Saudi Arabia is complicit in terrorism because its fanatical Wahhabism provides the ideological basis for Daesh, al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliates, most of whom have at some point received funding from the Saudi regime, Dr. Mohammad Marandi, professor of North American Studies at the University of Tehran, told Radio Sputnik.
“The feeling in Tehran is that the Saudi regime is digging itself deeper and deeper into a hole, and the situation is even worse than that of the Turkish government,” said Marandi.
He said that the controversial mass execution carried out by the Saudi authorities on January 1 is a sign of their increasing extremism, in addition to decades of funding for terrorism.
“The mass execution that took place a couple of days ago [was a sign of this extremism], especially the execution of a high-ranking religious figure who was both peaceful, and who never used arms or possessed arms. He basically criticised the Wahhabi ideology, which believes in the notion that anyone that does not think as they do is an enemy of religion and an enemy of God and can be killed, which is something we’ve seen in Saudi schoolbooks.”
Although governments and media in many parts of the world are beginning to recognize the destructive nature of the Saudi regime and Wahhabism, and the associated actions of the Saudis and Turks in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the other countries, Marandi said that the US uptake is slower, and doubts a real change in their foreign policy.
“The Americans and the Saudis both expressed regret that this al-Qaeda affiliate, who praised Osama bin Laden, and who called for the killing of minorities, Alloush, the head of the Jaysh al-Islam organization, they expressed regret for his death. So America and the Saudis are still bound together in the support of extremism, which is linked to their regional agenda,” said Marandi.
