Source: The New York Times

BAGHDAD — The fighting has finally stopped in Ramadi, a major city in the Sunni heartland. The Islamic State has been ousted, and the Iraqi flag is flying once again.

But Iraq’s government defeated the Islamic State only with the help of Sunni tribes, which soothed local distrust of the Shiite-led central government. Now, as Iraq faces the even greater challenge of routing the Islamic State from other cities, it is confronted with a heated conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia that threatens to inflame sectarian tensions across the entire region.

For Iraq, which barely survived years of sectarian civil war, the hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia could once again foil Sunni-Shiite cooperation — and empower the Islamic State.

“For sure, the rise in sectarian tensions creates a fertile environment for the growth of ISIS,” Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister, said Tuesday, using an acronym for the Islamic State, also known as ISIL. “All of this helps ISIS in building its fighting forces and getting support.”

When the Sunni monarchy in Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric along with 46 other prisoners over the weekend, it incited the outrage of its archrival, Iran, a majority Shiite theocracy. An Iranian mob ransacked and burned the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, and Saudi Arabia responded by severing diplomatic ties with Iran. Several of Saudi Arabia’s allies quickly followed suit.

Now there are fears the bad blood will sabotage the fledgling efforts to ease the many crises roiling the region, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

“I normally try to play down difficulty, but this is a huge setback,” said Jan Eliasson, the deputy secretary general of the United Nations, on Tuesday. “It’s a combination of regional geopolitical consequences and the fact that the sectarian element is playing such a role. Emotions are running so high.”

Iraq, in particular, finds itself in a difficult position with a central government aligned with the United States and Iran. Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has tread carefully, cautiously condemning the execution, but not heeding calls from Shiite protesters to cut diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.

“This new round of Iran-Saudi Arabia tensions is likely to challenge Abadi’s ability to jockey between the United States and Iran,” said Maria Fantappie, an Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Still, analysts, Iraqi politicians and tribal leaders said that so far, there was no indication that the regional tensions were having an immediate impact inside Iraq. They said that Mr. Abadi had managed to navigate a middle ground, in part because Iraq’s Sunni leaders are not as closely tied to Saudi Arabia as in many other countries in the region.

“The problem between Iran and Saudi will not affect us,” said Rafi al-Issawi, a tribal leader in Anbar who supports the government operations against the Islamic State. “We have given tens of martyrs not for Iran or Saudi, but for our country, for the city of Ramadi,” he said, adding, “Let us liberate our country from ISIS, better than Saudi and Iran.”

The most recent round of tensions began Saturday, with the announcement that the Saudi government had executed an outspoken dissident Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

He had sharply criticized the Saudi royal family — and had declared that oppressive rulers should be confronted regardless of sect, criticizing the Iran-backed authoritarian president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

While reactions came quickly, Iraq trod a middle ground, condemning the execution but assuring Saudis that their new embassy could stay and would be protected.

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