Saudi and Iran at each others’ throats

Yesterday — as Pete pointed out earlier — the Obama administration filed criminal charges against two individuals, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, claiming that they worked with Mexican criminals and for the Iranian government on orders to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The plot has met with denials from Tehran, which “categorically and in the strongest terms condemn this shameful allegation.”  
 
But, if true, the plot would only be the latest in a long-standing feud between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The struggle between Riyadh and Tehran has become the Middle East’s central conflict, overshadowing even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The countries are divided by a Shiite-Sunni sectarian split and a Persian-Arab divide that is centuries-old.
 
When the Shah of Iran fell, the relationship went from bad to worse. The two countries fought through proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and now Syria. Saudi Arabia financed Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran in the 1980s.