If this report is true it sounds like it could be an enormous change in the Middle East map of violent aggression.
From Middle East Eye:
The military wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah has been instructed by Iran to suspend operations against Israel and to target Saudi Arabia instead, Middle East Eye can reveal.
The instruction comes in the wake of widespread anger at the apparent assassination of Mustafa Badreddine, its military commander in Syria and head of the movement’s military wing, which Hezbollah blamed on “takfiri” forces supported by Riyadh.
According to well informed sources in Lebanon, the order was conveyed in person by Qasim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) who came to Beirut to give his condolescences.
Clearly, that would be welcome relief to Israel but it signals a ramping up in the war between the two largest sects of Muslims, Sunni and Shiite.
Ever since Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations after the storming of their embassy in Tehran following the execution of the Shia leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, relations between the rival regional powers have plummeted.
The latest sign of this was the failure to agree on arrangements for Iranian pilgrims to travel to this year’s Hajj.
The failure of four days of talks between the two sides last month has led to statements of mutual recrimination which will mean that Iranian pilgrims will almost certainly miss this year’s ceremonies.
Iran said that its citizens would not participate in the Hajj and blamed Saudi Arabia for the problem. Last year’s Hajj was marred by the death of at least 769 pilgrims, many of them Iranian, in a stampede at Mina on the outskirts of Mecca.
Obama has been moving towards “normalizing” relations with the terror-supporting state of Iran, and seems to not care that it burns our ally, Saudi Arabia. Alternately, he’s also come out against revealing what part that lower Saudi Arabian officials might have had in helping complete the 9/11 attack on America. And Trump seems to be telling everyone to go to hell without regard to what might make things worse for America.
It’d be really interesting to see how he would react if there were open military engagements between the two powers in the Muslim world.