Showing posts with label States outside of Saudi Arabia act mainly out of Self Interest not religious solidarity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label States outside of Saudi Arabia act mainly out of Self Interest not religious solidarity. Show all posts

Sunday, January 3, 2016

States outside of Saudi Arabia act mainly out of Self Interest not religious solidarity

Al-Nimr stated that the United States (US) "wants to humiliate the world."[1] In August 2008, he said that he saw US citizens as a natural ally of Shia as the thinking of both US citizens and Shia is "based on justice and liberty".[1]
He believed that the Saudi state is "particularly reactionary" and that "agitation" is needed to influence the state in general and the Saudi state in particular.[1] According to John Kincannon, Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Al-Nimr made statements "perceived as supporting Iran".[1] In August 2008, he stated that he believed that Iran and other states outside of Saudi Arabia act mainly out of self-interest, not out of religious solidarity.[1]
end quote from:
Nimr al-Nimr
I thought that his perspective of States outside of Saudi Arabia acting mainly out of self-interest and not out of religious solidiarity a very interesting one. As someone who lives far away in the U.S. I tend to think of Nations functioning from either a Sunni Perspective or a Shia one in the Middle East. But, I can see from reading this that I might be wrong. 
Maybe it's just like the U.S. with it's secular Christian base of thought where neither Protestant or Catholic or any other religion is pre-eminent in thought even though we are a primarily Protestant secular nation and mostly founded originally by White Anglo Saxon Protestants.