Among liberal circles like hn and MIT,Jesus Christ dude. But appealing to you people is useless because my polite and correct comment gets flagged, flagged for nothing more than offending someone. Iran's influence is overblown? Are you serious? Where are rebels getting their supplies? If Iranian support ceased completely the resistance would dry up and the whole thing would grind to a total and complete stop. Same more or less for saudi Arabia. Iran has committed directly and indirectly heinous terrorist crimes that match or exceed the acts commuted by Saudi/us. This is basically a war between two countries and as has always been true, trying to reduce the thing into a framework of good and evil or right and wrong is a fools errand and an intellectual molestation of the truth.

In actual fact mbs is a force for reform. He is perusing reform both because it is plainly in the best interest of his empire and because this is a trend that goes all the way to the beginning with for example the introduction of television to the masses despite huge resistance from religious bodies. Anyone who claims to favor reform and simultaneously condemns mbs knows nothing about the history or international politics of Saudi Arabia. I have been watching mobs and his behaviour indicates very positive direction indeed. Do your homework. Astoundingly the people at MIT seem to have not done theirs.