US stand against Iran ‘interference’ sought

With Iran publicly meeting the country it has called “the Great Satan,” and the West aiming to win contracts for Iranian projects, today is very dissimilar to yesterday. The region, known for its never-ending wars and conflicts, is taking a new shape.
The US is pursuing a new and different policy in the region. From being the one lobbying for an Iranian boycott, the US is now trying to convince the world of the wisdom of the nuclear deal — both at the UN and ultimately in the US Congress. This is politics.
These developments, however, leave the Arabs facing a new reality. Iran, a country with influence in some Arab countries, has waged proxy wars in the region. Though it struggled under the weight of sanctions, it still managed to carry out its expansionist policies and may now be poised for more of the same.
The region is at a crossroads. The question is not whether the deal will pass but rather what will result from it. Despite the feelings and desires of individual states, the deal ushers in a new political reality in the region.
Iran is an important country with an influential role and it is a mistake to look at our relationship through the prism of a Sunni-Shiite divide or even an Arab-Persian conflict. Analysts, both good and ill-intentioned, try to promote these ideas but the difference between Arab countries and Iran is a mere political dispute.
In different times and under various governments in Iran, Gulf-Iranian relations changed significantly. When hard-liners were in power — specifically the previous government headed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — relations showed serious strains and divergences. Iran suffered international political isolation due to its policies which contradicted international law as well as the accepted norms of diplomatic relations.
Once Hassan Rouhani came to power as president, he sent positive signals suggesting a different political orientation. Yet, these signals were not translated into political reality in the region. The nuclear deal is one of the Iranian president’s most important achievements but there remains an overarching and unanswered question: Is Hassan Rouhani the decision-maker or does political power rest with the so-called supreme leader Ali Khamenei, thus limiting the president’s options?
In many situations, Iran opted for what it saw as political realism whenever necessary. Ayatollah Khomeini’s description of accepting the cease-fire with Iraq as “drinking poison” eliminated the arguments made by him and his followers that a cease-fire would never happen. The facts on the ground, however, changed the realities.
Khamenei has always refused international inspections of nuclear reactors, saying that Iran was not subject to international restrictions. Now he himself has congratulated the negotiating team on the agreement and given it his support. Evidently, this is not an issue of ideology but a matter of coping with reality and interests even if it means going against all past statements as well as emotional public discourse.
Iran today has a precious opportunity to set a new policy in the region. Past experience has shown that wars and interventions only led to tragic realities producing terror and chaos in the region. This opportunity requires careful consideration and experimenting with different political possibilities and, above all, it requires courage and taking the initiative by all in the region.
If the region is able to cooperate for development and building, and use its resources for the happiness of its people, its ability to compete in the world will be much different from what it is today. It may seem that this is a modern type of pragmatic political utopianism, but these are the same incentives that made “frenemies” share a room for weeks in order to reach an agreement that was once deemed impossible.
The Gulf has a different political reality and so political work should move to a new level. With the new facts, international calculations have changed and things are not the same anymore. It would therefore be wrong to stick to the same old policies in the face of the new reality.
The Gulf states need to strengthen their political interdependence. The success of the Gulf states in Operation Decisive Storm can be a good foundation for unified political positions and homogeneous political, economic and military actions. Saudi Arabia’s recent choices, linking mutual interests with those of countries such as Russia, illustrate how interests drive politics.
The Gulf states combined have a huge potential, strong political power and a dynamic international impact. It is vital to strengthen their internal structures in order to succeed externally. The new political reality is not necessarily negative though it is different. In light of the changes, there are opportunities that necessitate new vision and quick decisions.

The contrast last week could hardly have been sharper: Indignation, rage and firebombs on the avenues of Athens; barely restrained joy on the streets of Tehran.
The citizens of Greece and Iran were responding to two very different deals struck within a day or so of each other in two European capitals. Given the nature of the agreements reached, in dramatic circumstances, in Brussels and Vienna, the reactions were entirely predictable.
The doom and gloom in the land that pioneered not just democracy but also tragic drama is based on the prospect of indefinite austerity. Citizens of the Islamic Republic, meanwhile, think they find themselves on the threshold of increased prosperity, provided the lifting of sanctions goes according to plan.
In return, Iran is obliged to abandon, at least for the time being, something it claims not to possess: A program to manufacture nuclear weapons. If that claim is true, it has little to lose, and potentially much to gain from the possibility of increased engagement with the wider world in economic, political and cultural terms.
