Saudi Arabia Prints Muhammad Toons To Make Embassy Torching Worth It

Sudan announced that in addition to severing diplomatic ties, it would sponsor an entirely new cartoon contest.

Riyadh, January 4 – Saudi Arabian King Salman ordered several government-run newspapers and broadcast media to publish a series of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad today, saying that the move would at least make the torching of the country’s diplomatic facilities in Iran over the weekend OK in some measure.

Iranian mobs stormed and trashed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and the consulate in Meshed, on Saturday after the kingdom executed a staunchly pro-Iran Shia preacher accused of inciting terrorism. The Islamic Republic described the acts as committed spontaneously by an incensed mob, but that explanation has failed to convince anyone outside Iran; Saudi Arabia insists the destruction was planned and orchestrated by the Ayatollahs’ regime, and have severed diplomatic ties. However, to get some sense of balance out of the affair, the Saudi government has now arranged for controversial cartoons featuring Muhammad to run in today’s printed and online media, in keeping with the storming and torching of embassies.

The cartoons were published by a Danish newspaper in 2005, leading to a firestorm of protests and criticism in Islamic countries over the violation of taboos regarding the prophet and his depiction. The protests led to mobs storming and damaging Danish and other embassies around the Middle East. Saudi authorities reasoned that while the current political climate and tensions with Iran over the latter’s attempt to assert regional supremacy and develop nuclear weapons, the kingdom could at least use the opportunity to publish the cartoons.

Other Sunni nations in Saudi Arabia’s sphere of influence – or who have fallen out of favor with Iran – have also downgraded or cut ties with Tehran. Today the United Arab Emirates announced it would similarly downgrade relations and expel Iranian diplomats, and would publish some of the controversial cartoons. Syrian rebels applauded the Saudi move. Sudan announced that in addition to severing diplomatic ties, it would sponsor an entirely new cartoon contest, to be held at the end of the month. The government in Khartoum sent agents to several prisons, looking for incarcerated opponents of the Bashir regime who had not yet had various upper limbs severed as part of their torture and could therefore still contribute to the contest.

Iran’s allies have retaliated in kind. In Shia-majority Iraq, citizens petitioned the government to cut ties with Saudi Arabia. In Gaza, the Iran-backed Hamas movement announced plans to build the territory’s first embassy, for Saudi Arabia, which the Gaza Strip’s residents will be allowed to storm and torch whenever Tehran gives the Hamas leadership the proper signal.