Saudi Arabia enforces sharia laws on her citizens. The Saudi family boasts about being the Custodian of the Holy Mosques or something like that. The Saudi family has invested billions of dollars in spreading Wahhabism. That's a de facto theocracy in my opinion.
Yes, you are mistaken. Iranian Arabs are like 2% of the population and they have minimal influence or power in Iran.
You are admitting to the cordial relations between Saudi Arabia and Western countries. The very ones that are looting the resources of this region and create chaos. How do you expect Iran to trust Saudi Arabia in the first place?
Believe me, the shah of Iran was smarter than MBS. Just few days ago, a report was circulating on the internet about how MBS gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to an American rapper as an apology for being mistreated at the airport. I don't remember the details, but I assume it was Lil Wayne if I'm not mistaken. As for the standards of living of an average Iranian under the ruling of Shah, the situation of Iranians during the last 5 years of the Shah was indeed better than the living standards of Saudi Arabia at the time. Iran was becoming industrialized very fast and was experiencing an incredibly fast economic growth.
I don't want to compare Shah to MBS and turn this into a d*ck measuring contest, but by early 1970s, Iran had functioning nuclear reactors, a car industry which was one of the largest in Asia and electronic industries that were huge by world standards. As of 2020, Saudi Arabia under MBS has none of them. Yet, the majority of things that MBS does are similar to what the Shah did during his last years of ruling. The Shah also had the approval of people in big cities. It was people in smaller cities that managed to topple him. I can tell you how similar these two people are if you want.
Islamophobia is a real issue. I don't like Muslims in general, but currently the atmosphere in Europe is exactly as I described it. Many of them hate people from the Middle East. It's a fact and the growing incidents of xenophobia in Europe against people from the Middle East or Muslims are real too. On the other hand, Europeans feel vulnerable against emerging countries like Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The European culture is declining and they know it well.
We have to be realistic. We can't wait for an ideal situation to take place before we put our differences aside. As neighbors, our differences will never be completely resolved. We just need to act based on priorities. At this moment, Western influence in our region is a much bigger issue that animosity between Arabs, Turks and Persians. And that's the reason why we should unite against them if we want the Middle East to stop being the way it is.
Sharia law is enforced to various degrees in most Muslim countries and Sharia law is probably more enforced in Iran (to the literal letter) nowadays. KSA is a fusion of Sharia and civil law. That does not somehow turn KSA into a theocracy ruled by an infallible Supreme Ayatollah with all due respect.
Custodian of Makkah and Madinah (Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques) is a title that originates from the Arab Fatimid dynasty. It merely entails that the king of KSA is the custodian of Makkah and Madinah which is the case.
There is no such thing called "Wahhabism".
KSA is a monarchy. The clergy, unlike in Iran, is not de facto ruling the country. That was my point.
Those numbers are estimates and all those clerics/Iranian leaders wearing black turbans are ethnically Arabs (paternally) unless they are lying about their origin. So obviously those people will have a natural affinity for Arabia. At least they should.
Like most countries in the region. NATO Turkey is at your doorstep. Pro-Israel Azerbaijan. Occupied Afghanistan. Historically pro-West Pakistan. Turkmenistan is a Russian vassal state ruled by an insane dictator. The US has great clout in Iraq after 2003. Iran itself was the closest Western ally in the region prior to 1979.
Why is Iranian worrying about which allies KSA has? Is Iran worried that China is our by far largest trade partner and that we have strategic relationships with China to the extent that they are helping build our indigenous ballistic missile defense force?
The Iranian regime has had very cordial ties with Oman, have you not? They are a Western ally.
You do realize that 99,9% of the reports about KSA in the Western sensationalist press is nonsense, right? If the Shah was so smart, he would still be ruling today.
I highly doubt that. Living standards in KSA have been ahead of Iran (clearly and by some distance) for the past many decades and I don't see that changing anytime soon. In any case we were comparing events today (2020) with how Iranians lived in the 1970's. Most Iranian villages did not have clean water etc. Something like that does not exist in KSA in 2020.
You don't realize that 80% of the Saudi Arabian population is urban. Contrary to the situation in Iran in the late 1970's. The rural population in KSA is of little to no significance politically. What matter is what occurs in the big cities in the North, South, West, Center and East.
The people you are talking about hate every non-European. Religion does not matter. The reality is that there are 10-15 million Arabs living in Europe and 4 million in the US. Outside of some small incidents here and there, the Arabs are part and parcel of those countries. I know this myself from first hand.
You want us to remove the West, while our people are dependent on Western tech, totally consumed in Western sports, movies, serials, technology, culture (by large across all regional countries), our brightest minds study in the West, have studied in the West or are dependent on Western knowledge etc.
That logic is no different to the Arabs or Iranians who have the view that the other party can never be trusted or never be a friend. I am not sure if you are aware of this.
What is needed is to be treated as an equal (by anyone, Westerner or non-Westerner, Westerners are not special) and that happens by developing on all fronts and growing as nations and people. Hostility for the sake of it will give nothing but turn us into failed states or sanctioned entities like your own country. You can reach self-sufficiency without such stunts or policies. We Arabs have experiences of such policies from close hand and they are not very successful.
