Iran vs Saudi Arabia

[SATW]

Iran regularly murders homosexuals, S.Arabia tends to just beat the sh**t out of them and leave them in prison.  Iran, in general, kills more of it's own people for silly reasons than S.Arabia, but that could be explained by the population differences.  We've clearly had more negative reactions, at least at the state level, with Iran than with S.Arabia, but S.Arabia has been a pretty sh**tty friend.  The Persians themselves tend to be a bit more keen on us, at least at the personal level....Arabs, not so much...anecdotally.

very slight lean to Iran I guess, but I could pretty easily be convinced the other way.

This. Neither country is a good one to have as a partner on an international or diplomatic stage, but clearly the Saudi government is more likely to play ball w/ us some of the time than Iran.

Both are horrible.

[SATW]

Iran by a mile and a half. They don't behead people for Sorcery, Witchcraft or fund Salafist Terror Groups all around the world. Iran is by far the lesser evil.

How is that different from what Iran does? Just because Iran isn't completely possessed by religious extremism doesn't mean that they are somehow less worse.

Iran has been sponsoring terrorism across the globe, for many of the same reasons as the Saudis, for decades.

Also, on the execution issue:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/jan/04/executions-in-saudi-arabia-iran-numbers-china

Iran is just as bad on executions. As the article notes, there are differences in population, so naturally Iran will, usually, have a higher number, but it is important to note that 42% of Iran's executions are for drug offenses. (Similar to the Saudi numbers on that).