The Saudi government was attempting to tamp down internal strife
when it executed 47 people, including a Shiite cleric, last week, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, tells
Newsmax TV.
The death of the cleric sparked outrage in Iran, as mobs attacked the Saudi embassy there, followed by Saudi Arabia cutting off diplomatic relatations.
Jasser said Monday on "The Hard Line" that the real reason behind the move was an internal power struggle.
"So there's no better way to stomp down a restless people than to publically execute 47 people," Jasser told host Ed Berliner.
Forty-three of those executed were Sunnis and four Shiite. The royal family in Saudi Arabia is Sunni.
"So the secondary benefit was to, oh by the way, let's go ahead and assassinate a Shia cleric in order to make it clear," Jasser said. "They threw in the Shia cleric in a Machiavellian sense to antagonize the region, make it seem like they're in a war while internally it was really about domestic unrest."
The killings also brought other Sunni nations in alignment with the Saudis, Jasser said.
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The United States and other Western nations also will have to align with the Sunni nations since Russia is aligned with the Shiite nations of Iran and Syria and with Hezbollah.
"Even though our president has been asleep, he's going to back into defending the Saudis whether he wants to or not," he said.
The Saudis may be trying to create a conflagration that lets them get back into Bahrain. Iran isn't likely to use nuclear weapons, but the situation could escalate into the Saudis also getting a weapon, he added.
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