The lifting of sanctions on Iran as a result of its nuclear deal with world powers will be a harmful development if it uses the extra money to fund "nefarious activities," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told Reuters on Tuesday. "It depends on where these funds go. If they go to support the nefarious activities of the Iranian regime, this will be a negative thing and it will generate a push back," Jubeir said. Jubeir said he did not believe Washington was retreating from the region, but emphasized that the world looked to it as the sole superpower to provide stability. "If an American decline were to happen or an American withdrawal were to happen, the concern that everybody has is that it would leave a void, and whenever you have a void, or a vacuum, evil forces flow," Jubeir said. Jubeir said Iran's support for Shiite militias across the region was the main source of sectarian ill will. The Saudi Foreign Ministry prepared a 58-point "fact sheet to illustrate Iran's aggressive policies" and to refute "the persistent lies" from Tehran, including an article by Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in The New York Times last week. A senior Foreign Ministry official said on Tuesday that Iran has been spreading "sedition, unrest and chaos." "Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran has established a record of spreading sedition, unrest and chaos in the region," the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted an unnamed senior foreign ministry official as saying. "During the same period, the Kingdom has maintained a policy of restraint in spite of having suffered — as have neighboring countries — the consequences of Iran's continued aggressive policies." The official said Iranian policy was based primarily on the idea of exporting revolution. "Iran recruits militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen," the official said, adding that Iran is supporting "terrorism" and carrying out assassinations.
