Saudi Gazette report

Los Angeles — Saudi Arabia is pushing back on Iranian moves to spread extremist ideology, Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense, said in a wide-ranging interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic.

"We’ve done this in Africa, Asia, in Malaysia, in Sudan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon. We don’t know if the regime will collapse or not—it’s not the target, but if it collapses, great, it’s their problem," the Crown Prince said in the interview published on Monday.

"Iran is trying to build an empire based on evil ideology, which is contrary to the UN principles," he said, describing Iran as the main part of a triangle to spread evil ideology.

Explaining the triangle of evil, Crown Prince Muhammad said that first angle of this triangle is the Iranian regime that wants to spread their extremist ideology, their extremist Shiite ideology.

The second part of the triangle is the Muslim Brotherhood, which is another extremist organization. They want to use the democratic system to rule countries and build shadow caliphates everywhere.

Then they would transform into a real Muslim empire. And the other part is the terrorists — al-Qaeda, Daesh -- that want to do everything with force.

This triangle is promoting an idea that God and Islam are not asking us to promote. Their idea is totally against the principles of the United Nations, and the idea of different nations having laws that represent their needs.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Yemen—all of these countries are defending the idea that independent nations should focus on their own interests, in building good relations on the foundation of UN principles. The evil triangle doesn’t want to do that.

The Crown Prince said, "Islam is a religion of peace. This is the translation of Islam. God, in Islam, gives us two responsibilities: The first is to believe, to do good things, and not bad things. If we do bad things, God will judge us on Judgment Day.

"Our second duty as Muslims is to spread the word of God. Islam, in this context, was not about conquering, it was about peacefully spreading the word."

Talking about women rights and empowerment, the Crown Prince said, "I support Saudi Arabia, and half of Saudi Arabia is women. So I support women.

"In our religion there is no difference between men and women. There are duties to men and duties to women. There are different forms of equality. In the Saudi government women are paid exactly like men. We have regulations like this that are going into the private sector. We don’t want divided treatment for different people."