From the streets of Tehran to the White House, everybody was celebrating the initial nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers on April 5—except Israel, Saudi Arabia and Republicans. 

However, the Saudi opposition to the deal is irrational.

Republicans have rejected the deal because of domestic political concerns. It is somewhat understandable for Israel to oppose the Iran deal, from a political realism perspective. The Israeli government does not oppose the deal because of Iran’s nuclear threat, which the deal nullifies. 

“Iran is going to have sanctions lifted, including crippling sanctions, pretty much up front,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN following the announcement of the official agreement. “And that’s going to have billions and billions of dollars flow into the Iranian coffers, not for schools or hospitals or roads, but to pump up Iran’s terror machine throughout the world.”

In the words of the Israeli prime minister, Iran’s threat to Israel is not nuclear; it is financial and political because the Islamic Republic supports Israel’s foes, namely Hezbollah and Hamas. 

However, Saudi Arabia’s opposition to the deal is not based on reason. While there are sectarian differences and geopolitical rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two countries are not natural enemies. The Saudis claim to fear Iranian hegemony over the Arab World. As Arab Americans, we are concerned about the dwindling role of Arabs in their own affairs. But Iran did not take away influence from Saudi Arabia.

It was the Saudi incompetence, loss of direction and lack of regard for the aspiration of the Arab masses that allowed Iran to fill the power vacuum in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, is the largest and richest Arab country. However, the kingdom’s disastrous foreign policy and chaotic leadership have become a burden on the Arab World. The Saudis abandoned the Palestinian cause and entered in an implied alliance with Israel. Iran gained a foothold in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories by supporting resistance movements like Hamas and Hezbollah. If Saudi Arabia had not placed a losing bet on Israel crushing the resistance and fulfilled its ethical obligation to support Arab struggle against Israeli colonialism, Iran would not have had the upper hand in the Levant. 

Similarly in Iraq, Saudi Arabia was an acting partner in starving the Iraqi people for 13 years by enforcing the American sanctions after the first Gulf War. In 2003, the kingdom was a cheerleader for the U.S. invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iran’s most feared foe. After the rise of ISIS, which Iraqis accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting, the Saudis were not concerned with the terrorist group that was massacring Iraqis and Syrians and tarnishing the image of Islam. Instead, they waited for the Americans to bomb ISIS and for Iran to fight the terrorists on the ground.

The Saudi sheiks have nobody to blame but themselves for their growing irrelevance in the world. The nuclear deal with Iran will not tip the scale in the Islamic Republic’s favor in its confrontation with Saudi Arabia; the Gulf kingdom had already lost the battle because of lack of transparency and accountability. 

Portraying Iran as the enemy does not empower Arabs. It only serves in faking the legitimacy of the Saudi royal family.