A wary Arab world eyes Iran's elections
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - There is a lot of diplomatic activity going on the Arab world. Amr
Mousa, the secretary general of the Arab League, landed in Damascus while
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is headed to Qatar. Iranian Foreign Minister
Manoucher Mottaki landed in Riyadh, to meet with King Abdullah II.
Much of the diplomatic activity is related to the upcoming Arab summit,
scheduled for Doha in late March. According to the Saudi channel al-Arabiyya,
three Gulf states have told Qatar that they will be reducing their
representation at the Arab summit "to the lowest level" if Iran attends.
In December 2007, Qatar invited Iran to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) summit in Doha, much to the
displeasure of countries in the Gulf. The invitation was nevertheless repeated
at the Arab summit over Gaza, held in January. This year, speaking at the Arab
foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal
called on Arab states to unite to face the "Iranian challenge".
Qatar believes that given Iran's paramount influence in the region over
non-state players like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, it is only
logical that Tehran be included in any talks.
Elsewhere in the Arab world, there was rising discontent with Iran. Morocco cut
off diplomatic relations with Tehran last week to protest remarks made by
Iranian officials about the sovereignty of Bahrain. The Bahraini government
accuses Iran of interfering in its domestic affairs by meddling with its
sizeable Shi'ite population, and trying to transform Bahraini Sunnis into
Shi'ites.
Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri said that Iran had been similarly
"active" in Rabat. The crisis was caused by a statement by Ali Akbar
Nateq-Nouri, an advisor to Iran's Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said that
his country had sovereignty over Bahrain, claiming that it was once Iran's 14th
province. King Mohammad VI sent a public message of support to his Bahrain
counterpart, calling these claims "absurd".
This is new to the Arab world. In the past, everybody in the Gulf feared Iran,
but nobody came out and bluntly said it - let alone cut off their diplomatic
relations with Tehran.
Presidential hopefuls?
The Arab world is watching, with plenty of caution, domestic developments in
Iran in preparation for the presidential elections in June. Many were pleased
to hear that the reformist former president Mohammad Khatami will be running
against current President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second term.
During his previous tenure as president, Khatami had tried to mend broken
fences between his country and the Arab world, mainly Saudi Arabia. He has been
critical of interfering in the affairs of Arab states, and supporting non-state
players in Palestine and Iraq, claiming that this was doing a disservice to the
legacy of the Islamic Republic.
In 2003, for example, Khatami famously refused to meet with the Iraqi
rebel-turned-politician Muqtada al-Sadr. In early 2009, Khatami seemed
reluctant to run for a third round as president, however, fearing that he would
fail, since the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was clearly in favor of a second
round for Ahmadinejad.
Word on the Iranian street says that he had been advised not to present his
nomination by the Grand Ayatollah. Khamenei after all, clearly and publicly
supports another round for Ahmadinejad. Reportedly, when advised not to run,
Khatami insisted, saying that "duty was calling him".
Khatami's campaign seems in doubt, now more than ever, because running against
him will be heavyweight reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi, a prime minister in the
1980s, during the presidency of Ali Khamenei. It is unclear if Mousavi's
last-minute decision to run - after 20 years of semi-political retirement - was
triggered by the Supreme Leader.
His candidacy brings the number of reformer presidential hopefuls to three;
Khatami, Mousavi and former Majlis (parliament) speaker Mehdi Karroubi. They
will eat up each other's votes, ultimately serving the campaign of Ahmadinejad.
For long, Karroubi was thought to be a lightweight challenge to Khatami, but
not anymore. This week, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, a former mayor of Tehran and
Khatami ally, declared his support for Karroubi. It was this same man who
helped him secure victory in the elections of 1997.
Iranians, young and old, respect Karbaschi and listen to what he tells them. He
was recently quoted in the Iranian press saying, "I think that Mr Karroubi
would be a better candidate and more suitable for the country."
Perhaps some in the Arab world are taking pre-emptive measures, keeping their
fingers crossed, fearing what they think would be a worst-case scenario:
another round for Ahmadinejad. If Khamenei does not want Khatami as president,
the ex-president will never make it back to power.
Additionally, ordinary Iranians might be inclined to vote for Karroubi or
Mousavi, claiming that Khatami has been tried at the presidency and proved
disappointing to many because he could not push through his promised political
and cultural reforms. In addition to Arab skeptics, Israel also fears another
round of Ahmadinejad.
Recently, Amos Yadlin, the chief of Israeli military intelligence, spoke to the
Israeli cabinet of Iran's nuclear program and warned, "Iran has crossed the
technological threshold." That sent red sirens ringing in Israel and the United
States, prompting the new director of national intelligence Dennis Blair to
warn US Congress of the "potential for an Iran-Israeli confrontation or
crisis".
Despite the warning, US President Barack Obama is willing to give Iran the
benefit of the doubt. Although sanctions were renewed, his Iran envoy, Dennis
Ross, and the president himself seem adamant at finding a solution to the Iran
crisis.
Last week, it was reported that Obama was trying to open a back channel with
Ali Khamenei, similar to the one that lead to a US-China breakthrough in 1972.
Skeptics in Iran continue to write off Obama's gestures as a bluff, claiming
that the US is not interested in cutting a deal with Iran. On the contrary, the
objective of all these gestures is for them to fail, for the Americans to point
fingers at Tehran and accuse Ahmadinejad of drowning any attempts at
reconciliation.
Only then would they perhaps turn a blind eye to an Israeli strike on Iran,
which incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling for since the
late 1990s. Only then would Obama be able to tell the world, "We tried
everything."
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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