The visit to the UAE's occupied Abu Mousa island by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was deliberately provocative. The Iranian leader knew exactly what he was doing when he touched down in Abu Mousa for the first visit by any Iranian head of government, and he knew that he was sending an aggressive message to the UAE.
The three islands of Abu Mousa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs have been part of the emirates of Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah for centuries. So when the UAE was founded in 1971, the three islands became an integral part of the UAE. But at the time the Shah of Iran saw a short-term advantage in making a claim to the islands, as well as all of Bahrain.
He was rebuffed on all counts, but his successors in Tehran have found it useful to maintain his claims in order to further their own agenda.
The Arab world would be ready to work with Iran if it started to respect Arab concerns. Unfortunately, the present regime in Tehran has sought to increase the reach of Iran's soft power in the Arab world. Iran has actively supported Hezbollah and Hamas, it has made allies of the governments of Bashar Al Assad in Syria, and Nouri Al Maliki in Iraq, and it has even tried to meddle in the situation in Bahrain.
In all these cases Iran has been blatantly self-interested and anxious to use its access to such groups or leaders to destabilise the politics of the region for its own advantage.
The increase in Iran's attempts to use such soft power has been a significant part of Ahmadinejad's foreign policy as he has sought controversy to divert attention from his abysmal domestic record.
But such cynicism has also been supported by the faction around the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so even after Ahmadinejad leaves office at the end of his term in 2013, Iran will continue with its absurd claims to the islands.
Rather than re-igniting Emirati and Arab suspicions with the recent visit, Iran would be much better off establishing a transparent foreign policy in the region.
Iran should recognise the reality that the islands are part of the UAE, and then move on and start working constructively with the UAE on the many matters that are of mutual concern.
It is doing itself serious damage by sending profoundly mixed messages, by talking of neighbourly concern one minute and reinforcing ludicrous territorial claims the next.
