by Jim Lobe
Paul Pillar has a blog up at the National Interest on the possibility that Saudi Arabia and Iran are moving toward some form of rapprochement. The latest development, as Paul points out, is the long-awaited invitation this week by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to his Iranian counter part Mohammad [...]]]>
by Jim Lobe
Paul Pillar has a blog up at the National Interest on the possibility that Saudi Arabia and Iran are moving toward some form of rapprochement. The latest development, as Paul points out, is the long-awaited invitation this week by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal to his Iranian counter part Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The Saudi-Iranian relationship is, of course, critical to any prospect of stabilizing the region, particularly the Levant, as Riyadh and Tehran have been the principal external supporters of the main protagonists in Syria’s catastrophic civil war. As noted by Paul, the Saudis’ decision to return their ambassador to Beirut offers another signal that they are interested in preventing the conflict next door from further destabilizing Lebanon, and perhaps a broader willingness to reduce Sunni-Shia tensions across the region.
Tom Lippman has been following the evolution of Saudi policy on this blog since last Fall when former and then-serving senior officials, including former Saudi ambassadors to Washington, Princes Bandar and Turki, were denouncing Obama’s failure to take strong military action against Syria after chemical weapons killed hundreds of people in a Damascus suburb last August. Beginning with Riyadh’s refusal to take its seat on the UN Security Council, you can find Tom’s analyses over the succeeding months here, here, and here.
At the end of March, however, Obama tacked on to his tour of Europe a stop in Riyadh for a meeting with King Abdullah, and while the press coverage of the visit maintained that things had gone poorly — Obama was greeted by lower-level officials and didn’t even get dinner — subsequent events suggest that there may indeed have been a certain meeting of the minds.
Thus, within a couple of weeks, Prince Bandar, reportedly much disliked by the Obama administration, was relieved of his post as the country’s intelligence chief — in which position he had been directing Saudi efforts to support the Syrian insurgency — while Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a favorite of Washington’s who had already replaced Bandar on Syria, appeared to have further boosted his position among the top policy-makers. Around the same time, the Obama administration announced that it was going through with the transfer of ten Apache helicopters to Egypt despite the military-backed regime’s deplorable human rights performance. Washington’s previous suspension of certain kinds of military assistance and cooperation with Cairo after the military coup that ousted the elected president, Mohammed Morsi, had infuriated Riyadh, which became and remains the regime’s most important financial backer and cheerleader.
Other U.S. gestures that may be meant to appease Saudi Arabia and put it in a more cooperative frame of mind include permitting the first-time delivery of advanced anti-tank, anti-armor TOW missiles (probably from Saudi Arabia’s own stocks, I am told) to allegedly carefully CIA-vetted “moderate” Syrian rebels, the upgrading of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s (SOC) offices here to quasi-diplomatic status, and the reception of its president, Ahmad Jarba, here in Washington. Although he didn’t get the surface-to-air “MANPADs” he was seeking, Jarba did get a personal meeting with Obama, another sign of the kind of increased U.S. support — even if mainly symbolic — that Riyadh has been urging for months and months.
Moreover, we haven’t heard very many public complaints about U.S. policy in the region from Saudi princes since Obama’s visit. Meanwhile, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel is in Jeddah for the first meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) “joint defense council” where he is no doubt assuring his hosts that Washington is not about to sell them out and will continue plying them with lots of very expensive and sophisticated weapons systems, as well as guarding their borders and sea lanes with U.S. firepower for the indefinite future.
As noted by Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the GCC meeting was made somewhat more confusing by a major shake-up in Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry that, among other things, saw the departure of Prince Bandar’s half-brother, Deputy Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan, who, according to Henderson, was Bandar’s “perceived alter ego”, particularly with respect to Riyadh’s Syrian operations. Henderson speculates that all of this may have to do with the continuing maneuvering around the succession of King Abdullah, but its coincidence with the invitation to Zarif “suggest that Saudi Arabia may be reconsidering its regional strategy.” He places the emphasis on the “may” in that sentence, arguing “…it is almost certainly too early to say that the kingdom is softening its tough approach to Iran, especially after its unprecedented April 29 parade display of Chinese-supplied missiles capable of hitting Tehran — a gesture that followed the largest military exercise in Saudi history, involving 130,000 men.” On the other hand, I would add, one always wants to go into negotiations after a show of strength.
Although Paul doesn’t mention these latest events, they form a larger context in which to understand his argument. And, if, as Paul suggests, we are seeing an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement on the horizon, it’s pertinent to recall Obama’s own words about his ambitions for the region when he spoke with the New Yorker’s David Remnick earlier this year:
“It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren’t intent on killing each other,” he told me. “And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion—not funding terrorist organizations, not trying to stir up sectarian discontent in other countries, and not developing a nuclear weapon—you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare.
