Speaking in a Russian State Duma session entitled ‘Russia-Iran relations after 39 years in post-Islamic Revolution in Iran,’ Mehdi Sanaei said that Iran-Russia cooperation has become a tradition and it is turning into a historical experience.

“After the Islamic Revolution, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, relations between the two countries more and more stabilized,” Sanaei said, adding especially in the past two years, cooperation between the two countries has increased in various fields at bilateral, regional and international levels, as it shown by the increasing number of high-ranking mutual visits and consultation between the two countries.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Iran’s ambassador referred to the common threats between Iran and Russia, saying that production of narcotics in the region as a serious threat to both countries has increased 40 times over the past 15 years, and terrorism has become a major threat that require Iran-Russia further cooperation.

Sanaei explained that the US unilateralism is a major source of many challenges in the world, warning that the western and US new sanctions against Iran and Russia and also US new nuclear doctrine are two major common threats against both countries.

The Iranian ambassador further referred to the common interests of the both sides, highlighting that the two countries’ cooperation can increase the regional security in both Central Asia and the Middle East.

Iranian ambassador stated that regional stability in the Middle East and Eurasia, and bilateral cooperation in the field of energy, stabilization of energy prices, transit of goods through the north-south corridor, as well as cooperation in the Caspian Sea region can serve the intersets of both countries.

Sanaei went on to concluded that International cooperation between the two countries in international and regional areas including human rights, disarmament, preserving international agreements such as the JCPOA, finding multilateral solutions and mechanisms for resolving regional issues can increase.

During a press conference with his Belgian counterpart Didier Reynders held in Moscow Tuesday, Lavrov said that the USA, which has troops in Syria without getting any official invitation, adding that the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in several occasions that the presence of US troops in Syria is to combat the terrorist organization of ISIL “yet the latest US acts and what we hear of new objectives on staying in the country for keeping up with the political process accepted by it stir doubts that it aims to stay in the country for a long period of time if not forever.”

Lavrov pointed out that “the Americans have taken dangerous unilateral steps in the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, which seems to be an approach for undermining Syria’s territorial integrity.”

In the past few years, Saudi Arabia has led an intervention in Yemen’s civil war, been the driving force behind a diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its neighbors, and involved itself in the politics of Lebanon.

All of these things appear to have one common objective: to push back against the influence of Iran.

But experts say Saudi Arabia’s ambitions are limited by its military, which is considered an ineffective force even though the kingdom is one of the world’s largest spenders on defense.

“The fact is, Iran is better at doing this stuff,” said Michael Knights, a Lafer fellow at The Washington Institute who specializes in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf.

“There’s nobody in the Iranian General Staff that’s afraid of Saudi Arabia on the ground,” Knights said.

Saudi Arabia’s struggles in Yemen — where its years-long conflict with the Houthi rebels has no end in sight — reveals its shortcomings against an adversary like Iran.

“What we are really talking about is how they stack up in a proxy war,” Knights said. “It’s what they are doing in the region nowadays.”

Saudi Arabia’s military faces two main problems. It is too large, making it more susceptible to organizational and quality issues, and its arsenal is designed for a large conventional war rather than the proxy wars of the 21st century.

For all Saudi Arabia’s military ineffectiveness, it’s hard to blame the kingdom’s equipment. Last year, Saudi Arabia was the fourth-largest spender on defense products in the world, just behind Russia.

According to IHS Jane’s, a British publishing company specializing in military, aerospace, and transportation topics, Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest importer of weapons in 2014.

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that Saudi Arabia was the second-largest importer of weapons in both 2015 and 2016. Arms imports into the kingdom have increased by over 200% since 2012, according to the institute.

The weaponry being bought is not low quality, either. The majority of Saudi Arabia’s military hardware is bought from US companies. In fact, 13% of all US arms exports in 2016 were headed into the kingdom. Companies from the UK and Spain were the second- and third-largest sellers.

The Royal Saudi Air Force arsenal includes Eurofighter Typhoons, perhaps the most advanced fighter jet fielded by European militaries, and American F-15 Eagles, the undisputed king of the skies for three decades and still formidable. The Saudis even have their own model of the Eagle — the F-15SA (Saudi Advanced), which just started being delivered this year.

The Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Saudi army, have everything from M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to AH-64D Apache Longbow and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

Virtually every vessel in the Royal Saudi Navy was built in American shipyards, specifically for Saudi Arabia. Its newest frigates, the Al Riyadh class, are modified versions of France’s La Fayette-class frigate.

Saudi Arabia is one of the best-equipped nations in the world. Yet the Saudi military does not strike fear into the hearts of its adversaries, or would-be foes.

Evidence of the Saudi military’s shortcomings can be seen just south of the Saudi border in Yemen.

Almost three years after Saudi Arabia, supported by other Persian Gulf and Arab states, launched a military intervention to support Yemen’s ousted president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Iran-backed Houthi rebels are still active and continue to hold Yemen’s largest city and capital, Sana’a.

Additionally, the Houthis have proved capable of launching high-profile attacks against the Saudis. Those include multiple cross-border raids into Saudi Arabia, successful attacks on Emirati and Saudi navy ships, and the launching of ballistic missiles into the heartland of the kingdom.

In a more recent embarrassment, a report from The New York Times suggested that a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis that exploded at an airport in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was actually not shot down as previously claimed by the Saudi military.

The Saudis have had a hard task in Yemen. They have to operate in the Houthi heartland against a well-trained, well-funded, and well-supplied fighting force.

Saudi Arabia, however, has not deployed significant land forces into Yemen that would be required to win on the battlefield.

“We don’t know if the Saudi military is able to have a significant impact on the Yemen war, because we’ve only seen the deployment of Saudi airpower,” Knights told Business Insider.

“Generally, an airpower-only campaign is not going to have a great impact — particularly in this type of complex terrain with an enemy who is very adept at hiding from airpower and often looks like civilians,” he said.

Knights estimates that 10,000 to 20,000 troops would be required to have the desired affect. Yet the Saudi military has not deployed its ground forces — most likely because the Saudi leadership knows that, as Knights says, they “suffer from significant weaknesses.”

These weaknesses include a lack of logistical equipment and experience needed to carry out such a campaign.

“They have no experience in an expeditionary operation,” he said, noting that the Desert Storm campaign against Iraq — which Saudi Arabia did contribute to — was largely an American effort.

Additionally, Saudi ground forces as a whole are not trained well enough to where they would be able to perform successfully in large-scale operations. As such, a Saudi ground force in Yemen may cause more harm than good.

Bilal Saab, the senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, told Business Insider that Saudi Arabia understood the potential harm of its ground forces. In an email, Saab said Saudi Arabia would not deploy large contingents of ground forces “because their casualties would be severe and they most probably would cause tremendous collateral damage in Yemen.”

In Knights’ view, Saudi Arabia needs to downsize its military, focus on quality recruitment and training, and make units that are capable of fighting alongside and training local allies.

Today, local militias and tribal groups form the majority of the ground force battling the Houthis, and few if any Saudi soldiers assist them — save for a few special forces units.

“As a result,” Knights says, “there is no credible military pressure on the Houthis.”

“If Donald Trump’s threats against Iran had any value to the international community, oil prices should have rose up to about 65 dollars by now, but the US president’s words did not affect the oil market at all,” Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Sunday, while referring to Trump’s recent anti-Iran positions and his move to decertify the 2015 nuclear deal.

Zanganeh went on to add, “up to this moment, oil prices have been still under the influence of OPEC, not Trump’s words. Iran’s oil sector attached no significance to Trump’s threats and we are going ahead with our agenda as strong and determined as ever.”

“They [Americans] could not achieve any results by sanctioning Russia, because Russia exports ten million barrels of oil and supplys Europe’s oil demands. They can, however, cut off one million barrel exports from the oil market, because Arab states can compensate for this amount,” Zanganeh explained, while calling for an increase in Iran’s oil exports.

He went on add, “if we manage to sign contracts worth 40 billion dollars with European countries, their interests will not allow them to stop doing business with Iran under the pretext of sanctions.”

“Total has announced that it would cancel its contract with us if the UN Security Council adopts a resolution against Iran; under the contract, if Total withdraws, the Chinese companies will take its place,” he said.

The Iranian oil minister further commended Total’s stance against Donald Trump’s anti-Iran remarks, saying “they maintained that they do not follow the US orders. Total will proceed with its contract with Iran according to the schedule.”