The Middle East is experiencing renewed tensions sparked by Iran's row with Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom executed 47 terrorism convicts including Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The execution of the cleric was met in Iran by mob attacks on Riyadh's embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad, which led to Saudi Arabia cutting its diplomatic relations with Tehran.  A number of other Arab countries quickly followed suit in support of the Kingdom.

The developments sparked international concerns over the repercussions of severed ties between the two regional powers that are diametrically opposed to each other over their positions on regional crises, namely Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon.

With tensions between Riyadh and Tehran escalating, more and more mediation offers were made by a number of countries which expressed their desire to secure diplomatic channels to de-escalate the tensions. However, these offers vary in terms of seriousness and ability to affect the crisis and its potential consequences.

The first thing to be noted about the mediation efforts has to do with the fact that the world's major powers with a traditional presence in the Middle East region continue to pursue the same approach. The United States and allied Western powers have opted to reduce their involvement in issues of the region. This new position was manifested in their clear absence in the Yemeni crisis and the recent diplomatic row between Tehran and Riyadh, where the United States, France, and Germany, among other western states, were content with only calling Iran and Saudi Arabia to preempt any negative fallout of their diplomatic crisis.

Washington has not even offered to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia despite the fact that it can play this role due to its traditional alliance with Riyadh and its recent opening up to Tehran. Washington was content with Secretary of State John Kerry's phone calls to his Saudi and Iranian counterparts, Adel al-Jubeir and Mohammad Javad Zarif, to urge their two countries to exercise self-restraint and defuse the crisis.

This voluntary absence of international actors in this crisis can be explained by the emerging US-Iranian relationship, which is still in the phase of appeasement and congruence following the conclusion of the nuclear deal with the P5+1. In this phase, the United States now finds itself in a predicament because of its desire to prevent this achievement from being undermined.

In the same vein, the European Union's reaction to the diplomatic rift was voiced by Foreign Affairs Chief Federica Mogherini who warned that escalating tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia could jeopardize Syrian peace talks and undermine the efforts to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria. But the inability to moderate the crisis between Riyadh and Tehran seems to have metastasized to the United Nations which is now too weak to play the role of an unbiased mediator in such cases.

In fact, the UN Security Council urged Iran and Saudi Arabia to maintain dialogue and take steps to reduce tensions in the region and even condemned in the strongest terms the mob attacks against Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran, and its Consulate General in Mashhad. In this context, and expressing their deep concern at such attacks, the members of the Security Council called on the Iranian authorities to protect diplomatic and consular property and personnel and to respect fully their international obligations in this regard.

It is safe then to say that the United Nations, which is not an influential party in this case, is incapable of taking any steps towards bringing about rapprochement between the two disputing parties, especially after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon angered Riyadh by stating that he is "deeply dismayed" over Saudi Arabia's execution of 47 people, including the Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Accordingly, any moves made by the United Nations would be aimed at preempting fallout from this crisis on the hot regional issues, in particular, the efforts to resolve conflicts in Syria and Yemen. This was made clear when UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura visited Syria recently, three weeks before the long-awaited Geneva talks on Syria.

A number of regional and international powers serve to act as mediators in order to bridge the gap between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and prevent escalation of the crisis. There are initiatives that vary in terms of the influence of involved states, and their capability to take an active and effective role within the context of the crisis in the region. States presenting themselves as mediators between Saudi Arabia and Iran include the following:

Russia, which regretted the escalation of tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran and stressed its willingness to play the role of a mediator to resolve the escalating conflict between the two countries, is, in fact, trying to present itself as a neutral country that maintains an equal distance from the two disputing states. Moscow, which has friendly ties with both Tehran and Riyadh, basically had fears that the diplomatic crisis would endanger the multilateral talks on Syria in Vienna in which it joined the US, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, to try to find a solution to the crisis in Syria.

However, questions are being raised about how serious Russia is in this regard and how capable Moscow is of making any concrete progress. These questions are raised against the backdrop of rising tensions in the Saudi-Russian relations in light of the Syrian crisis; where Moscow backs Bashar Al-Assad regime while Riyadh seeks to topple Assad either through dialogue or military action, a stance repeatedly declared by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

1. The Russian-Iranian agreement on the crisis in Syria has not prevented a limited tension between Moscow and Tehran over Russian bids to reduce Iran's role in Syria and even possibly toppling Bashar Al-Assad in any future settlement. The emerging tension was removed by Vladimir Putin who visited Tehran in April 2015 and lifted a ban on supplying Iran with the sophisticated air defense missile system S-300 (Delivery of the S-300s was canceled in 2010 after the UN imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program). These developments would suggest that Moscow will back Iran in its crisis with Riyadh, but Moscow will not be affected by Tehran's weakening regional influence in the aftermath of its diplomatic crisis with Riyadh. 

