Iran and New Power Relations in the Middle East

By Mohammad Ali Farazmand, Iran’s former Ambassador To Bahrain

 

The reality of Iran-Arab relations today is the resultant of different levels of interests, security concerns and geopolitical shifts. Portraying a clear image of these relations is difficult. Understanding the changes in the Arab world and role of each actor can contribute to a better understanding of current atmosphere of Iran-Arab relations.

 

A shift which has occurred during the last three decades in the Arab world and confirms the theory of Middle East’s eastward stretch, is decline of Egypt’s status as the leader of the Arab world and rise of a new power in the eastern part of the Arab world, i.e. Saudi Arabia. In today’s Middle East the latter is Iran’s major Arab rival.

 

The different role these two countries play in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, also Saudis different view on security establishment in Persian Gulf and the role Americans are asking them to containt of Iran, are new features of Iran-Saudi Arabia relations that impact Iran’s ties with other Arab states.

 

About Middle East’s state, in his 1995 book the French Arabologist, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, has argued: "during the last 25 years, Arab world’s center of gravity has moved from the Mediterranean region to Middle East". Some other events which have happened since 1995 verify this argument.

 

One of these events was the 9/11 terrorist attack which had its origins in a Salafist mentality with Arabian roots. Military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and consequent deployment of tens of thousands of trans-regional troops in these countries and the tough face-off between Iran and United States are some other important events that have happened since 1995.

 

These are all evidence that show the center of gravity has moved to the Persian Gulf. In other words, Middle East has stretched towards east, such that nowadays Afghanistan and Pakistan are also involved in Middle Eastern games and outlooks.

 

Al-Qaeda and Taliban, though fostered in Pakistan and Afghanistan, were fruits of a certain interpretation of Islam that had its roots in the Arabian Peninsula and southern coast of the Persian Gulf.

 

Iran lies at the heart of the new Middle East, not only geographically, but also in terms of the central role it plays in regional crises. Iran is one of the major actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq and Iran-West confrontation. In addition, its role in less important crises like those of Lebanon and Afghanistan is more significant than other regional actors. Also Iran’s [nuclear] case has different levels that in addition to trans-regional powers, has engaged a broad range of Arab countries. The different levels of Iran-Arab relations are:

 

1.      Iran’s nuclear issue is not only important for Europe, United States and Israel, but also it is traced by Arab states and it has become part of their foreign diplomacy agenda. Members of the CCASG (Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the [Persian] Gulf) for the first time expressed their concerns in 2006 in form of environmental concerns.

The final declaration released by the CCASG 2006 Summit expressed concern over Persian Gulf waters’ contamination due to Bushehr power plant activity. In 2007 CCASG members decided to launch studies on peaceful nuclear program. This was a reaction towards Iran’s program.

 

2.      End of the Shiites’ historical deprivation in Lebanon and Persian Gulf is considered by Arabs as a change that will lead to Iran’s further empowerment. They believe that a Shiite crescent is taking shape from Pakistan to Lebanon that can fall under Tehran’s leadership.

 

3.      Arab’s believe that with Shiites and Kurds rise to power in Iraq, this country has turned from a power-broker against Iran into a country under Iran’s hegemony. Persian Gulf Arabs believe that Iraq must be against –not besides- Iran, otherwise no power in the region can balance the Iran-Iraq axis.

 

4.      The Islamic Republic of Iran has close ties with Palestinian groups such as Hamas and it has added to its weight in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arabs believe that Iran has stepped into their backyard and meddles in the issue by backing anti-peace groups.

 

5.      Arab states, especially those located on the southern coast of Persian Gulf, openly call for a block against Iran’s increasing power and constantly accuse Iran of interfering in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq and trying to actualize its ambitions in the Persian Gulf; however, they fear military clash between Iran and U.S. and consider it a catastrophe for themselves.

 

The reality of Iran-Arab relations today is the resultant of different levels of interests, security concerns and geopolitical shifts. Portraying a clear image of these relations is difficult. Understanding the changes in the Arab world and role of each actor can contribute to a better understanding of current atmosphere of Iran-Arab relations.

 

A shift which has occurred during the last three decades in the Arab world and confirms the theory of Middle East’s eastward stretch, is decline of Egypt’s status as the leader of the Arab world and rise of a new power in the eastern part of the Arab world, i.e. Saudi Arabia. In today’s Middle East the latter is Iran’s major Arab rival.

 

Egypt, the traditional leader of the Arab world, that without its presence war and peace looked senseless once, has currently lost its position in the Arab world and international stage.

 

Today Egypt is ruled by an octogenarian sick president. Four decades ago, with the epic nationalism of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the unique al-Azhar university and the Muslim Brothers movement Egypt was the starting point of every political and intellectual movement in Arab and non-Arab world. Arabs had only one radio channel -the Egyptian Sout al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs)- the watched one TV channel -the Nile-, they read al-Ahram and their hero was Nasser.

