In a war between the Saudis and Iran, the Saudis are saints by comparison.
A pox on both. Kindly explain the benefits of current US policy to the American people by our extensive entanglement in the region. We have had 9/11, over six thousand brave soldiers killed, thousands more physically and psychologically maimed and trillions of treasure squandered. Needless bitter enemies have been created. These countries, formed in a collapsing violent culture that is not compatible with the practices, institutions or insights of modernity, may have oil wealth. But they will sell it to anyone with the hard currency they need to sustain them. If we disengaged totally from the region , they would come to us begging us to buy their oil and share our advancements with them.
Nonsense, but a statement that the Saudis are ‘saints by comparison’ is to be expected from modern society that blindly believes anything it’s told. This is why I find most liberals and some conservatives to be the same sort of silly ...just different sides of the same coin. The liberals listening to skewed MSM, those on our side listening to radio entertainers.
The only correct answer is both Iran and Saudi Arabia are corrupt and corrupting regimes, spreading their own individual flavors of pain and putrification around the globe.
However, if one wants to parse hairs on which is more ‘saintly,’ then the lesser of two evils would be Iran. Yes, I’m sure that runs contrary to what you heard on the AM broadcast, but let’s have a look. It is common knowledge - hopefully - that 15 of the 19 hijackers that carried out the greatest terrorist attack on US soil were from Saudi Arabia. Digging beyond that also shows something interesting - Saudi Arabia is Sunni, and a particular brand of Sunni Islam called Wahabi (of a Salafist ideology, which is the craziest of the crazy). The Saudi clerics, funded by their government, has been spreading that ideology since the 1970s. Everywhere from Afghanistan (where women would go to campus in the 60s and early 70s before the Wahabi clerics spread their poison) to Somalia (where the traditional dress for women was translucent and people relaxed before the clerics came and made everything ‘haram’ or forbidden) to Eastern Europe (the Chechen brand of Islam was very folksy before certain people from a certain country came to teach them the ‘true oath’).
This goes on and on ...for example, the only country more dangerous that Saud Arabia - Pakistan, with its nukes and radicalism (and it is the British government that termed Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world) - has multitudes of madrassas (Islamic schools) that radicalize youth. Who funds those? Saudi Arabia.
Moving to terrorism groups - the vast majority of Islamic terror groups in the world are Sunni Islam, largely funded by sympathetic Saudi (and Qatari) wealthy donors and spiritually legitimized by Saudi Wahhabi clerics. All the big names - Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia (and who attacked my native country of Kenya), Jamaat ul Mujahadeen, the Taliban, the Chechen terror groups, the Lashkar groups causing mayhem in India, Abu Sayyaf beheading Christians and soldiers in the Philippines (I study Pekiti Tirsia Kali, which is used by the Filipino Marines as their CQB martial art against Abu Sayyaf), Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia, and of course, Hamas and Islamic Jihad targeting Israel.
All are Sunni, and all are supported by Saudi Arabia.
Now, Iran is no virgin saint! They have instigated, planned or funded real terror attacks, and the government itself is no friend to the West. Their Shi’a radicals can be as extremist as their Sunni brethren, and I’m sure everyone knows that Hezbollah is a Shia terror group funded by Iran.
Which is why I said the only correct answer is both are not saintly at all. But by comparison, Saudi Arabia is MUCH worse. The only difference is that we needed their oil for a couple of decades (that need has been waning), they normally directed their rhetoric toward other countries (although those groups they supported ended up targeting the ‘big Satan’ in the view), and their ruling elite knew better than to push for nuclear weapons (although reports have indicated a nuclear pact with Pakistan).
Both are rabid, but one is a small rabid chihuahua making all sort of loud noise, while the other is a large rabid Doberman with many rabid Puppies all over the globe.