Amid reports that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — who met Sultan Qaboos Bin Said of Oman and Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah of Kuwait — sought to forge a new dialogue with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, accusations of wrongdoing filled the airwaves and preoccupied everyone.
Tehran believes that an anti-Iran coalition is being formed, with unlikely members including the United States, Israel and the GCC states, which prompted Rouhani to engage in a pre-emptive exercise that was topped by an offer for “unconditional” dialogue with Riyadh. If this is true, the Iranian effort is doubly odd, given a long-standing enmity between the two countries, as the two societies battle for influence throughout the region. Riyadh categorically rejects Iranian interferences in Arab affairs, including in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, among others, while Tehran is on a divine quest for insurgencies galore.
Over the weekend, the debate took on a sharp turn to the right away from Iran’s revolutionary rhetoric that intends to mobilise masses against their rulers. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Saudi and Israeli officials demanded that Tehran be punished for propping up the Syrian government, developing ballistic missiles and funding separatists in Yemen. Even more problematic for Iran was the Turkish position that Tehran intended to push for Shiite power. Ankara joined the de facto front against Tehran as Riyadh rejected an appeal from Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for Gulf Arab states to work with Iran to reduce violence across the region.
In fact, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, used especially harsh language as he criticised what he called an Iranian “sectarian policy” aimed at undermining Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. This was no idle chatter as Cavusoglu affirmed that his country was against all divisions, whether they happen to be religious or sectarian. He further informed his audience that Turkey was normalising ties with Israel that send yet another signal that it was at odds with Iran.
Why did the Rouhani and Zarif calls for dialogue to address “anxieties” in the region fell on deaf ears? Simply because GCC states, among others, no longer trusted Iran. Indeed, after international sanctions on Iran were lifted when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPAO) came into effect in 2015, some were concerned that Tehran’s actions to destabilise the Middle East would not stop. When Tehran tested ballistic missiles, “anxieties” increased exponentially.
It fell on Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir to set the record straight when he identified Iran as the main sponsor of global terrorism and to act as a destabilising force in the Middle East. “Iran remains the single main sponsor of terrorism in the world,” Al Jubeir told delegates at the conference, as it seems to be determined, he clarified, “to upend the order in the Middle East ... (and) until and unless Iran changes its behaviour it would be very difficult to deal with a country like this”. It was vintage Al Jubeir who hammered that the regime in Tehran “was propping up the government of President Bashar Al Assad in the Syrian civil war, funding Al Houthis in Yemen and fomenting violence across the region”.
Tough rhetoric
Zarif responded in kind as he dismissed any suggestions his country would ever seek to develop nuclear weapons, though the JCPAO deal demonstrated that that was the ultimate goal, which scared GCC neighbours. He denied that Iran was a state-sponsor of terrorism, though arms smuggling to Al Huthis in Yemen, to co-religionists in Bahrain, and through the Hezbollah militia in both Lebanon and Syria told a different story.
Time will tell what will happen next and whether the new United States administration’s tough rhetoric on Iran will translate into a full-fledged review of the nuclear deal. Short of a complete re-write, there could be fresh sanctions and, equally important, the emergence of new alliances with the GCC arena.
If in the past, GCC states led by Saudi Arabia, accused Iran of using sectarianism to interfere in internal Arab affairs, that constatation was no longer a concept but an established reality. Even the Israeli Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said at Munich that Iran’s ultimate objective was to undermine Riyadh, and called for a dialogue with Sunni Arab countries to defeat “radical” elements in the region, claiming that “the real division is not Jews, Muslims ... but moderate people versus radical people”, Lieberman told delegates. Perhaps. But what is crystal clear is the focus on Iran’s isolation within the international arena. Under the circumstances, it behoves Tehran to prepare a Plan B when Moscow distances itself from Iran over the Syria and Yemen confrontations.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of the just-published The Attempt to Uproot Sunni Arab Influence: A Geo-Strategic Analysis of the Western, Israeli and Iranian Quest for Domination (Sussex: 2017).
