Note: Zarif's Hand of Friendship Towards Saudi Arabia with Islamabad's Mediation?

From the relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia during Mohammad Khatami's era, when the two countries even signed a security cooperation agreement, to the current period where Mohammad bin Salman has said, "We are putting the ball in Iran's court," the structure that the "architect" of Tehran-Riyadh relations (a title that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gave himself) built has collapsed more and more each year. In the attack by ISIS members on the Iranian Parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini in June 2017, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps specifically pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia. During the protests in January of this year that swept through more than eighty cities in Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei this time, in addition to blaming the "Great Satan" and the "evil Britain," pointed the finger at a "wealthy government." The two wings of Islam (a description used by one of Iran's ambassadors during the warm relations between the two countries) have been facing each other for several years now. It is now rare to find a place in the region where these two countries have not clashed. In each of Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Syria, and Lebanon, the two countries have stood against each other. In the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Riyadh has absolutely facilitated the isolation of the Islamic Republic. At the initiative of Saudi Arabia, this organization, in the statement of the thirteenth summit of heads of state, described Hezbollah of Lebanon alongside ISIS as a terrorist organization and the Islamic Republic as a "supporter of terrorism." Under such circumstances, and while the political relations between the two countries have been severed since January 2016, following the execution of Sheikh Nimr (the Shia cleric from Saudi Arabia) and the attack on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif recently made statements that differed from the harsh rhetoric of the two countries against each other, saying: "If one day Saudi Arabia faces any foreign aggression, Iran will be the first country to act to help this country." He also added: "The security and stability of the countries in the region - for example, Saudi Arabia - is the same as the security and stability of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Given that after the execution of Sheikh Nimr, the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad were attacked, and the street leading to the Saudi embassy in Tehran was renamed to "Martyr Ayatollah Baqir al-Nimr," how should Zarif's friendly tone be interpreted? Is a fundamental change in the Islamic Republic's foreign policy occurring, or is this merely "diplomatic rhetoric"? Should these "exaggerated" statements be seen as a tactical change of the Islamic Republic towards Saudi Arabia or a strategic change? On the other hand, what is noteworthy is the silence of Saudi officials, who have not only not reacted to these statements so far but also, just days before these statements, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia referred to the Islamic Republic, Turkey, and militia groups [referring to Hezbollah] as the "axis of evil." The Iranian Foreign Ministry did not respond harshly to these tough positions of Mohammed bin Salman, but within less than a week, Zarif entered with a tone of reconciliation, stating that Saudi security is Iranian security. These friendly statements come at a time when Saudi Arabia considered its security to be in the execution of Sheikh Nimr, and the Crown Prince of this country had made a very harsh verbal attack on the leader of the Islamic Republic by comparing him to Hitler, saying: "The lesson we learned from Europe is that appeasement does not work. We do not want a new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East." The leader of the Islamic Republic had also not held back in his verbal attacks on Saudi Arabia, calling it a "reactionary regime" that "will certainly face decline and fall." He also described the Al Saud family as worse than the "infidels of Quraysh." To understand all this difference between Zarif's peaceful tone and Ali Khamenei's aggressive tone, there is only one answer: in a new development, Pakistan, as a friendly country standing in the middle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, has recently offered to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh. In this speech at the Islamabad Strategic Studies Institute, Zarif unveiled this Pakistani initiative and emphasized Iran's readiness to resolve disputes with Saudi Arabia in response to journalists. He said: "We have announced our readiness to begin negotiations with Saudi Arabia and have welcomed the actions of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan to initiate these talks." In this context, Zarif, with such "diplomatic rhetoric" and despite all of bin Salman's attacks on the Islamic Republic, preferred not to undermine Pakistan's initiative in hopes of finding a way to reduce tensions through Islamabad's initiative. This approach not only provides an opportunity for Pakistan's mediation but is fundamentally in line with the slogan of "constructive engagement" as a model for Hassan Rouhani's foreign policy. Based on this model, he nurtured the nuclear agreement with the West and the de-escalation with Arab countries. After initial optimism about the success of negotiations with the 5+1 on the nuclear issue, Rouhani hoped that negotiations with the six Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council would yield similar results. It was no coincidence that Zarif, after completing the JCPOA, published a letter titled "The Neighbor First, Then the Home" in several Arab newspapers to open a door for negotiations with the Arab neighbors of the Persian Gulf, whose relations with Iran are now at the level of chargé d'affaires with the UAE and completely severed with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Yemen (plus Egypt and Sudan), with the exception of Oman and Qatar. In the shadow of this "collective tension" in Iran's relations with most Arab countries, the relations of most of these countries with Israel have become so warm that Netanyahu has said: "The current level and volume of these relations is completely unprecedented," to the extent that Tehran is now considered a common enemy of the Arab countries and Israel. Inevitably, a solution must be thought of, and that is the peaceful tone of a minister who, no matter how much he beats the drum of "engagement," Khamenei beats the drum of "confrontation." Moreover, it is unclear which of the many contentious issues between Tehran and Riyadh (the execution of Sheikh Nimr, the disputes in Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, etc.) will be resolved by which mediator.