THE execution of the prominent Saudi Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, by the Saudi authorities on January 1 along with 47 others, has led to a dangerous exacerbation of tensions between the Saudi monarchy and Iran. The execution of al-Nimr, whose only crime was calling for a peaceful struggle against the authoritarian regime in Riyadh, has further accentuated the dangerous sectarian divide in West Asia. Last year, 157 people were put to death in Saudi Arabia. Since King Salman assumed the throne in the beginning of 2015, public beheadings and executions have increased at an alarming rate. More Saudi citizens have been executed in the last two years than in the previous two decades. Only three of those executed along with the Sheikh Nimr were fellow Shiites. All the others allegedly belonged to extremist Sunni groups like the al Qaeda and Daesh (Islamic State). One of the Shiite prisoners executed was a minor at the time he was tried and convicted. Sheikh Nimr was arrested by the Saudi authorities in 2012 after he criticised the monarchy in neighbouring Bahrain for its harsh suppression of its Shia majority. Before that, he had also been fearlessly calling for equal rights for Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, who constitute around 15 percent of the country's population. They are mostly concentrated in the country's oil producing east. In his sermons, he spoke out against resorting to violence saying that protestors should be willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. “Our strength is not in weapons; our strength is in martyrdom”, he had said in one of his sermons. A Saudi court had sentenced the cleric to death in 2014 on several charges including “waging war against god”. What the Saudi authorities really objected to were his sermons and speeches in which he railed against the authoritarian government and its relegation of the Shias into virtual second class citizens. The Saudi authorities instead accused of him of inciting secession. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the country's highest religious authority, sanctioned the execution of Sheikh Nimr, whose case had become a 'cause celebre' in the region. The Grand Mufti went to the extent of saying that the Saudi authorities were being “merciful” as the cleric's execution prevented him from committing “more crimes”. PROTESTS AGAINST EXECUTION As soon as the news of his execution was announced, people holding portraits of the slain cleric took to the streets in the Qatif districts of the Eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia, chanting “down with Al Sauds”, as the long ruling family is known in the region. There were protests in many other parts of the region and the world, including India. The Iraqi government condemned the execution. The former prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al Maliki, who still wields considerable influence, condemned Saudi Arabia's “detestable sectarian practices”. He said that “the crime of executing will topple the Saudi regime”. The Syrian information minister, Omran al Zoubi, described the execution as “a reflection of the policies of the disturbed and oppressive al Saud regime”. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah in a speech, said that the execution showed “that any hope for Saudi rational behaviour has ended – when a regime loses its mind, that means it has reached the abyss.” Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general expressed his “dismay” and said that all the governments in the region must take immediate steps to de-escalate sectarian strife. The EU said that the execution was a cause of serious concern “regarding freedom of expression and the respect of basic civil and political rights”. The Obama administration issued a mild statement calling on the Saudi government to respect human rights. There was no condemnation of the execution of Sheikh Nimr, though the US secretary of state, John Kerry had tried to dissuade the Saudis from going ahead with the execution of the cleric. Whenever Saudi Arabia is in the dock, the US has chosen to look the other way. Despite its declining political and economic fortunes, Saudi Arabia continues to be Washington's most trusted ally, along with Israel, in the region. Washington is helping the Saudis in their brutal and illegal war in Yemen. The Obama administration, despite conveying its misgivings about the Saudi led war in Yemen, is going ahead with the $1.29 billion weapons deal it signed last year with Riyadh. In Syria, both Washington and Riyadh remain committed to regime change. The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zaraf, has accused the Saudi government of arming, training and financing terrorist groups in the region and outside. “Let us not forget that the perpetrators of many acts of terror, from the horrors of September 11 to the shootings in San Bernardino and other episodes of extremist carnage in between, as well as nearly all members of the al Qaeda and the Nusra Front, have been either Saudi nationals or brainwashed by petrodollar financed demagogues who have promoted anti-Islamic messages of hatred and sectarianism