When a Saudi state executioner beheaded the prominent Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al Nimr on Saturday, the Shiite theocracy in Iran took it as a deliberate provocation by its regional rival and dusted off its favored playbook, unleashing hard-liner anger on the streets.

Within hours of the execution, nationalist Iranian websites were calling for demonstrations in front of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad. The police, outnumbered, looked the other way as angry protesters set the embassy ablaze with firebombs, climbed the fences and vandalized parts of the building, The New York Times reported.

Now, Iranian leaders are suddenly forced to reckon with whether they played into the Saudis’ hands, finding themselves mired in a new crisis at a time they had been hoping to emerge from international sanctions as an accepted global player. Iran might have capitalized on global outrage at the executions by Saudi Arabia, but instead it finds itself once again characterized by adversaries as a provocateur in the region and abroad.

After the embassy attack, Saudi Arabia officially severed diplomatic ties with Iran, and Bahrain and Sudan followed suit on Monday. The United Arab Emirates, one of Iran’s most important regional trading partners, decided to downgrade its relations.

Iran’s own internal tensions are playing out in the crisis, as well.

There was far from universal support within Iran for the nuclear deal, which some criticized as giving away too much to foreign interests. Now, with parliamentary elections scheduled for February, and with a coming election of the clerical council that in theory will choose the next supreme leader, the hard-liners are sure to use the issue, and the crisis with Saudi Arabia, to pummel allies of President Rouhani and others who favored the nuclear accord.

Source: MENA