Neck of the woods
“Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has said that if an extraordinary summit of Muslim leaders is supposed to be held in Mecca, the crisis in Bahrain should be top of the agenda. Mehmanparast made the remarks during his regular press briefing in Tehran on Tuesday in response to a question about the fact that Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said on Sunday that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had called for an emergency Islamic summit in Mecca on August 14 and 15 to address risks of “sedition” threatening Muslim countries. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman stated, “We will welcome any meeting that brings together Muslim countries and will actively participate in it. But the crises are obvious, and it is also clear which countries are taking interventionist measures. If such a meeting is supposed to be held, resolving Bahrain’s crisis” should be top of the agenda…………”

If the summit covers the Syrian civil war, then the Iranians are right in requesting that it should also cover the uprising in Bahrain. I wholeheartedly agree with that. It seems only fair: one Arab uprising is equal to another Arab uprising. By “risks of ‘sedition’ threatening Muslim countries”, I take it the Saudis mean the Arab uprisings and their aftermath. They cannot mean the Western and Israeli military threats against another Muslin country, the threats of another war in our region since they are very likely pushing that (Wikileaks and ‘cutting the head of the snake’ and all that). I suspect the Saudi princes calculate that they have more friends among leaders of Muslim countries than the Iranian mullahs have (they have more money and influential Western friends). They may calculate that they can get a more favorable response.
It is also possible the Saudi princes decided to call this meeting to show that they are still active, in spite of the death of two crown princes and the ailing king Abdullah. Except the King looks near the end of his life, literally, his new crown prince is rumored to be a little slow upstairs, and the foreign minister is ailing. They need to inject new blood (al-Saud blood of course) into their regime quickly, not an easy job.
How about recruiting Shaikh Nimr al-Nimr in the cabinet?

Cheers

mhg
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