2. Iraq, which has borders with both Saudi Arabia and Iran, and based on its strong relations with Iran and Arab countries, also offered to mediate in the Saudi-Iranian crisis. This effort emanates from Baghdad's fears that the Saudi-Iranian rift would have impacts on the international campaign against ISIS, on one hand, and that the simmering sectarian Sunni-Shia tensions will come back to Iraq after having struck the country for more than a decade, on the other. In particular, the feared renewal of tensions was heralded by bombings at two Sunni mosques in southern Baghdad in the wake of the Saudi-Iranian diplomatic crisis.

Most importantly, and because Iraq is generally considered one of the most crucial issues between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Baghdad is faced with a daunting task of playing the role of an unbiased mediator between the two regional powers. In addition, Baghdad, where the government receives direct support from Iran, has its own tensions with Saudi Arabia. The signs of Iraq's failure as a mediator soon were revealed in Tehran at a joint press conference during which Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced his country's desire to play a mediator role. At the very press conference, held in Tehran, Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif in Tehran accused Saudi Arabia of rejecting Iran's offer to cooperate on what he called "terrorism and extremism", accused the Kingdom of fomenting sectarian tensions in the region and demanded Riyadh stop what he called “stoking regional tensions."

Domestically, there is no consensus on the desire to play a mediator role. A member of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iraqi Council of Representatives said the foreign minister should have notified Iraqi political parties and the Foreign Relations Committee if he wanted to garner partisan and political support for a successful mediation effort. It is a good step credited to the Iraqi diplomacy but its success is doubtful and will even lead to big differences between the involved parties.

3. Turkey also offered to mediate in order to alleviate tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu urged both parties to the dispute to use diplomacy to calm tensions and said Ankara is ready to offer any constructive assistance to find a solution. Later, Ankara explained its unwavering stance on the issue: not backing the execution of Nimr al-Nimr because Ankara is against all forms of execution; rejecting the attacks on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad as "unacceptable".

Despite the fact that many are optimistic about Turkey's ability to mediate the issue, based on its strong relations with Saudi Arabia, which culminated with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit to Riyadh, Turkey's relations with Iran are not equally strong in Iran. That is, the Turkish-Iranian relations were further strained earlier, during the Turkish-Russian crisis over Turkey's downing of a Russian military jet near the Syrian border, when Tehran then criticized Ankara over the incident and even, a month earlier, demanding it withdraws its troops from northern Iraq.

Because of the limited ability of influential actors - who are closest to the two parties involved - to affect the course of the crisis and bring about convergence of views between the involved parties, it seems that the arena is open for other powers that traditionally do not interfere in the affairs of this region, to step in as mediators to prevent the crisis between Riyadh and Tehran from worsening.

Hence, observers express appreciation of a role for other states the most important of which is China, which seeks to increase its chances using its network of good economic relations with regional countries and which has no immediate interests in the Saudi-Iranian flare-up.

To play this role, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a special envoy to Iran and Saudi Arabia earlier this month to help ease the tensions between the two countries. The ministry also called both countries to de-escalate their tensions and maintain calm and noted that the Vice Foreign Minister, Zhang Ming, held meetings with Saudi officials and he will later visit Iran to ease up the situation.

Indonesia also stepped in and its Foreign Affairs Ministry announced that it seeks to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi made direct contacts with Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Iyad Madani, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, in an effort to find a way out of this problem. Indonesia's strengths in this context include its ability to move via the OIC's framework, an organization based on religious ties and represents the collective voice of the Muslim world. 

On a final note, it is perhaps safe to say that any mediation efforts between Riyadh and Tehran are doomed to failure as long as Iran insists on inventing a new crisis to exacerbate tensions in this region and also as long as its aim is to stoke sectarianism in neighboring countries through its flagrant interference in their domestic affairs. Riyadh shall also maintain a "fixed ceiling" which it cannot give up currently, especially in light of the current situation of inter-Arab solidarity where there are signs that Arabs are increasingly dissatisfied  with Tehran's stubborn insistence on carrying out its policy of interference and that they can no longer accept Tehran's sectarian practices and sabotage in some Arab countries.