Gulf Arabs fear Iran with cash as much as Iran with the bomb - FT.com:
"When President Barack Obama set out to strike a deal with Iran to constrain its nuclear ambitions, he anticipated that success would lead to a new equilibrium in a Middle East in turmoil from which the US sought to pull back: a self-regulating balance of power between the rival hegemons of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
One reason this is going to be difficult for him to sell to Gulf Arab leaders at this week’s meeting at Camp David is that Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies feel this balance has already tilted alarmingly towards Shia Iran. Some of their officials can be heard fulminating about Tehran’s ambition to recreate a Persian empire in Arab lands. They fear that if the framework nuclear deal agreed in Lausanne in April is formally concluded next month, an Iran freed of international sanctions on its economy could lock in its Arab gains and become unstoppable.
The Saudi-led Sunni coalition bombing the Houthis in Yemen – a heterodox Zaydi Shia movement Riyadh insists is powered by Iran – has dramatised this concern, which is centred on the Islamic republic’s influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon."
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