 

Arab Islamists were absorbed by The Muslim Brothers branches in their countries. Today, every Egyptian signature has turned into a second-class institution against its Persian Gulf counterpart. Nowadays Arabs watch al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, MBC, LBC and ART, they read Asharq Alawsat and al-Hayat. Instead of al-Azhar, Arabs wish to send their children to King Saud, King Fahd and King Faisal universities or branches of accredited Western universities in Dubai, Sharjah, Manama, Kuwait or Doha.

 

From northwest of Africa to eastern coast of Persian Gulf, Sunni Arab Islamists are attracted by Salafist beliefs. Even in Qur’an recitation they imitate as-Sudais and al-Huzhaifi (prayer leaders of Mecca and Medina). They practice their prayers, fasting and hajj based on Saudi religious scholars’ fatwas (religious verdicts). The most authoritative Sunni scholars graduate from either the Umm al-Qura University of Mecca, Medina’s Islamic University or the University of Imam Muhammad bin Saud of Riyadh.

 

Interestingly, during his 1980s war against communists in Afghanistan, Bin Laden mostly recruited Egyptian youth, that is most his followers were the Muslim Brothers affiliates. Thirty years ago the Egyptian work force in Persian Gulf Arab countries included teachers, university professors, doctors, engineers, lawyers and journalists. Nowadays they are simple workers that after some years of working in Persian Gulf Arab countries return to Egypt with long beards and short dishdashah (Arab men’s traditional cloth), apparently transformed into hard-line Wahaabis.

 

Egypt today is struggling with a lot of economic and political problems inside the country, and suffers being downplayed at an Arab and international level. On the other hand stands Saudi Arabia that topping the new affluent empire of the Arab world (CCASG) has imposed its hegemony.

 

Saudi Arabia’s role in U.S. foreign diplomacy in containing Iran, also their influence on Lebanon’s political majority, their political and security support for Iraqi Sunnis besides their money and mentality which are exported to Palestine and their central role in Arab-Israeli peace process have all heightened their position in Middle East conflicts and the international stage. Besides this political and economic potential, Saudi-affiliated media are indoctrinating Arabs.

 

We may dare to say that 8 in every 10 Arab intellectuals or media elite are working for the Saudis and the other two work for another Persian Gulf Arab country. Writers, artists, veteran Arab ministers and politicians reside in Beirut, London and Dubai receiving heavy salaries and serving this new generous Arab empire.

 

George Bush’s January 2008 visit may be a good example to know the new power developments in Middle East and its impact on Iran. In his single Middle East tour Bush visited five Arab countries, Israel and West Bank.

 

Of the five Arab countries, four were those of the Persian Gulf region. Bush’s last stop was in Egypt. Bush followed two goals in his tour. First, forming an anti-Iran Arab front and second activating the final peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Unlike his predecessors, Bush hadn’t shown any interests on this matter until the last year of his presidency. That’s why he was criticized by moderate Arabs of ignoring Palestinian’s plight.

 

With launching the Annapolis Conference and noting establishment of a Palestinian state for the first time, Bush has in fact settled his accounts with moderate Arabs. In return he wants them to aid him in his most important Middle East objective, i.e. isolation and containment of Iran.

 

The only speech Bush made in his Middle Eastern tour was in Abu Dhabi’s Center for Strategic Researches, where he called for shaping an anti-Iran alliance.

 

Regardless of whether he has been successful in his goal or not, the mere existence of such agenda and announcing it in Persian Gulf –in the closest distance to Iran-, and in a country that is Iran’s major trade partner, shows the increasing role of Persian Gulf Arab states in United States Middle Eastern policy and in Iran-Arab relations.

 

Bush’s second goal in this tour was activating the final negotiations between Israel and Palestine that was pre-announced in Annapolis.

 

Bush is the first American president who has supported establishment of an independent Palestinian state. He has also proposed paying restitution, which is an alternative to refugees’ return. This again calls for a more active role by oil-rich Arab states.

 

In the Arab peace plan put forth by Saudi Arabia, instead of defending the Palestinians’ right to return a just solution has been asked which shows that pro-peace Arabs support return of a group of refugees and paying restitution to the others outside the occupied 1948 territories. Obviously oil dollars of Persian Gulf states is the main financial source for paying out this restitution.

 

In persuading the Arab countries to join international peace talks during the last 3 decades, Saudi Arabia has always been the most important country, whose consent was of the most importance. As we saw in the Annapolis Conference, U.S. was relieved only when Saudi Arabia agreed to attend the conference. Other Arab states had either no other way than accepting Bush’s insistence or like Syria, joined the conference in fear of subsequent marginalization after Saudi Arabia decided to participate.

