Major Western news publications are not mincing words when it comes to Saudi Arabia's decision to execute 47 prisoners over the weekend, including prominent Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
It "was about the worst way Saudi Arabia could have started what promises to be a grim and tumultuous year in the kingdom and across the Middle East," The New York Times said in an editorial Monday.
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz has "taken a step that was as risky and ruthless as it was unjustified," The Washington Post added in its Sunday editorial.
As news of the executions in the Sunni-ruled Gulf state cascaded across the Middle East, Iranians, who are mainly Shiite, set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran early Sunday. Saudi Arabia promptly cut diplomatic ties with Iran. Its allies in the Sunni-led Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan followed suit. Saudi Arabia also broke its ceasefire in Yemen, where it has been waging a proxy war with Shiite Iran.
Several publications lamented the dire longer-term consequences of al-Nimr's execution -- which highlights a fracture between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that stems from different interpretations of the rightful successor to Islam after the prophet Muhammad’s death in 632 A.D.
The aftermath of the executions "promised to set back international efforts to resolve the wars in Syria and Yemen and to combat the Islamic State and other Islamist terrorist organizations," the Times wrote. "Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are wasting their resources on aggressive foreign policies which have little chance of ultimate success," the Guardian added in its Sunday editorial.
The Post wondered if the move was deliberate. "It was an act that appears bound -- and maybe was intended -- to further inflame conflict between Shiites and Sunnis across the Middle East," the editorial said.
As Saudi Shiites continue to protest, the Guardian fears that "there will be a price to be paid for that now, in the shape of the further alienation of the Shia community."
Yet the executions and its aftershocks unsurprised many. The killings represent "the most executions carried out by the kingdom in one day since 1980," the Post said. The Times noted that 158 others were also executed in 2015.
As for the Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran "have been playing with fire for years, so it is no surprise that their latest clash has quite literally sparked a conflagration in one of their capitals," the Guardian wrote in its Sunday editorial.
Several publications also demanded a fiercer response from the Obama administration to the "foolhardy and dangerous" situation, according to the Times. The Post echoed this call, asserting that the administration "needs a better strategy" to deal with King Salman.
The West plays a crucial role in tampering regional instability, they contended. Human rights violations like last weekend's executions should not give Western countries the liberty to "[condone] actions that blatantly fan sectarian hatreds," the Times concluded. Saudi allies like the U.S., according to the Post, "should be asking whether the Salman court is consolidating control and checking Iran’s expansionism, as it contends, or sowing chaos in an already-stricken region while undermining itself."
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