In any event, here’s Paul’s post.
Photo: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shakes hands with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Tehran, Abdul Rahman Bin Garman Al Shahri on March 3, 2014. Credit: ISNA/Hamid Forootan
]]>by Peter Jenkins
What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).
It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
What a pity that Mr. Netanyahu’s interviewer on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Bob Schieffer, chose to throw Israel’s Prime Minister a succession of softballs (the cricketing equivalents are called “dollies”).
It would have been refreshing if Mr. Schieffer had asked the PM how he squared his certainty about Iran’s nuclear intentions with the assessments that the US intelligence community has produced; queried the PM’s assertion that producing fissile material is nine tenths of the challenge of making a nuclear weapon capable of threatening Israel; reminded the PM of the numerous occasions he has claimed time to be running out for Iran diplomacy; and confronted the PM with what Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal, a prominent spokesman for an Arab state that has coexisted peacefully with Israel, said to an interviewer from Spiegel last month:
SPIEGEL: What do you think would happen if Israel were to carry out a pre-emptive attack to prevent Tehran from building the bomb?
Prince Turki: Iran would retaliate against everybody — with its missiles, with suicide bombers, with agents. And we would be the first victims. Imagine if a nuclear installation is destroyed in Iran and there is fallout on our side of the border. The Iranian people would coalesce around their government. In short, it would be total mayhem.
An even more interesting question would have been this: “Prime Minister, have developments over the last two years ever prompted you to re-visit the decision taken by one of your predecessors, in 1992, to demonise Iran, in order to preserve the strategic value of Israel to the US?”
I doubt Mr. Schieffer would have got much of an answer. Yet it would be fascinating to know whether Israel is starting to reconsider the premise of the anti-Iranian course on which it embarked 21 years ago, with ever-greater consequences for US attitudes to Iran, especially in Congress.
According to Trita Parsi, the author of Treacherous Alliance: the Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US, that course was premised on a change in the way Israeli leaders viewed their neighbourhood.
Since the time of Ben-Gurion, Israel had sought friendly ties with “the periphery” (Iran and Turkey) in order to counter-balance the threat posed by “the vicinity” (the Arab states surrounding Israel plus Iraq).
In 1992 it dawned on a new Israeli government that the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, the dismantlement of Iraqi WMD programs, Egyptian passivity and the launching of the Madrid peace process had defused the Arab threat and opened up possibilities for Israeli economic penetration of Arab neighbours.
But “Israel would have no future in the new order unless it could find a rationale for Washington to continue the strategic relationship” writes Parsi, who goes on to quote an expert on Israeli foreign policy: “There’s no doubt that when the prospects for peace with the inner circle emerged [the depiction of Iran as a threat] started”.
Iran was the obvious choice because of the torrent of revolutionary, anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli rhetoric that had flowed out of Tehran since 1979, and because Iran might one day seek to rival Israeli influence in the Arab states.
Writes Parsi: “Swiftly a campaign was organised to convince the US and Europe that Iran was a global threat.”
“The charges were based not on an existing Iranian threat but on the anticipation of a future Iranian threat,” he states.
What followed is becoming history.
Now the question is whether Israel still feels as sanguine about its Arab “vicinity”, and whether it continues to want Iran to provide the rationale for its strategic relationship with the US.
One might suppose that Israel could dispense with Iran as a rationale now that the US and Europe have such need of Israel as a still point of democratic stability in a maelstrom of Arab unrest.
Can one also suppose that Israel might see value in encouraging the US and Europe to cooperate with Iran to restore stability to the Arab “vicinity”?
The point is not that Syria, Iraq and Egypt are in any condition to threaten Israel militarily. Of course they are not. The point is that instability is intrinsically unpredictable.
Some future twist in the unfolding drama of the Arab Spring could transform Israel’s strategic prospects. And meanwhile the risk of chemical weapons falling into the hands of anti-Israeli terrorists is greater than it has ever been.
The fiction that Iran is a global threat no longer serves Israel well. How long will it take the Israelis, intelligent as they are, to realise that?
]]>by Peter Jenkins
So many thoughtful analyses of the significance of Dr. Hassan Rouhani’s election are already in circulation that part of me thinks I ought to spare LobeLog readers one more. As a compromise, I will limit my focus to the election’s implications for a peaceful resolution of the dispute [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
So many thoughtful analyses of the significance of Dr. Hassan Rouhani’s election are already in circulation that part of me thinks I ought to spare LobeLog readers one more. As a compromise, I will limit my focus to the election’s implications for a peaceful resolution of the dispute that has preoccupied me for the last ten years: the nuclear dispute.
