Still I am curious to know

artappraiser — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 07:05:03 +0000

In reply to Iran reaches out to old foe Saudi

Still I am curious to know what you have to say about the following, Mr. Zarif...

Hizballah’s War of Shadows with Saudi Arabia Comes Into the Light

As the sectarian violence of Syria's conflict spills over, the proxy struggles between Lebanon's influential Shiite organization Hizballah and the staunchly Sunni kingdom of Saudi Arabia have turned into open war

By Aryn Baker / Beirut, Time, Dec. 04, 201

[....] in an interview with Lebanese TV station OTV late Tuesday night, he went radically off script, zeroing in on a new target for his rhetorical darts: Saudi Arabia.

Nasrallah rarely mentions Saudi Arabia by name, only referring to the monarchy in vague terms in order to maintain plausible deniability. But that all changed on Tuesday, when he accused Saudi agents of being behind the suicide bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut last month that claimed 23 lives. (The assassination of a senior Hizballah commander on Wednesday, though the assailants remain unknown, deepened the group’s sense of embattlement.) In doing so he has openly declared a war that has long been fought in the shadows, first in Lebanon where Hizballah-allied parties are at a political impasse with the Saudi-backed Future Movement of Saad Hariri, and now in Syria, where Hizballah, with Iranian assistance, is fighting on the side of President Bashar Assad against Saudi-backed rebels. “This is the first time I have ever seen such a direct attack [by Nasrallah] against Saudi Arabia,” says Lebanon-based political analyst Talal Atrissi. “This was the formal declaration of a war that has been going on in Syria since Saudi first started supporting the rebels.” [....]

Iran Takes Charm Offensive to

artappraiser — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 05:53:08 +0000

In reply to Iran reaches out to old foe Saudi

Iran Takes Charm Offensive to the Persian Gulf
By Thomas Erdbrink, New York Times, Dec. 4/5, 2013

[....] On Wednesday, the diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, arrived in the United Arab Emirates, having stopped in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman this week, with the goal of undoing years of regional tensions, not only sectarian but also the fruit of the confrontational approach of Iran’s former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Zarif met with several Emirati officials, among them Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, where an estimated 400,000 Iranians live and work in companies that are often front offices for trade with Iran — much of it illicit, because of sanctions. Mr. Zarif also invited the Emirates’ president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, to visit Tehran.

“My interpretation is that these countries as a whole are very much interested in opening a new chapter in their ties with the Islamic republic, which we hope will benefit peace and stability as well as the progress of the people in the region,” Mr. Zarif was quoted as saying by Iran’s state television on Tuesday [....]

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Still I am curious to know

Iran Takes Charm Offensive to