JEDDAH: Washington's plan to build a global “coalition” is a welcome against the Tehran regime "is a must", according to one Mideast expert.
"The Iranian regime's modus operandi is to expand its influence, export its extremist ideology, and impose its revolutionary principles regionally, globally and domestically," Harvard scholar and Iranian affairs expert Majid Rafizadeh told Arab News.
"In order to confront the Iranian regime and contain it effectively, it should be confronted at all levels," he said.
The US State Department revealed the plan on Thursday, saying the coalition is needed to stop the Tehran regime's “destabilizing activities.”
“The US will be working hard to put together a coalition,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters. US President Donald Trump had earlier decided to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, saying that the deal failed to stop Iran from pursuing its nuclear ambitions and causing chaos in the Middle East.
Rafizadeh said history had shown that unilateral actions were less successful in standing against Iran's destabilizing behavior.
"The creation of such a coalition is overdue and it should have been created when the fundamentalist Islamic Republic was founded in 1979," he said.
"A global coalition will be more effective in confronting the Iranian regime's military adventurism across the region. In addition, such a coalition will be effective in delegitimizing the ruling mullahs in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim world," he said.
Oubai Shahbandar, a Syrian-American analyst and fellow at the New America Foundation's International Security Program, said if such a coalition were to succeed, the US would have to invest a significant amount of resources.
"Iran has had a headstart and established a robust proxy network throughout the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf," he pointed out. "The irony is of course that the US has military forces stationed alongside some of the Iranian-backed militias in Syria, so the Trump administration will have to be prepared for a potential violent response by Iranian-trained auxiliaries."
According to Shahbandar, countering Iran's network will require a great unity of effort among all the Arab states. "Otherwise Washington won't be able to succeed on this front," he added.