First, unless it gets tarnished — and we must hope that the inevitable smear campaigns underestimate the good sense of the average member of the public — Rouhani’s image as a man of wisdom and moderation will make it easier for Western leaders to contemplate a nuclear deal.
Contrast Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose appearance and rhetoric created a deplorable impression in the West. He became toxic. Image-conscious Western politicians could not run the risk of doing a nuclear deal that might be seen by the public, unaware of Iran’s power-sharing complexities, as entailing trust in Ahmadinejad.
Jack Straw, who as British Foreign Secretary met Rouhani on several occasions, described the president-elect in the Daily Telegraph as a tough but pragmatic defender of Iranian interests, potentially “a huge relief to do business with”. Straw continues to see the deal he did with Rouhani in October 2003 as good for Britain and Europe. He would reject as baseless the claim that Rouhani duped his European counterparts (as would I, for what that is worth!).
Lord Lamont, another British ex-Cabinet Minister, writing in The Times on 18 June, reminded readers of Margaret Thatcher’s prescient declaration that Mikhail Gorbachev was a man “with whom we can do business”. Lord Lamont’s suggestion that the same can be said of Rouhani may not be entirely welcome in Tehran where Gorbachev is seen as responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. But many Times readers will find the comparison apt and reassuring.
Of course, it would be a big mistake to assume that because Rouhani is pragmatic and moderate, he will also be a soft touch. He won’t be. His advent will not change the fundamentals of the Iranian position on the nuclear issue.
Whoever is appointed chief nuclear negotiator (an early opportunity for Rouhani to demonstrate his wisdom) will be looking for guarantees that the West can accept ongoing Iranian production of low-enriched uranium for civil purposes under state-of-the-art safeguards, and that all nuclear-related sanctions will be eliminated once it has been verified that there are no undeclared nuclear activities or material in Iran.
Second, Rouhani’s image will make it harder for Israel’s Prime Minister and his Israeli and US acolytes to scare-monger. Back in 2005, the “mad mullah” campaign was losing credibility. Ahmadinejad’s arrival at the head of the Iranian state was a god-send. It was easy to convince the public that such a president might be capable of even the most suicidal of follies.
The scare-mongering will not cease. Already some are suggesting that Rouhani’s election in no way diminishes the (imagined) nuclear threat from Iran. Others are portraying Rouhani as guilty by association with terrorist acts, or the repression of student protests in 1999, and, by implication, capable of anything. But one can sense that for these people, events have taken a discomforting turn. A severe test of their skills as practitioners of the black art of propaganda lies ahead.
Third, Iranian reactions to Western diplomacy are likely to be more coherent and far-sighted than over the last eight years. In 2005, Ahmadinejad’s first administration rejected EU nuclear proposals out-of-hand instead of taking them as a basis for negotiation. In 2007 and 2009, Iranian infighting scuppered opportunities for a confidence-building stop-gap agreement.
Of course political fissures may open up under Rouhani. But that will happen, if at all, against the run of form, because what we hear suggests that Rouhani is on good terms with Iran’s supreme authority and with the main political currents.
Fourth, Rouhani may be able to soften Saudi opposition to Iran possessing uranium enrichment plants. Saudi-Iranian relations have not always been as strained as under Ahmadinejad, especially since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria. Under Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, when Rouhani was serving as National Security Council secretary, relations recovered from post-revolution lows. Both sides know they are condemned by geography to co-exist.
During a press conference on 17 June, Rouhani (who has good Arabic) referred to Saudi Arabia as a “brother country”, and recalled his successful negotiation of a security agreement in the late 90s. Prince Turki bin Faisal recently told an interviewer from Der Spiegel that it would be disastrous for Saudi Arabia if Israel or the US were to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, and expressed interest in regional nuclear confidence-building. Israeli opposition will stymie his hope for a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons. But, like the members of Euratom in the 1950s, the Gulf states, Iran and Turkey could agree on a mutual nuclear-monitoring arrangement or a sub-regional weapons-free zone.
The Iranian nuclear issue is like the stables of King Augeas. It is littered with evil-smelling heaps of distrust, suspicion, fear and resentment. For the last eight years, Ahmadinejad has given Western leaders an excuse to leave their shovels in the tool-shed. Now, though, they have as good an opportunity to emulate Hercules as they are ever likely to get…
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