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2 Iran turns the charm on its
neighbors By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
issue that has the potential to
further alienate Iran and the GCC states precisely
at a time when both sides need to build
confidence.
Focusing on common interests
and concerns makes more sense and the GCC states,
which took part at the Annapolis Middle East peace
summit, are somewhat pessimistic about the
prospects for any genuine breakthrough in the
Arab-Israeli stalemate. Even though they regard
the US summit as a "positive
development", they are
nonetheless afraid that Iran's prediction of the
summit's failure will sooner or later prove
correct and, in turn, erode the legitimacy of
their concert with the US at a "sham summit".
By ingratiating themselves further with
Iran, the GCC states simultaneously send a strong
signal to the US and Israel that the hidden agenda
at Annapolis - forming an anti-Iran alliance -
will not be on their agenda.
What is more,
the GCC summit will likely adopt a new initiative
with respect to OPEC's dollar policy, in light of
the growing pressure on the GCC states to dump
their peg to the tumbling US dollar. Instead they
might "switch to a managed float or peg to a
basket, including the euro, sterling and yen", to
paraphrase the chairman of the Arab Monetary Fund,
Jassem al-Manni. Iran, having already taken
concrete steps in this direction, is likely to
endorse this proposal and the summit's communique
is expected to endorse it.
On the nuclear
front, Iran's ability to secure the GCC's support
for its nuclear program is key and that means a
greater assurance than hitherto seen on Iran's
part regarding the entirely peaceful nature of its
program. The GCC states have pre-committed
themselves to abide by the will of the United
Nations and, in case the UN adopts a third round
of sanctions, the GCC outlet for Iran will likely
dry up. This is one reason why US officials have
been touring the region seeking to secure the GCC
states' compliance over multilateral sanctions on
Iran.
In turn, this raises the issue of
Iran's "carrot and stick" policy toward the GCC,
which, we may recall, was somewhat successful
during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in gradually
reducing some GCC states, ie Qatar, Oman and the
UAE, to "effective neutrality". The question is:
Will these GCC states, faced with a much
invigorated and more powerful Iran, dare to
cooperate with the economic warfare on Iran that
is the sanctions regime?
Iran is still
optimistic that the UN will end its "illegal"
actions against Iran, given a recent letter to UN
secretary general Ban Ki-moon by Iran's Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, and with the right
amount of summit "give and take" may manage a GCC
statement of support that would be useful for
Iran's UN diplomacy. To achieve this, Iran may
need to show greater flexibility on the issue of
the three islands, that is, a quid pro quo.
After all, so far, despite the lingering disputes,
there has been no problem with offshore
exploitation around those islets and beyond and
both sides can capitalize on the goodwill
generated at the GCC summit to work out a quiet
diplomacy, instead of resorting to the usual
statements of previous years.
Ultimately,
the GCC must consider the issue of Iran's, as well
as Iraq's, inclusion, recalling the statement of
an Omani leader: "The GCC saw no obstacle in the
way of a GCC session being held including Iran and
Iraq, after the main differences between them are
resolved." That was in 1989 and, indeed, much has
changed, and, also, much has remained the same.
For example, the distrust of Iranian power and
intentions by the conservative sheikhdoms, which
are now threading the pragmatic realist course of
engaging the "regional superpower" - Iran.
But, as an Iranian parliamentarian has
aptly pointed out, the GCC states have plenty of
territorial and other tensions among themselves,
and the GCC's viability as a forum for dialogue
and "crisis-prevention" is precisely what makes
imperative the need to resurrect the above-cited
Omani wisdom.
Note 1. See
Chapter Three of the author's book on Iran's
foreign policy, New Directions in Iran's
Foreign Policy (Westview, 1995), titled "The
Making of A New Persian Gulf Policy". 2. See Iran unveils a Persian Gulf security
plan Asia Times Online, April 14, 2007.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the
author of After Khomeini: New Directions in
Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and
co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear
Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu.
He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential
latent", Harvard International Review, and is
author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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