Issued Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Innsbruck (OTS) – A political thaw is said to have begun in Beijing between the two arch-enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. With major consequences not only for the Middle East. China emerges as a world power, the West is duped.
In the shadow of the war in Ukraine, the news almost went unnoticed, at least in the West. To then cause great surprise. Last Friday, following negotiations in Beijing, the two arch-enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia announced that they wanted to smoke the peace pipe in the future. Both rival regional powers are suddenly talking regarding dialogue, and diplomatic relations, which have been severed since 2016, are to be resumed. A rapprochement between the arch-conservative Sunni Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which the foreign policy firebrand Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman is in charge, and the Shiite theocracy of Iran, which has recently been primarily concerned with crushing the protest movement, would actually come to the region kind of turning point. In recent years, both sides have fought bloody proxy wars that threatened to plunge the entire Middle East into the abyss. In destitute Yemen in particular, Riyadh and Tehran are fighting a war in which tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions bombed into misery almost unnoticed by the world public. But the two regional powers are also waging proxy wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. The rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia might now undermine these conflicts. But one thing is clear: Riyadh wants to prevent Iran’s nuclear armament at all costs. And meets here with the interests of Israel, which for its part is trying to contain Iran’s hegemonic power and prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb. Observers say that Israeli military strikes once morest nuclear facilities in Iran are only a matter of time. But Israel’s new right-wing religious government has recently smashed a lot of china in its relationship with its new Arab partners. Now the cards seem to be reshuffled.
It is noteworthy that the rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran was negotiated in Beijing. China has a foot in the door in the Middle East, which is so important as an energy supplier – a region in which the USA has almost exclusively pulled the strings so far. Events in the Middle East might already be seen as heralding a new world order. The West feels duped. But he frivolously squandered his chance. In July 2015, another historic nuclear agreement was celebrated in Vienna. But former US President Trump and his whisperers decided in 2018 to scrap the nuclear deal. The spirit of optimism was quickly over, the radical forces were flushed back to the top. Beijing has now seized its chance. With an open exit for the time being.
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