Saudis threaten all-out war with Iran

The proxy conflict in Yemen between the Middle East’s two great powers could become all-out war, after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of being behind a missile strike on Riyadh airport on Saturday.

In comments reported by the Saudi Arabian official news agency SPA, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, that supplying Houthi rebel fighters in Yemen with missiles used in the attack was a “direct military aggression by the Iranian regime” and “may be considered an act of war against the Kingdom”.

Made after a wave of arrests that appear to consolidate his hold on power, the Crown Prince’s remarks “signal a new aggressiveness both at home and abroad, as well as a new and more dangerous stage in the Saudi cold war with Iran for dominance of the region”, says The New York Times.

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CNN says this is the latest attempt by the Saudi government to accuse Iran of “not only being behind the actions taken in Yemen, but also for its purported behaviour in Lebanon”. It must been seen in “the context of a regional power play by the Saudis against Iran”, says Al Jazeera.

Lebanese leader resigns

Iran has repeatedly been accused of sponsoring Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which forms a central part of a pro-Syrian alliance in Lebanon’s parliament. On Saturday, Saudi-backed Sunni politician Saad Hariri resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister blaming Iran and Hezbollah for meddling in the “internal affairs of Arab countries”.

Speaking to Al Arabiya, the Saudi-backed broadcaster, Saudi minister for Gulf affairs Thamer al-Sabhan said the weekend’s developments meant that for Saudis there would now be “no more distinction between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government,” and from now on the kingdom would treat the Lebanese as “a government declaring war”.

Already bogged down in proxy wars against Iran’s allies in Yemen and Syria, Saudi Arabia seems determined to engage Hezebollah in Lebanon, where it is well entrenched.

But tinkering with that country’s fragile stability “has huge risks”, says the BBC, “not least the danger of prompting a crisis that could lead to a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah”.

“It is plausible that the Saudis are trying to create the context for a different means of contesting Iran in Lebanon: an Israeli-Hezbollah war,” suggests Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

While the preferred method of conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran has long been proxy wars, Foreign Policy magazine predicts it is only a matter of time before fighting will “eventually spill over in a short, sharp direct clash, and then sink back down again to the level of proxy wars in other people’s territories”.