Controversial Bust Threatens Iran-Saudi Relations

Regardless of what many might say about IRGC’s Qassem Soleimani and his role as a terror mastermind, even after his death he continues to disrupt good neighborliness.

The Iranian regime has displayed his banners, posters and dozens of statues and busts all around the country to honor its "hero", which brings home the sense of how far the regime is from understanding the prevailing mood in Iran and in the region.

The statues and busts made of him are far from descent and are often mocked by not only art critics, not only from art critics but also from the public. Notably, the controversial bust located at the Naghsh-e Jahan stadium in Esfahan garnered attention when it irked members of the Saudi al-Ittihad football team to the extent that they returned to Riyadh before their scheduled AFC championship match against Iran's Sepahan team.

This sculpture, like all others, failed to convey grandeur or military might and fell short of capturing the essence of an internationally recognized figure, even if that figure happened to be a notorious terrorist despised by many regional countries threatened by him before he was killed by a US drone strike in 2020. In short, it was far from being a piece of art.

The individuals who commissioned these sculptures are the same hardliners who orchestrated the torching of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad in January 2016. Whether placing Soleimani’s bust in a football stadium right before a match with a Saudi team was a mere coincidence or a deliberate attempt, the outcome is nothing short of a blatant sabotage effort aimed at undermining the newly restored Tehran-Riyadh relations.

The presence of the bust posed a security and public diplomacy challenge that may or may have not been meant to unfold before the eyes of millions of viewers waiting for the match on satellite televisions or online. 

Even without the challenge, the slogans shouted by male spectators protesting the ban Iranian women from going to stadiums to watch football was embarrassing enough. Political commentator Abbas Abdi in Tehran likened the decision to prohibit women from entering stadiums to a Catch-22 situation, one that the Islamic Republic is unable to tolerate yet also cannot disregard under pressure from the international athletic community.

Social media users posted a video depicting a senior policeman telling women that only a limited handpicked group of female spectators would be allowed into the stadium. 

As the Saudi team departed Iran without playing in Esfahan, Iran's hardliner media and politicians resorted to conspiracy theories to justify what had gone wrong. Some claimed that Ittihad did not want to face Sepahan, but this explanation failed to address why the bust was placed at the stadium, especially when the Saudis had previously protested the presence of Soleimani's photos at a news conference venue in the Iranian foreign ministry.

Was this another attempt by hardliners opposing the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia? While no one can say for certain, it is a plausible scenario, particularly given that some politicians have sought to undermine progress in Tehran-Riyadh relations, which some argue Iran only accepted under immense pressure from China and its regional interests.

Furthermore, Iran's hardliners are likely to attempt to sabotage the newly restored ties at every opportunity. Even Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, did not miss the chance during Unity Week, a period commemorating unity among various Muslim sects, to criticize Saudi Arabia for its efforts to improve relations with Israel.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, claimed to have spoken with his Saudi counterpart over the phone to address the issue, but he did not disclose the results of these discussions. 

The chants of tens of thousands of spectators quickly shifted from demanding the removal of the bust to calls for regime change and ominous cries of 'Death to the dictator.'

In the words of an Iranian proverb, “Now bring your donkey and load the spilled beans,” or as another Persian saying goes: “An insane man throws a stone into a water well that a hundred wise men cannot retrieve."

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily the views of Iran International