The Saudi execution will reverberate across the Muslim world | Brian Whitaker | Opinion | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/04/saudi-arabia-execution-muslim-world-sectarianism-syria-iraq
(...) As Patey put it in his interview: “If you are trying to repair the Sunni-Shia split in Iraq in order to have a united front against Daesh, this will make life a bit more difficult.” Interestingly, just a day before Nimr’s execution Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad after a 25-year break. While this was formally hailed as the start of a new era in cooperation, some see it as an attempt to counter Iranian influence in Iraq and establish an unofficial mouthpiece for Iraqi Sunnis in Baghdad.
It may also be worth recalling that nine Qatari royals disappeared in Iraq last month, apparently kidnapped while hunting with falcons. An unconfirmed report by Erem News, an Emirati website, claimed that their captors were seeking to exchange them for Nimr al-Nimr.
(...) In Yemen, aggressive Saudi-Wahhabi proselytising, starting in the 1990s, stirred unrest among the Zaidi communities (a branch of Shia Islam), which then led to a series of Houthi uprisings. Today the Saudis are at war with the Houthis and Yemen is being destroyed in the process. Naturally they have characterised this as a war with Iran, though in comparison with what the Saudis and their allies have been doing in Yemen, Iranian involvement has mostly been marginal.
Another effect of this onslaught in Yemen, whether intentional or not, has been to empower militant Sunni elements there, including al-Qaida and Islamic State. In the wake of the Arab spring uprisings, sectarian narratives have also proved a useful tool for Gulf monarchies leading the counter-revolution – characterising protesters as foreign-inspired or at least not representative of the Sunni mainstream.
(...) One problem the Saudi regime now faces is that the sectarian and anti-Iranian narrative on which it relies has been undermined by the international nuclear deal struck with Iran last year. The kingdom had little choice but to officially accept it – though it is still far from happy about it. Provoking Iran might be one way of demonstrating that unhappiness. And in the context of Saudi-Iranian relations, Nimr’s execution looks less like a miscalculation than part of an emerging pattern.