Complicated situation around Iran and the KSA
The
situation around Iran continues to be quite difficult, despite
significant progress in the normalization of relations between the West
and Iran and the achievement of an interim agreement on the Iranian
nuclear program in Geneva on November 24 at a working meeting of the
“six” international negotiators and a Tehran delegation. President
Rouhani failed to gain the immediate trust of the USA and its allies
with his major changes to the accents of Iran’s foreign policy, although
the process proceeded in the right direction relatively quickly.
The
fact is that much of the negative role, being played in Washington,
comes from the Republicans and other conservative forces sitting in the
US Congress. First, they approved a list of 19 individuals and entities
that fell under sanctions for involvement in Iran’s nuclear program,
which forced the Iranian delegation to leave the conference room in
Geneva on December 13, since the interim agreement of November 24
provides for the non-imposition of any additional sanctions against
Tehran. Then, a group of senators prepared a list of new sanctions
against Iran in late December, if negotiations on the nuclear issue
reached a deadlock. In response, Iranian parliamentarians prepared their
list of appropriate measures that could be applied in case the U.S.
toughened its position and the negotiations were derailed. Although it
is clear that President Obama himself is interested in the successful
completion of the Geneva process, since this would contribute to
significant freezing of the Iranian nuclear program, the normalization
of relations with Tehran, and allow Washington to continue on a course
aimed at reformatting its policy in the Middle East, which started in
October 2013.
That
is when the U.S. Administration finally realized the fatality of
placing its stakes on supporting those forces in the Arab world that
assisted radical Islam, extremism and even terrorism, by financing and
providing military assistance to organizations and groups affiliated
with al-Qaeda or currents even more radical in their ideologies. Their
goal is to transform the Arab world into a radical Wahhabi Caliphate.
Moreover, it was only this example of a bloody war in Syria that made
American strategists realize this fact, and they started developing new
approaches to their policy in the region. This explains the change of
attitude towards Iran, which can become a real counterweight to the
aggressive policy of Saudi Arabia, even more so, since the oil
dependence of the U.S. economy has been substantially reduced after the
“shale revolution”, and the importance of the Wahhabi Kingdom has
decreased as well, in terms of the world’s energy supplies.
At
the same time, American and European companies are interested in
participating in the modernization of the Iranian economy and the
development of large oil and gas projects that were frozen because of
the sanctions. In addition, Iran is a very large market, given its 70
million people and solvency thanks to vast oil and gas resources of this
country. Their development, especially the South Pars Gas Field, will
require tens of billions in investments and the latest technologies,
including for the creation of facilities for liquefying gas for export.
Iran’s power industry, industrial sector, telecommunications, and
transport infrastructure have huge investment opportunities. In other
words, this is a very tasty area for Western business, which is much
more promising than the economies of the GCC countries, where labor
resources are limited.
Thus,
Saudi Arabia became nervous as it realized that its place as the main
strategic ally of the USA in the Persian Gulf might soon be taken over
by Iran. The more so, knowing that Tehran played this role in the 1970s
under the Shah’s regime. Moreover, if one considers Iran’s powerful
armed forces, which will surely be modernized, one can understand what
Riyadh is afraid of – a complete change in the regional balance of
forces, where Saudi Arabia will fall into the shadows of Iran and Iraq.
Nevertheless,
instead of making steps towards Tehran, the stubborn and conservative
aging leaders of the KSA started, simply saying, to “play dirty tricks”
through the development of an entire network of anti-Iran intrigues. At
first, the Saudis tried to push Israel into joint strikes against Iran’s
nuclear facilities. Then, when this idea had failed, Riyadh decided to
put together an anti-Iran military bloc by transforming the GCC from an
economic and political union of Arabian monarchies into a military
alliance. At the last summit of the organization in December in Kuwait,
the Saudis put forward a proposal to create a sort of a “Gulf” NATO to
deter Iran. Although, as it is well known, Iran never attacked its
neighbors during its modern history after the Khomeini Revolution, but
only fought to repel the aggression of Iraq, started in 1980 at the
instigation of Saudi Arabia, the GCC countries and the United States.
So
far other members of the Council – with the exception of Bahrain, whose
royal regime entirely depends on Saudi bayonets (Saudi troops were
brought to the island in February 2011 to suppress actions of the Shiite
majority population) – are reacting coolly to all this. Only a kind of
military command was established, but there are no common armed forces.
Moreover, small Arab principalities of the Gulf will hardly wish to
worsen their relations with Iran, at the time when this country is
coming out of Western isolation.
Moreover,
Riyadh revived talks of a regional missile defense system called
“ParsPRO” to repel possible missile and air strikes on the GCC from
Iran. Its components, based on the purchase of the “Patriot” systems,
would be placed virtually everywhere – from Kuwait to Qatar and the UAE.
At that, they planned to spend up to $20 billion for just the first
phase. Moreover, this was done despite the fact that in early December,
the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited four Gulf
countries and put forward a number of interesting initiatives to
strengthen stability and security in the Gulf, which received positive
feedback from Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman.
In
any case, we can be sure that Tehran can overcome the remaining
difficulties in the coming period and make a leap forward, despite the
machinations of Saudi Arabia and the pressure of the pro-Israel lobby in
Washington. Russia understands this, and is getting ready to expand its
cooperation with Iran – a country that is a friend of the Russian
Federation. It is no mere chance that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov made an official visit to Tehran in mid-December, and that the
capital of Iran hosted a meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental
Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation.
Viktor Titov, PhD in History, a political observer on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook.