for decades”, he wrote in an op-ed column in the NYT. Despite the West being aware of these misdemeanors, Saudi Arabia was even elected to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2013. The UN Resolution which established the UNHCR stated that “the members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”. The most severe blow back following the execution of Sheikh Nimr was felt in Iran. The Islamic Republic's Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the “unfairly spilled blood of the martyr” would invite “divine retribution” on the Saudi leadership. Khamenei pointed out that “the oppressed scholar had neither invited people to an armed movement, nor was he involved in covert plots. The only act of Sheikh Nimr was outspoken criticism”. There were spontaneous protests in many Iranian cities after the announcement of the execution. In Teheran, a big protest rally outside the Saudi embassy went out of control. Before the police could intervene, a section of the protestors ransacked parts of the embassy and set fire to an office in the embassy. The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, was quick to criticise the attack on the embassy, blaming some Iranian “extremists” for the incident. CRISIS WITH IRAN The Saudis were quick to seize on the provocative act of a small group of protestors against their embassy and announced the snapping of diplomatic links with Teheran. They prevailed on some of their Gulf allies to downgrade diplomatic ties. Many Iranian commentators admit that the embassy burning incident has allowed the Saudi authorities to divert attention from the emotive issue of the execution of Sheikh Nimr. “Saudi Arabia sees not only its interests but also its existence in pursuing crises and confrontations and attempts to resolve its internal problems by exporting them to the outside”, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said. Since taking office in 2013, President Rouhani had strived to improve relations with Saudi Arabia. But the Saudi rulers have not reciprocated and have in fact hardened their diplomatic and political stance against Teheran. The late King Abdullah, according to Wikileaks transcripts, had urged the Americans to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching military strikes against Iran. The Saudi authorities have tried every trick in the book to undermine the historic US-Iran nuclear deal signed last year. The deal is a tacit recognition by the West that Iran is a regional power. When sanctions will be completely lifted in the near future, Iran will once again emerge as an economic powerhouse. Though the Saudis have now formally on paper reconciled to the US-Iran nuclear deal, there have been ongoing attempts by Riyadh to draw Iran into a military confrontation. With their game plan in Syria failing, the Saudis tried to enmesh Iran into their quagmire in Yemen. The Iranian government has said Saudi military planes deliberately targeted their embassy in the Yemeni capital Sana in the first week of January. The Iranian foreign minister has alleged that the country's embassies in Pakistan and Lebanon were targeted by Saudi proxies in the last three years. The execution of Sheikh Nimr had taken place just three weeks before the peace talks on Syria were to begin. Immediately after the execution was announced, the Saudi authorities declared that they were ending the short lived cease fire in Yemen. The war in Yemen has killed more than 6000 civilians, mainly due to the indiscriminate use of western supplied firepower by the Saudis and their Gulf allies. Among the munitions used are banned cluster bombs. The UN has been warning that the use of cluster bombs constitutes a war crime. More than a hundred hospitals have been targeted so far by the Saudi led alliance. The manufactured crisis with Iran also helps the Saudi authorities to divert domestic attention from the serious problems the country is facing. Rutgers University Professor, Toby Craig Jones, an expert on the region, wrote in an article in the NYT that over the past decade, the Saudi authorities have turned to Iran and the Shias every time they needed an easy scapegoat. “Anti Iranian and anti Shiite sentiment has long existed among religious extremists in the kingdom but today they are at the heart of Saudi Arabia's national identity”, he wrote. The continuing collapse of oil prices has been grim news for the country's economy. The kingdom is dependent for 91 percent of its revenues on oil. A week before Sheikh Nimr's execution, the Saudi government had announced a deficit of $100 billion for its 2016 budget. The war in Yemen is costing the Saudi exchequer $6 billion each month. The Saudis have also pledged to keep on heavily subsidising the Egyptian economy. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor is growing in the kingdom. The unemployment rate continues to be high. “The kingdom faces a potentially perfect storm of low oil income, open ended war in Yemen, terrorist threats from multiple directions and an intensifying regional rivalry with its nemesis, Iran”, wrote Bruce Reidel, a former senior CIA analyst having a vast experience in the region.