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Iran attacks, Turkey bring Mideast cauldron to boil

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency even hinted that the twin strikes were a result of US President Donald Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

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Smoke billows out of Iranian Parliament after the attack on Wednesday
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The terror attacks on the Iranian Parliament and shrine of Khomeini, and Turkey passing a bill to move troops to its base in Qatar immediately, has brought the Middle East cauldron to the boil.

Although the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks on two of the biggest symbols of the modern Iranian state, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Saudi Arabia was behind the terror strikes, further widening the Shia-Sunni chasm in the Middle East.

Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency even hinted that the twin strikes were a result of US President Donald Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

Without naming Saudi Arabia, it said: "World public opinion, especially in Iran, sees the fact that this terrorist act was perpetrated soon after the meeting of the US President with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has always supported ... terrorists as to be very meaningful".

While this blame game was going on, Turkey also jumped into the Mideast quagmire to further complicate the already chaotic situation.

On Wednesday night, Turkey's parliament has passed a draft bill allowing troops to be deployed to a military base in Qatar. The move came after Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Arab states for turning their backs on Qatar, which has vehemently denied supporting militant groups.

The move is very significant because Turkey is the first non-Arab Muslim nation that has shown its preference for Qatar over Saudi Arabia.

The reason for Turkey siding with Qatar is that both have provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and backed rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It's said that one of the reasons why Saudi Arabia snapped its ties with Qatar was its closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The House of Saud sees Muslim Brotherhood as the biggest threat to its existence because it's better organised to challenge Saudi Arabia's theocratic political influence over the Sunni Arab world.

This is the reason why Saudi Arabia and UAE pledged $12 billion aid to Egypt when military strongman Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Mohammed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president of the Muslim Brotherhood. The aid, rather than reviving the Egyptian economy, was aimed at exterminating the Muslim Brotherhood.

On the other hand, Erdogan, who has embarked upon Islamisation drive at home while dismantling the westernised secular democratic Turkey as envisioned by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, finds himself closer to Muslim Brotherhood's political beliefs. That is why despite the pressure from the US, Erdogan refused to term Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. Instead, he called it an ideological group.

A Turkish official said: "We feel Qatar and Saudi Arabia are very close friends and we do not want to differentiate between them and take sides." He added, however, that Turkey "will not allow Qatar to be beaten up".
This position has put Turkey on a collision course with Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies.

Many observers say this is the arguably the most serious crisis between Gulf nations since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

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