 

Iran was Bush’s more important goal in his Middle East tour. It was even said that Bush’s attempt to activate Arab-Israeli peace talks was a sweetener to persuade Arabs to join Iran containment policy. Bush has always been accused by pro-peace Arabs of not paying enough attention to Arab-Israeli peace process, unlike his father and Clinton.

 

Now, at the last months of his presidency, Bush has turned his attention towards this case, though he won’t have enough time to consummate these complicated negotiations. On the other hand, the Palestinians are divided between Fattah and Hamas and the latter is against negotiations with Israel.

 

In Tel Aviv we have the weakest Israeli government of the recent decades led by Olmert which has accepted a resounding defeat from Hezbollah. Therefore, assuming the weakness of all three parties of this process, i.e. the United States, Israel and Palestine, chances for success of peace talks are less than ever. Hence, we must look for another motive behind Bush’s sudden interest in this complicated case. That motive is definitely Iran.

 

In a roundtable in al-Jazeera channel, discussing Bush’s Middle East tour the moderator stated: "in 1991 after Bush senior became sure of the support of Damascus Agreement signees (CCASG, Egypt and Syria) during the Second Persian Gulf, he awarded them with the Madrid Conference. Are we having a similar scenario here?"

 

On the Annapolis Conference, and later the 2007 Paris Conference in return for Arab’s backing of the United States against Iran, everybody agreed that Bush’s main target is to isolate and contain Iran.

 

Prior to Bush’s Middle East tour U.S. secretaries of state and defense traveled to the region and signed arms trade with countries of the region worth of 63 billion dollars. The bigger share of this trade belonged to Saudi Arabia and Israel and following them, smaller countries of CCASG. Although these countries pay a heavy price but they’re happy with it, since they believe this cooperation renders the United States more committed to maintenance of traditional Arab states’ security. On the other hand, this military approach can’t be irrelevant to United States’ attempts to control Iran’s power using the natural and geographical potentials of the countries of the region.

 

 

In the last stage of his tour Bush entered Sharm el-Sheikh and had a short meeting with Husni Mubarak. This was after his 3 days of stay in UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain as a respected guest, a two-night stay in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah’s kingly welcome in Riyadh –also in his personal farm outside Riyadh- and receiving symbolic golden swords from the host.

 

Egyptians described his extremely short trip to the once most important Arab country as ’humiliating Egypt’, ’staying for lunch’, ’passing and not visiting’ and ’stopping for refueling’. Mubarak had to visit Bush in his residence and unlike Persian Gulf, Israel and West Bank visits were he had a joint press conference, in Egypt George Bush sufficed to a short declaration, disappointing the reporters and Mubarak, who is very fond of attending press conferences with Western leaders and speaking English with thick Egyptian accent.

 

The truth was that George Bush didn’t have any especial plan in his negotiations with Mubarak. The Egyptians had to bee happy with Bush’s self-restraint, when he didn’t United States’ discontent with domestic affairs of Egypt and didn’t express U.S. concerns over the future of the country in front of Mubarak and reporters.

 

Clearly the United States doesn’t want to let Egypt into the game so that the Arab-Israeli negotiations don’t get more complicated. Clinton had gone through the experience in Camp David by inviting Jordan and Egypt and the results hadn’t been satisfying for United States and Israel.

 

Bush visited Egypt while despite Mubarak’s efforts to show himself a U.S ally, the relations aren’t that warm. United States behavior towards Egypt on issues such as human rights and democracy isn’t comparable with the way it treats even the smallest Arab country, Bahrain.

 

Despite the undemocratic record of Bahrain in holding 2006 parliamentary elections and the Bandargate scandal (in which some government officials had tried to foment sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis), Americans were convinced to relieve pressures on the country over human rights issues and democracy. Therefore, in his Manama speech Bush didn’t talk about promoting democracy. However, in Egypt increasing pressures on Mubarak was on the main objective of Bush.

 

The United States is concerned over the future of Egypt and therefore it has established contacts with opposition, even the Muslim Brothers of Egypt. Under U.S. pressures, in 2005 presidential elections of Egypt, Ayman Nour, an Egyptian political dissident was freed from prison and ran for the election as Mubarak’s opponent. But he was imprisoned after the elections. Releasing Ayman Nour is one United States demands. Jamal Mubarak, the 44-year old son of Husni Mubarak, that following the tradition of ’monarchy’ republics is going to replace his father, is not America’s favorite option, since there are doubts about this ability to run this complicated, great country.

 

Egypt is now a typical example of a country with thousands of years of civilization which has lost its position due to the behavior of its rulers and isn’t respected, even as much as a small country at the regional and international level.

