The propaganda war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, bitter rivals on opposite sides of the Middle East’s biggest current crises, is hotting up, with near daily exchanges and insults between ministers and state media outlets.
In the past week alone senior figures from both countries have cast diplomatic niceties to the desert winds and attacked each other publicly. Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, said on Monday that Iran was “occupying Arab lands” in Syria - where it supports Bashar al-Assad. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, retorted that the Saudis were in no position to complain as they were “occupying” Yemen - where Tehran backs the Houthi rebels.
Iran ramped up its anti-Saudi rhetoric after the recent hajj tragedy in Mecca but it went on the offensive at the start of the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen in March, with a Revolutionary Guard commander predicting the “collapse of the House of Saud … in the footsteps of Zionist Israel”. » | Ian Black | Friday, October 23, 2015
