Now this:
Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave all Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, as escalating tensions over the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia marked a new low in relations between the two Middle Eastern powers.
The surprise move, announced in a televised news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the Saudi execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protesters in response.
Mr. Jubeir said that the kingdom would not allow Iran to undermine the kingdom’s security.
The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Saturday that Saudi Arabia would face divine vengeance for the execution of Sheikh Nimr, a day after Iranian protesters ransacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia, which put the cleric to death in a mass execution of 47 men accused of terrorism-related offenses, fired back, saying Iran had “revealed its true face represented in support for terrorism.”
The heated rhetoric underscored the mounting tensions between the two powers, each of which considers itself the leader of the Islamic world and supports opposing sides in conflicts across the region.Yes, it's gratifying to wrap this up in a tidy well-now-we-can-solve-three-fourths-of-the-world's-problems-as-the-Sunnis-and-Shiites-take-each-other-out summation of where this is going. But like any alliances and fissures, particularly those in which either wealth or military might figure prominently, there are inevitable reverberation.
2016 isn't going to be boring.
If two brothers are fighting in a room and a third party steps in to break up the fight, do the two brothers acquiesce to the stranger? Or do they find a untied cause, the stranger's intervention? If it were so simple.
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