 

It is needless to say that in United States two other most important cases, i.e. Iran and Iraq, Egypt has neither any capacity to play a role nor the United States tends to allow the country to do so. In Iran containment policy Egypt is really weak and Mubarak’s government also lacks levers to influence the course of developments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

 

For Egypt, the United States has tied everything –including economic ties- to political reforms, for example when Egypt asked for start of free trade negotiations with United States, while there were no such demands from U.S. allies in Persian Gulf, where the negotiations have reached an end.

 

1.      Bush’s key Middle Eastern policy is isolating Iran, containing its regional power and keeping the military option on the table. United States regional allies in this course are Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Although Iran containment policy is not a new trend in U.S. foreign diplomacy, it is currently followed in a different way.

 

Isolation and containment of Iran’s regional power has become a key to all U.S. problems in Middle East. What troubles the United States in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is Iran or Iran-backed groups.

 

Should Iran’s influence in Iraq be controlled, the United States can put an end to criticisms of its Arab allies, convince them to accept Iraq’s new situation and persuade them to collaborate in controlling the violence practiced by Sunni groups in Iraq.

 

Obviously containing Iran and stopping its support for Hamas, that as the elected government of Palestine opposes Israel and peace plans proposed by conservative Arabs, has now become more important than before.

 

U.S. Middle Eastern Arab allies have the motive needed to cooperate with this country in containing Iran, especially after Iraq occupation, and stop Shiites’ rising after their historical isolation. In fact, in times they have encouraged America to do so. The concerns Arabs express over formation of a Shiite crescent is a clear evidence.

 

Arabs’ alliance with the United States against Iran is mixed with two fears: first is fear of military clash. If the United States uses the coalition to prepare international circumstance for a military option, another catastrophe will happen in the region, the price of which has to be paid by all countries of the region.

 

The second fear relates to public opinion of Arab citizens which is highly anti-American and doesn’t consider U.S.-Arab alliance against Iran as legitimate. Therefore, Arab states have chosen a conservative attitude towards Iran. Whenever the United States uses a harsh tone, they call Iran a neighbor and stress the difference between their stance and that of America, just as we saw after Bush’s harsh stance on Iran in Abu Dhabi. On the other hand, to remain safe from consequences of hostility towards Iran in case of America using their territory to attack Iran, they welcome bilateral security treaties with Iran.

 

These protocols do not mean that they’re ready to take serious steps towards improving the level of political and economic relations, conversely, they block the way against Iranian corporations and citizens and cause troubles for Iran’s economic interests. Iranian traders, companies, banks and travelers are experiencing the most difficult and humiliating conditions after the revolution.

 

In the new atmosphere of Middle East, Arabs avoid any serious cooperation with Iran that may lead to reinforcement of Iran’s position. So anticipating strategic cooperation as proposed by the Iranian delegation in CCASG summit Doha is too optimistic.

 

Interestingly, the summit’s declaration in which Iran’s presence and plans of the Iranian delegation were welcomed hasn’t even been published in the official site of the Council, showing that there was no consensus over this declaration and it is not considered an official document. According to an Arab analyst, accepting Iran’s plans would be considered as a kind of political heresy.

 

Also the Secretary General of the Council explicitly stated that inviting Iran was due to its own request and any cooperation between the Council and Iran depends upon solution of territorial disputes with UAE.

 

Saudi Arabia is Iran’s most influential rival in the region. The country is the major Arab actor and practices its influence in all country’s where Iran is present: Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and the Muslim World.

 

It is also an unrivaled power in oil market and OPEC. What adds to the power of this country in these stages is its alliance with the United States and the overlap between their interests.

 

As it was said, Egypt is in its hard times. Although the country lacks the tolls needed to impact the course of developments in Middle East, it has been the center of civilization, culture and politics in the Arab world and it has got considerable potentials.

 

Some Iranian political analysts believe that today, when Egypt is frustrated and ignored, is the best time to resume relations. However, in fact we are observing the weakness of Mubarak’s government against America and his insistence to remain in the circle of U.S. allies. Mubarak is also worried over an increase in U.S. intervention in favor of Mubarak’s opponents. These take away Egypt’s courage to decide over resumption of ties with Iran.

 

Clearly, when Iran is gradually becoming a regional power and at a time when Egypt is facing a vague future and has been outperformed by Saudi Arabia in Middle East developments, resuming relations is more advantageous for Egypt rather than Iran. So the country must show more enthusiasm in entering the big game in Middle East.

 

To study the power balance in Arab world and Middle East we shouldn’t also ignore the economic power of countries. The Persian Gulf Arab states’ overall foreign exchange reserves volume of 1600 billion dollars, which is more than China, has surprised economic observers. The reserves may even reach a staggering amount of 3000 billion dollars at the end of the decade.

 

Economic stability and successful experience of these countries in using oil revenues for economic and social development envisages another giant step towards development in these countries.