History is catching up to the Saudi regime: US analyst

It seems the Saudi Arabian regime is trying to provoke a clash with Iran, desperately hoping that the United States will come to their rescue, an American political analyst says.

Steven D Kelley, a former NSA/CIA contractor, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on reports that the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia are deteriorating.

“Saudi Arabia is definitely showing some interesting parallels to what’s going on in Turkey. Both these countries seem to have grandiose delusions about their place in history and their futures, and it seems to be both very much involved in the formation of ISIS, which apparently had a lot to do with their future plans,” Kelley said.

“And now that Russia has become involved and it seems to be shutting that down. We’re seeing desperate maneuvers and desperate actions, rumors of collapse and coup in both these countries,” he added.

“Saudi Arabia certainly is a major oil producer. The very fact that they’re no longer the world’s largest oil producer and have been replaced by American domestic shale oil production is actually an incredible thing that nobody saw from a long-term plan,” the analyst noted.   

“And even though Saudi Arabia now knew that their future was dependent on coming up with some alternatives to oil, that future came to them much sooner, and their gamble in Syria and with the creation of Daesh certainly seems to have backfired and becoming quite a problem as with the war in Yemen,” he pointed out.

Kelley said “it’s almost like they [Saudis] are trying to antagonize some sort of a response from Iran, and from the rest of people… and perhaps – again -- like Turkey they think that somehow the United States is going to come to their rescue.  So they may not be able to depend on that. I think this is certainly going to be something that is going to cause much, much trouble in the future.”

Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia escalated last week after Riyadh executed 47 people in one day, including prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr, which set off worldwide protests.

Saudi Arabia announced it was cutting diplomatic ties with Iran following protests at the Saudi embassy in Tehran over Nimr’s execution.

Meanwhile, experts say the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has become progressively worse amid Riyadh’s growing international isolation and increasing domestic instability.

For years, oil was the bedrock of the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, two nations that share few common values.

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