stood back and watched as a cartoonist was arrested for mocking the Parliament and protesters were beaten for seeking freedom.
In the meantime, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which has been routinely connected to terrorism, compared Saudi Arabia to ISIS and denounced Saudi Arabia’s “medieval act of savagery” in putting al-Nimir death. Sort of like the medieval savagery countenanced under Iran’s Sharia legal system like pouring acid in the eyes of prisoners or throwing men down rocky hills in a burlap bag.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went to Twitter to proclaim how “peaceful opposition is a fundamental right. Repression does not last.” That will come as welcomed news to those people rotting in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
It ain’t the same, as some have mentioned. Iran is a democracy in religious cloak…S.Arabia is a dictatorship in religious cloak.
What is valuable to note however is that whatever either is or isn’t, was helped along by us.
There is no S.Arabia without our propping up the house of saud.
And there is no theocratic Iran without our removing the democratically elected PM in favor of a shah that gave the country away.
As John Smith mentioned, and it makes a huge difference, Iran does not crucify, unlike White Isis/S/Arabia.
In its inner politics, Iran is very much like China, just replace communism with shia islam.
Nick, you were taking your geopolitical information from a propagandist hollywood Tv show all along?
No wonder!
Or, as they said to Carter, pull out now like your father should have.
America: pull your embassies and other offices from any pirate territory such as Iran. That way your President, be it Jimmy Carter or the present guy, will not have to think about war to free hostages. There is no positive aspect to having an embassy in some place like Iran.
The U.S should not contribute to despotic regimes unless those nations make solid progress on human rights over the long term.
The United States funds both sides of the so-called “War on Terror” – we finance our enemies. So if these regimes won’t reform long term we should not do business with them.
isaac the enlightened has graced us with his own belief and THAT is what only the enlightened folks SHOULD believe. Of course he has no explanation for the millions killed throughout history having only a belief in the state and Dear Leader.
Perhaps King Kong should step back and see how Godzilla and Mothra sort this out.
This is clearly the pot calling the kettle black.
“Religion originated as a tool for power”
Marxist twaddle.
“X originated as a tool for power.” is their hammer, and everything looks like a nail: Patriarchy, the free market, heterosexuality, race, music, art, etc. etc. blah blah blah.
Usually they throw in the word ‘hegemony’ to sound more impressive.
Bad guys killing other bad guys.
Not sure I see a problem.
Gosh, we wonder what those 28 redacted 9/11 Report pages hold….
Too bad that free speech wasn’t allowed as it would be the first step toward dialogue and potential conflict resolution. As in any confrontation, both sides do not listen to each other and there is no progress.
The information is false. Iran does not crucify anyone. It hangs them.
This should be corrected.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jan/04/executions-in-saudi-arabia-iran-numbers-china
https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
We have the unique experience of witnessing the evolution of religion in this world. In most Western and evolved countries religion is where it should be, in the privacy of churches and homes. It does not, typically, determine any freedoms or censures. In the Middle East, we can witness religion as it was in these same Western and evolved countries, seven hundred years ago. Back then the same and worse was done in the name of, you guessed it, Christ, the lamb.
Religion originated as a tool for power. It only works in the countries inhabited by the least socially evolved. Next time you talk to someone who believes this or that whether it makes any sense or not, only because he or she is told to by a cleric, you are talking to history. If you live with the questions you might just find the appropriate answer. If you live with the answers, you take the answers given to you, regardless of how nonsensical they are.
There is a parallel here. Do any of you humans recall the time when Iranian “students” took over the U.S. Embassy and held all of our people hostage for over a year until the peanut farmer was out of office in DC? They are a pirate territory which purports to be a nation state yet they purposely allow the authorized renegades to invade an embassy and act like something happened which they did not quite have a police handle on.
If a nation state cannot protect an embassy from an internal invasion then the nation state should consider itself at War.
Jimmy Peanut Farmer Carter should have declared War. So should the Saudi government.
Bomb, bomb, bomb!
Bomb, bomb Iran!
Oh, bomb Iraaaan!
I’ll take my staaaand!
Rockin and a rollin … rockin and a reelin…
BOMB IRAN!
(Saturday Night Live song, 30 plus years ago.)
I would invite you to make friends with some Arabian’s living in the US and some Iranians and then tell us which you find to be more sophisticated in their thinking about civil rights, which are more intellectually sophisticated, which are more prudent, kind-natured, and compassionate. They are not the same. You will quickly see a difference.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are theocracies. Our nation is not but the fundamental reason why the enlightened founders established a wall between the state and establishments of religion was not their enlightenment. They knew that the new federal republic would quickly atomize if states were allowed to establish state religions. There were two solutions. One: a national religion which would cause uprisings. Two: the wall. Current politicians such as Cruz do not understand this.
It would be interesting if some Iranians and Saudis could post some comments here.
How long could it last before the “Civility Rule” kicks in? Any bets?
At least the Saudis went through the pretense of a trial before eliminating a troublesome cleric. More than Anwar al-Awlaki received from the US.
We’ve been binge watching Homeland. The Middle East and most of Africa are Thunderdome. Modernity is their biggest “enemy.”
“….in the name of islamic values.”……… I thought islam was a peaceful and quaint religion. Certainly the author didn’t mean to paint all of islam in sharing those values…..and if they do then trump is right. We need a pause.
The pot calling the kettle…….but of course it would be nice if the US would back away from its support of the House of Saud and stay out of these sectarian squabbles. Getting involved is a lose lose for us. Let’s let Saudi Arabia and Iran sort this out on their own and while they are at it perhaps they will also sort out ISIS.
On our part we could boycott the Saudis, freeze their assets and bar entry for any members of the House of Saud. It’s time they were made to live in the hell hole that their funding of Muslim extremists has created.