ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has described Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “Hitler of the Middle East,” who must be stopped as Riyadh has learned from the experience of Europe that the policy of appeasement with Iran does not work as it failed with the Nazi leader.
In an interview published in the New York Times on Thursday, the young Crown Prince known as MBS said that Saudi Arabia will make use of its muscles to put a stop to a growing Iranian influence in the Arab world.
Iran’s “supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East,” Bin Salman told the newspaper. “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.”
The comparison between the Iranian Ayatollah and Adolf Hitler could not be a coincidence. The tone used by the Saudi prince plays well in Israel, too where for the first time Israeli officials entertain the fact that the Arab world, represented by the oil-rich Kingdom, considers Tehran the number one enemy.
The Shiite-majority Iran and the Sunni Saudi Kingdom support rival forces across the Middle East such as in Yemen where Riyadh is leading a relentless war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The air campaign has caused one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time where hundreds of thousands of civilians are suffering from malnutrition and lack of medicine.
Another center of contention between Riyadh and Tehran is Lebanon where their rivalry is playing out in daily politics. Saudi Arabia accused Iran and its ally Hezbollah of threatening the life of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to which Iran said Riyadh had forced Hariri to resign and put him under house arrest.
In neighboring Iraq, Iran backs the estimated 100,000-strong Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces who stand accused of gross human rights violations against the country’s Sunni population.
Saudi Arabia invited the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to Riyadh twice this year as part of a US-sponsored diplomatic process that aims to at least neutralize Baghdad in the regional rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran. PM Abadi has said he wants the two countries to avoid fighting their proxy wars in Iraq.
MBS said that his Kingdom is happy with the US President Donald Trump saying he is “the right person at the right time.”
Trump visited saudi Arabia where he met with the Saudi King and also his son Bin Salman.
The Trump administration has been tough on Iran and against the nuclear deal signed under his predecessor that it says funded what it labels the destabilizing efforts of the Iranian government.
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