Proxilicious!

Vilayat-e Faqih! 

The battle over the Persian Version of the ancient Deutsch "Führerprinzip" - the autocratical concept of one cat calling all the shots for an entire nation state and all the attendant peoples - is going on bay bee!

Ebberdobby knows Iran doesn't call the highest levels of Preacher Command the Supreme Leader for nothing - the trick is - Persia's illegit regime hotly desires their Supreme Leader sweetly xforms into the entire ME's Supreme Leader.

"... Shia-Sunni antagonism is far more serious and determinant of conflict than Americans yet comprehend, even after the strife in Iraq. Thus the natural rival - even enemy - of Iran is not Little Satan but rather Saudi Arabia

Aside from successful adventures in Lebanon with Hiz'B'Allah and lesser successors in The Strip, Iran and Wahabi Arabia are waging a proxy war in their near abroad - like Yemen and Bahrain. Securing Persia's flanking flanks before making the case for corrupt royalty in Ray Bans to unass the Custodialship of the Mecca/Medina Matrix and give it up to Iran.

It's the famous Shia Sunni schisimus maximus sorteed as Sectarian Wars

As in Bahrain:

"...In the view of many Shia, the arrival of Saudi troops weeks ago is merely a ploy by Bahrain's rulers to quell calls by the opposition for a Western-style democracy in favour of the status quo. For the Saudis, a crackdown on the Shia protesters in Bahrain sends a message to their own restive Shia citizens in the eastern part of the country who also demand democratic rule.

"...The Saudi military presence has produced two negative results: First, Saudi Arabia is pressing Bahrain's rulers to use violence against its own people in order for the Saudis to minimise any potential Iranian intervention and to intimidate its own Shia citizens. Second, Iran is now using the Saudi invasion to threaten Bahrain's government and pretend to be protecting its Shia brethren next door in a neighbouring state.

"...The sad truth is that there is now a significant escalation of tension in the Gulf which has not been seen in years. The stakes are high for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, but certainly not for Iran at present.

"...Consequently, expect Iran to exploit the situation in the days and weeks ahead, attempting to exert the maximum pressure on Bahrain's government while stopping just short of provoking an armed confrontation with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states.

Ottoman Empire's Ömer Taspinar points out it's proxilicious!

"...It is no secret that since the emergence of Iraq as a Shiite state after the invasion of the United States, there has been a major battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for a new balance of power in the Middle East.

"...In its simplest form this is a battle between Sunni and Shiite forces in Iraq. The more complicated version is a proxy war in Lebanon, where Saudi Arabia supports Sunni groups loyal to the Hariri family and Tehran sides with Hezbollah. Since the Arab Spring began with the toppling of authoritarian governments in Tunisia and Egypt, a third front has emerged, where the battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia is gaining the complex dimension of a “proxy” struggle: Bahrain.

"...The battle between Iran and Saudi Arabia explains why the West has turned a blind eye to the brutal crackdown on the Shiite opposition in Bahrain. Although the ruling dynasty is Sunni and close to Saudi Arabia, a majority of Bahrain is Shiite. Adding to the strategic importance of this island in the Persian Gulf is the fact that it houses the 5th Fleet of the US Navy.

"...For international relations scholars, what is unfolding in Bahrain is a textbook example of realpolitik, according to which there is nothing surprising about the lack of consistency in US’s support for democracy.

"...Now, with recent signs of serious unrest in Syria, all eyes are once again on the proxy war. How will the struggle in this critical country unfold? 

"...Hawkish idealists, usually neoconservatives happy to merge their pro-democracy views with American military power, will probably favor regime change in Syria. In their eyes, the destabilization of Syria will be a good thing, mainly because Iran will be the main loser. 

"...According to their democratic contagion theory, if protesters in Syria succeed, Iran could be next. Needless to say, the end of the Shiite theocracy in Iran will be the ultimate price in the Middle Eastern proxy war.  

Pic - "The demographic boom in the Middle East has brought a wave of young Arabs and Iranians who associate subjugation and injustice not with colonial or imperial powers, but with their own governments"