Iran
eyes mediation role in
Bahrain By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"America is trying to sow discord among
Shi'ites and Sunnis... they want to create tension
between Iran and Arabs... but their plan will
fail." Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in
a speech on Monday to mark national Army Day.
After weeks of rising tensions with Saudi
Arabia over its military intervention in Bahrain,
Iran plans to reposition itself as a mediator
rather than a suspected interloper in the
political impasse gripping the tiny island.
Behind Tehran's plan is a firm conviction,
reflected in Ahmadinejad's speech on Army Day,
that the United States and
Israel plan to isolate Iran
in the region and poison its relations with the
Arab world. This would deprive Iran of benefiting
politically from the upheavals that have
undermined the pro-West status quo in the Middle
East.
Chief among these benefits is a new
era in Iran-Egypt relations, with Iran's foreign
policy machinery working overtime to accelerate
the process of normalization ties with Cairo.
Iran-Egypt relations were severely damaged
following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and fell
apart following Egypt's recognition of Israel in
the same year.
Iranian Foreign Minister
Ali Akbar Salehi recently welcomed a proposal by
Egypt's newly appointed Foreign Minister Nabil
al-Arabi for the promotion of bilateral ties.
Salehi said that Tehran was ready to resume
relations with Cairo.
"Iran is an Islamic
country and is not an enemy of Egypt," Field
Marshal Tantawi, the head of Egypt's military
council, said on April 9.
Iran's
blossoming rapprochement with Egypt is an unwanted
development for the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia,
particularly for Riyadh. Saudi Arabia's leadership
is currently committing huge resources to whipping
up Iran-phobia not only in the Arab world but also
in Washington and other Western capitals.
Tantawi's sentiments are shared by a
number of prominent Egyptians, including Amr Musa,
the head of Arab League. He recently called for
"improvement not only in Iran-Egypt relations but
also Iran's relations with the entire Arab world."
Another proponent of Iran taking a new
role in the Middle East is Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu,
the current head of the (Saudi-led) Organization
of Islamic Conference (OIC). He said recently that
Egypt under Hosni Mubarak maintained the tensions
with Iran in order to maintain the flames of
sectarian conflicts in the Abode of Islam.
Seyed Hossein Mousavi, a Tehran foreign
policy expert, said in an interview with the
www.IRDiplomacy.com that Tehran should deprive its
enemies of any excuses to isolate it by trying "to
calm the regional environment". This includes
reaching out to the Bahraini rulers and assuring
them that Iran has had no role in the recent mass
disturbances as well as offering to mediate
between the Bahraini government and the
opposition.
Mousavi's otherwise sound
advice has the weakness of overlooking the protean
value of keeping up heat on Saudi Arabia over its
military transgression in Bahrain. Riyadh could
interpret Tehran's conciliatory gesture as a sign
of weakness and therefore a green light to
lengthen its stay in Bahrain, a Shi'ite-dominated
country with strong historical connections to
Iran.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has
threatened to recall its diplomats from Tehran
"unless Tehran can protect them", after a number
of anti-Saudi student rallies in front of the
Saudi Arabian Embassy.
A more prudent
Iranian response would have been the immediate
recall of its ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a
stern message that until Saudi Arabia departs from
Bahrain there would be no normal relations with
Tehran. A historical precedent for this response
is US's reaction to the Soviet Union's invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979.
After their
aggression in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia should not be
allowed to hold the card of diplomatic
brinksmanship, no matter how rattled it is by
current setbacks - losing close allies in Egypt,
Lebanon, and failing to manipulate Iraq's
political system.
However, much depends on
the present Iran-Saudi competition over the hearts
and minds of other Arab leaders, including the
Egyptians, in light of a recent Cairo visit by
Iran's envoy to the United Nations, Mohammad
Khazaee. This was widely interpreted by the
Egyptian media as a clear sign of improvement in
bilateral relations, dreaded by the Saudis, whose
ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Alghatan, has gone as
far as to threaten Iran with military action.
Fortunately, not everyone in Saudi Arabia
is on the same page with Ahmed's sabre-rattling
against Iran. A Saudi deputy defense minister,
Khaeld Bin Soltan Bin Abdelaziz, has counseled
against any rash judgments and on "the necessity
of reason in dealing with Iran". His remarks came
after a virulent Iran-bashing communique from the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Since
then, despite a high-profile visit to the region
by the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, during
which he gave explicit support for the
Saudi-Bahraini strategy of scapegoating Iran for
the internal political problems in Bahrain, the
diplomatic wheel is slowly turning in Iran's
favor. This is partly due to Iran's decision to
play the democracy card and appeal to the
international community to condemn the
Saudi-backed suppression of Bahrain's
pro-democracy Shiites.
Iranian Foreign
Minister Ali Akbar Salehi wrote to UN secretary
general Ban Ki-Moon in April questioning how the
body can justify its inaction on Bahrain
considering its resolution on Libya. In a clear
sign that Iran's diplomatic discourse on Bahrain
is paying off, Ban during his recent trip to Doha,
Qatar, put the Bahraini leaders on the defensive
by calling on them to show restraint vis-a-vis the
protesters and to modernize their political
system.
However, with the "big brother"
Saudis muscling their clout over Bahrain,
undermining Bahrain's margin of independent action
within the realm of GCC politics, Ban's
suggestions should be targeted at the power
brokers in the House of Saud.
Kaveh
L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy
(Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here.
He is author of Reading
In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11
(BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) and his
latest book, Looking
for rights at Harvard, is now available.
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