Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir. Photo: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, DC.

In an op-ed on Monday in The New York Times, a senior Saudi official rejected the notion that Iran would moderate its policies in the wake of the nuclear deal.

Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s minister of foreign affairs, wrote that, rather than genuinely evolving “from a rogue revolutionary state into a respectable member of the international community,” Iran preferred to obscure its extremism by “leveling unsubstantiated charges” against Riyadh.

Al-Jubeir stressed that Iran’s changes after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action are only superficial. In reality, he wrote, Tehran remains committed to stirring up regional sectarian tensions, sponsoring terrorism and exporting its revolution to neighboring countries.

He went on to dismiss Tehran’s claim that friendship is its top foreign-policy priority. To the contrary, said al-Jubeir, “Iran is the single-most-belligerent-actor in the region, and its actions display both a commitment to regional hegemony and a deeply held view that conciliatory gestures signal weakness either on Iran’s part or on the part of its adversaries.”