Riyadh was fully aware the beheading of respected Saudi Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr was a deliberate provocation bound to elicit a rash Iranian response.
The Saudis calculated they could get away with it; after all they employ the best American PR machine petrodollars can buy, and are viscerally defended by the usual gaggle of nasty US neo-cons.
In a post-Orwellian world “order” where war is peace and “moderate” jihadis get a free pass, a House of Saud oil hacienda cum beheading paradise — devoid of all civilized norms of political mediation and civil society participation — heads the UN Commission on Human Rights and fattens the US industrial-military complex to the tune of billions of dollars while merrily exporting demented Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadism from MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) to Europe and from the Caucasus to East Asia.