As tensions rise, Iran courts Arab allies
CAIRO, Egypt - Even as U.S. officials this week announced new economic sanctions against Iran, Iranian officials made several trips to woo Arab neighbors with a campaign of high-level diplomatic visits, lucrative investment deals and a series of public statements that call for Muslim unity in the face of U.S. and Israeli “aggression” in the Middle East.
The goal, experts say, is to reassure Sunni Muslim leaders that they have nothing to fear from their Shiite Muslim neighbor’s ascension as a regional power - and to make sure no Arab state backs a U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Although Arab rulers publicly support stronger Arab-Persian ties, they still harbor deep-seated fears about Iran’s long-term ambitions. They also face strong U.S. pressure to keep Iran isolated.
“If the U.S. struck Iran, the Arab world would take a position of ‘positive neutrality’ - they would observe, but they wouldn’t join because the Arabs know Iran’s reaction could harm them in their own countries,” said Mohamed el Said Abdel Mo’men, a professor of Iranian studies at Ain Shams University in Cairo. “They believe the Iranian threat, in its current size, is more manageable than it would be after a strike.”
Effect on opposition
U.S. military action would also likely silence the domestic opposition to Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the past week, Iranian diplomats stood alongside Arab colleagues at a conference in Kuwait on Iraqi security. At a conference in Dubai, they hailed the United Arab Emirates as Iran’s No. 1 trade partner and called for more foreign investment in Iran. In Cairo, they signed an agreement with Egypt to open a center to exchange medical expertise.
On Friday, the Iranian ambassador in Beirut met with Christian leader Amin Gemayel, a longtime rival of Iran’s ally, Hezbollah.
In Tehran, Iranian officials welcomed prominent Shiite and Sunni clerics from throughout the Islamic world for a meeting on how to reduce sectarian tensions.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry trumpeted an Arab League statement that supported Iranian-Arab dialogue and stressed that the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program must be handled within the United Nations.
Ahmadinejad extended his support to another regional player, Turkey, by cutting short an official visit to Armenia. The move was interpreted as support for Turkey’s Muslim government as U.S. lawmakers pushed for a bill to recognize the Armenian genocide.
The Turkish foreign minister came to Tehran on Saturday - another coup for Iran as the Bush administration seeks to dissuade Turkey from sending troops into northern Iraq to battle Kurdish militants. In August, Iran began firing artillery into Iraq to counteract what it said were Kurdish rebel groups that had launched attacks in Iran.
Iran appears to be focusing its diplomacy on a handful of states with strategic value: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and smaller, oil-rich Gulf Arab nations with significant Shiite Muslim communities. All those nations are allies of the United States, which has stepped up its campaign to ensure that Arab states don’t get too close to Iran.
Wary of regional sway
The United States has an edge: Arab leaders are wary of the regional sway Iran has gained from having a friendly Shiite Islamist government in Iraq and electoral victories by groups it supports in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.
Still, confidence in the United States’ ability to contain Iran is waning, and Arab leaders are concerned that if they wait too long to count Iran as any ally, they’ll find themselves on the bad side of a burgeoning nuclear power whose leaders’ Islamist rhetoric finds support among ordinary Arabs.
Winning better relations with Egypt, the only Arab state without full diplomatic relations with Iran, would be an especially sweet prize for Iran, though disputes over Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel and Iran’s public admiration for the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat remain stumbling blocks.
Elsewhere, Iran is working hard to turn enemies into allies. The meeting between the Iranian ambassador and Gemayel on Friday was a rare reaching-out to a group that’s been a bitter opponent of Iran’s traditional friend Hezbollah.
The ambassador emphasized that Iran had no interest in taking sides in Lebanon’s presidential election, which pits the pro-U.S. Sunni Muslim government, which Gemayel supports, against a pro-Syrian coalition led by Hezbollah.
The new U.S. sanctions ban dealings with a host of companies connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, an elite force that has extensive business holdings in oil, construction and other sectors.
Iran is counting on international support from Russia and China to prevent harsher U.N. sanctions.
The U.N. has imposed two rounds of limited sanctions for Iran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
Additional information from The Associated Press and Reuters is included in this report.