The execution “means that Saudi Arabia will not hesitate to punish all terrorists.” The attack on the Embassy means that Iran will not hesitate to stand up for Shi’ites against Saudi Arabia. This could easily escalate much, much more.
An update on this story. “Iranian Protesters Ransack Saudi Embassy After Execution of Shiite Cleric,” by Ben Hubbard, New York Times, January 2, 2016:
Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to part of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran on Saturday after Saudi Arabia executed an outspoken Shiite cleric who had criticized the kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority.
Protesters broke furniture and smashed windows in an annex to the embassy, said a witness who was reached by telephone from Tehran. The protesters also set fire to the room, said the witness, who would provide only his first name, Abolfazl, because he had been involved in the protest.
The police arrived and cleared the embassy grounds of protesters and extinguished the fire, he said.
The protest against the execution of the cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, turned violent after participants began throwing Molotov cocktails at the embassy and then broke into the compound….
Hundreds of Shiites took to the streets to protest in eastern Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain, witnesses said.
In Iran, protesters tore down a flag from the Saudi Consulate in the city of Mashhad, and demonstrations were planned for Sunday in Tehran.
Saudi officials denied that sectarianism had played any role in the executions.
“This means that Saudi Arabia will not hesitate to punish all terrorists,” said Anwar Eshki, a retired major general in the Saudi Army who is the chairman of a research center in Jidda….