The Guardian reports:
Iraqi government officials see Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state, leaked US state department cables reveal.
The Iraqi concerns, analysed in a dispatch sent from the US embassy in Baghdad by then ambassador Christopher Hill in September 2009, represent a fundamental divergence from the American and British view of Iran as arch-predator in Iraq.
“Iraq views relations with Saudi Arabia as among its most challenging given Riyadh’s money, deeply ingrained anti-Shia attitudes and [Saudi] suspicions that a Shia-led Iraq will inevitably further Iranian regional influence,” Hill writes.
“Iraqi contacts assess that the Saudi goal (and that of most other Sunni Arab states, to varying degrees) is to enhance Sunni influence, dilute Shia dominance and promote the formation of a weak and fractured Iraqi government.”
Hill’s unexpected assessment flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that Iranian activities, overt and covert, are the biggest obstacle to Iraq’s development.
RE: “Iraqi government officials see Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state…” – The Guardian
MY COMMENT: I’m beginning to think that the Saudi “Royal” Family actually is “the head of the snake”. Ergo, when the Saudis refer to Iran as “the head of the snake”, it is yet another example of psychological (Freudian) projection!
Doesn’t it stand to reason the Saudi Arabia wouldn’t trust nor like Iraqi/Iranian government, because they are Shia? The animosity between the two sects have been going on over a thousand years hasn’t it? The problem as I see it, is due to the outside forces on the middle east. The Western governments should just stand aside, let the countries settle their differences, which ever way they please. Westerners have no business being there, except to supply technology, be it infrastructure or War making.