The ayatollahs may not see it that way, and in what is still very much a theocratic state it is yet to be conclusively demonstrated that enough of the powerful clergy wholeheartedly backs the undertakings given by Iran in its drawn-out negotiations with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1).
Supreme leader Ali Khamenei appears to have at least tentatively endorsed the agreement, though, and it’s probably safe to assume that overwhelming clerical opposition to dealings with “the Great Satan” — for it was ultimately the US that was calling the shots on the other side of the negotiating table — would have thwarted the initiatives of President Hassan Rouhani and his indefatigable Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, long ago.
In an apparent effort to appease the hardliners, Khamenei has declared that that the broader equation with the US, based on decades of animosity, should not be expected to change, and that the regional aspirations of Iran and America remain “180 degrees” apart. He did concede though that, contingent on the Americans keeping their side of the bargain, engagement on other fronts could not be ruled out. Much could still go wrong, of course, but it is just as likely to do so on the other side of the equation. Zarif’s American counterpart, John Kerry, also strove diligently to tackle the various bones of contention, but at the political level there appears to be considerably greater opposition to the agreement in the US than in Iran.
Before much else happens, Barack Obama will have to steer the pact through a hostile Congress by mid-September before the sanctions against Iran can be lifted. Most, if not all, Republican legislators, who effectively constitute an informal Benjamin Netanyahu fan club, and at least a few Democrats are expected to vote against approval. President Obama has already indicated he will veto any such action. It would take a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress to override that veto. Such an outcome is unlikely, no matter how hard the Israel lobby strives for it.
What is intriguing is that most congressional opponents of the deal find it hard to coherently argue against it without reciting Netanyahu’s arguments more or less verbatim. Which is to say, the agreement effectively opens the way for Iran to proceed with its nuclear weapons plans, if not immediately then in due course; that Tehran cannot be trusted; and that the added wealth from the lifting of sanctions will substantially be devoted to bolstering allies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Bashar Assad. And then there’s the argument-clincher: The existential threat to Israel from a nuclear-armed Iran.
To the extent that some of these concerns may be considered valid, they provide greater cause for concern to Iran’s Gulf neighbors, which have tentatively welcomed the deal, than to Israel. After all, given its own nuclear arsenal, the latter has little to fear even from a nuclear-armed Iran, whereas such an outcome would seriously alter the balance of power in the Gulf.
On the other hand there is the risk that even with its nuclear ambitions thwarted for the foreseeable future by international inspections, Iran could pour a significant proportion of its reinforced wealth into conventional weaponry, notably in aid of its proxies, from the Shia militias in Iraq to Hezbollah and the deplorable Assad regime in Syria.
At the same time, however, it’s fairly obvious that Tehran has a clear interest in defeating Daesh and that this aspiration is shared by all reasonable-minded Muslims, not to mention the US. Saudi Arabia has lately struck a blow against Daesh, and Turkey should be inclined to follow suit after Monday’s dastardly suicide bombing near the Syrian border.
There is certainly scope for coordination and even cooperation on this front between Iran and its neighbors, as well as the US and other western powers. In the process, it is not altogether impossible to envisage Tehran ultimately relenting on the Assad front, provided the obvious alternative is not a Syria under the shadow of Daesh and its affiliates. The deepening sectarian animosity poses a dire threat to the region as a whole, and there is a clear case for reasonable powers to strive for accommodation rather than entrench a damaging divide.
Besides, in the event of sanctions against Iran being lifted, the economic dividends will not be restricted to that country. The UAE and Pakistan, for instance, can expect to benefit. It’s a bit far-fetched to suggest, as some commentators have done, that Obama’s primary aim in securing the deal was to undermine Russia by ensuring the European market’s access to Iranian oil and gas. After all, Vladimir Putin is a canny operator, and would have hesitated to facilitate an agreement that militated against Russian interests.
Meanwhile, one aspect of the story that those who roundly criticized Obama for restricting himself to rhetoric when Iran’s so-called Green Movement was hobbled in 2009 have chosen to ignore is that many of the people celebrating last week were the same youngsters who took to the streets back then to demonstrate their enthusiasm for change.
It remains to be seen whether this time around their aspirations, which go well beyond the specifics of sanctions, will be rewarded with greater leeway or further repression. But the extent to which the diplomatic success in Vienna increases the possibility of a more open and pluralistic Iran deserves to be welcomed.
More broadly, amid the region’s enduring uncertainties, all that can safely be said is that the likely consequences would have been worse without the Vienna accord.