Iran Not Seeking Fall of House of Saud

Not only the Islamic Republic does not favor the collapse of the Saudi government, but it favors a stop to efforts aimed at toppling the Saudi monarchy, a senior official said

"The fall of House of Saud would not at all mean its replacement by a good system of governance. The most likely result will be the disintegration of Saudi Arabia and the dominance of deviant extremist thinking in important parts of the country," Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday, IRNA reported. "Iran has always stood against the spread of extremism and supports the [territorial] integrity of regional states, as their disintegration will become an underlying cause for the spread of terrorism in Muslim lands, which is in conflict with the strategic interests of the Muslim world."

The usually lukewarm relations between Tehran and Riyadh have experienced a new low since Salman bin Abdulaziz ascended to the Saudi throne in January 2015.

Under Salman, Saudi Arabia pursued a more aggressive policy against Iran in an attempt to isolate what it perceived as a major rival emerging from years of hardship following the lifting of international sanctions over its nuclear activities, which were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear deal.

The Saudi government, as the self-proclaimed leader of the Arab world, accuses Iran of interfering in affairs of regional countries, particularly Syria and Yemen, and having aspirations to dominate the region, which charges Iran denies.

But the harsh language of Saudis in criticizing Iran has mostly drawn no retorts from Iranian officials, who have mainly refrained from engaging in a war of words with the oil kingdom, saying Tehran is not an enemy of Saudi Arabia.

Mid-December, Iran's top lawmaker Ali Larijani called for creation of a West Asian alliance to foster peace in the region, saying regional states can replace attritional rivalries with moves that spread calm and allocation of huge military budgets to developing their economies.

Shamkhani said despite Iran's positive conduct, the regional policies of Saudi Arabia have practically led to the empowerment of terrorists groups in Syria and Yemen.

"Countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia should make up their minds. Would they welcome the fragmentation of Syria and other Muslim states? Will Saudis be immune from the flame of disintegrations in the region?"

A Saudi-led coalition has been pounding Yemenis for months, in a bid to restore power to the ousted president Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The kingdom is also the main supporter of militants fighting to bring down the Syrian government in a nearly six-year-old crisis.

Unfortunately, none of the Saudi regional schemes has ended in its favor.

Shamkhani said continued chaos in the region will inflict enormous costs to all regional states and only benefit the Israeli regime.