Azerbaijan’s Interests Should Draw It Closer to Iran, and Away From Saudi Arabia

The cold war between Riyadh and Tehran is likely to put pressure on Baku to re-consider its careful balancing act and make some hard choices between its friends in both capitals.

by Eldar Mamedov

Since the Saudi government executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in early January 2016, tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which were already high, have reached a boiling point. As a result, the loyalty and allegiance of various Muslim countries in the Middle East and beyond have come under increasing scrutiny.

Jamal Khashoggi, a leading Saudi commentator and former media adviser to the Saudi ambassador in Washington, was probably voicing the prevailing attitude among the Kingdom’s establishment when, as reported by Al Arabiya, he declared recently that “other nations are either with [the] Saudis, or against them” in their conflict with Iran. Saudi actions, including the deliberate exclusion of Iran and its allies, Iraq and Syria, from the “Islamic Anti-Terror Coalition,” announced by Riyadh in mid-December, seem to confirm this point.