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Saudis seeks to sabotage Iran nuclear agreement: Academic

Thursday, 07 January 2016 1:46 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 07 January 2016 1:52 PM ]

US President Barack Obama (R) shakes hands with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud following a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, November 15, 2015. © AFP

Press TV has interviewed Lawrence Davidson, a professor at the West Chester University, in Pennsylvania, to discuss the ongoing protest rallies across the world days after Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about this outpouring of protest throughout the world ever since the execution of Sheikh Nimr along with of course 46 others?

Davidson: I think that it is good and it is to be expected. There is an effort on the part of Saudi Arabia not just to isolate or alienate Shiites or Quran, but I think I cannot help but think that their behavior has something to do with the attempt to sabotage, say, the American effort to come to an accommodation with Iran. I think the Saudis have allies in the Congress, and in the United States generally, and they are trying to keep the situation at a boiling point, hoping that with the next administration there will be a change in American policy. I think that is why you are having this kind of accelerated anti-Iranian kind of activity coming out of Riyadh.

Press TV: But to be fair, it is not like the West has not supported these Saudis. I mean you know even now the response from the White House has been fairly muted. The UK also continues to sell arms to the Saudis. What is that Saudis are so angry about?

Davidson: I think they are extremely sensitive and they are angry or afraid actually of the direction and the precedence by the Obama administration, by the hesitancy to back Mubarak in Egypt and the determination on the part of Obama to come to an agreement with Iran. I think that those precedents have scared the Saudis greatly and so I think…this is their way of putting pressure on the Americans or the American administration with the hope of changing policy when there is a change of administration.

Press TV: And do you think there will be a change in policy?

Davidson: I think that if the Democrats keep the presidency, I think that there will not be a change, at least not in terms of Iran agreement. But I think that there will be an effort to sort of smooth the feathers of the Saudis. I do not exactly know how they are going to do that without breaking the Iran agreement, but I think they are going to try.

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