Well, if it’s bad for the goose…

Has Saudi Arabia put Jimmy Malone in charge of selecting targets in Yemen?

Well, maybe:

Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out airstrikes against the Iranian embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, which it claimed left a number of guards wounded and damaged its diplomatic building, although witnesses said the compound was intact.

Tensions between Tehran and Riyadh have been rising after the Saudi execution of a prominent Shia cleric on New Year’s Day.

The Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, condemned what he called a deliberate provocation by Saudis, but the accuracy of the claim was unclear.

Media reports suggested that the mission itself was not hit, but that shrapnel from an attack on a house nearby wounded embassy guards. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has said it is investigating the Iranian allegation.

Yeah, so this is probably an Iranian attempt to seize on any chance to accuse the Saudis of targeting their embassies so as to try to shift the focus away from what happened to the Saudi embassy in Tehran over the weekend. Probably. But I suppose you can’t rule out the possibility that Riyadh was being deliberately provocative.

There have been a few new developments in the Saudi-Iran spat since last we visited with them. Qatar and Kuwait have both recalled their ambassadors to Iran, though neither has fully broken diplomatic ties with Tehran. Somalia has cut its ties to Iran, joining Sudan in forming an “African nations that depend on Saudi aid who are following Riyadh’s lead” bloc. The Iranians have responded by banning all Saudi imports and renewing an already existing ban on Iranians undertaking the Umrah, or the “lesser” (i.e., non-Hajj) pilgrimage to Mecca. The Hajj isn’t until September of this year, which gives both countries about eight months to patch things up and/or make things worse before Tehran has to decide whether or not to try to bar its citizens from undertaking that pilgrimage as well.

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