Obama is placing Israel in peril

JCPA has published a Report, Iran Looks Beyond the Nuclear Talks by Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall. What interested me the most is what he says of the regional situation. Caroline Glick has written to same effect in her article which I posted today.

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Iran’s Conduct in the Region

At present, the discussion of Iran’s nuclear program is being conducted without connection to other regional issues where Iran exerts decisive influence. These include the ongoing crisis in Syria and Hizbullah’s involvement in it; Hizbullah’s role in Lebanon and continued assistance – with Tehran’s encouragement – to groups that oppose a political settlement with Israel; Iran’s subversive activities in the Gulf States (particularly Bahrain and Saudi Arabia); and the reshaping of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the like. The issue of human rights in Iran has already been sidelined for some time. For example, the number of executions in Iran has risen dramatically since Rouhani was elected. According to Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, that number has doubled, and the government’s line about freeing political prisoners is “fraudulent.”3

The United States, however, chooses to ignore the many problematic elements of Iran’s conduct in the Middle East and even in its own backyard that are likely to have serious implications – particularly if Iran eventually nuclearizes. The United States itself under the presidency of Barack Obama, who during his first term advocated openness and an outstretched hand to the Islamic world, is undergoing a generational change regarding its self-perception and role in the region, including its traditional alliances with “moderate” states (basically the Gulf States and Egypt). This may be due to the fact that the United States is now closer to “energy independence,” or to the increasingly unstable, unpredictable, and unrewarding nature of the Middle East, leading to American fatigue and a search for new strategic directions.

Operation Iraqi Freedom and the death of Saddam Hussein, which preceded and perhaps heralded the outbreak of the “Arab Spring,” constituted a death blow to attempts to forge pan-Arab unity and to the quest by Arab leaders for stature and charisma to inspire and unify the “Arab street” in opposing Western imperialism and the political borders it created. Instead, the “Arab Spring,” or “Islamic Awakening” as Iran calls it, further accelerated the process of dissolution of the national Arab frameworks (such as in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Egypt). The Islamic alternative has not yet come to fruition, and the struggle over the nature of governmental rule, and its borders, is still far from being decided, but meanwhile is soaked in blood. Iran, a stable actor, wants to enter the political and ideological void that has emerged in the region and paint it in vividly Islamic hues.

Saudi Arabia Voices Concerns
The combination of hesitancy and occasional rashness shown by the United States at the recent rounds of the Geneva nuclear talks and the eventual signing of the interim agreement, on the one hand, and Iran’s lengthening shadow and power projection in the region, on the other, has raised great concern among its neighbors – particularly Saudi Arabia. Those neighbors now have to reassess the main elements of their national defense strategy. They are well aware of U.S. policy toward its allies in the Obama era – as evidenced both by the willingness to sacrifice Mubarak, one of the strongest and most faithful U.S. allies in the region, and by the cold shoulder Washington has turned toward secular Egypt since Morsi’s ouster and al-Sisi’s assumption of leadership, which has brought al-Sisi to turn to Moscow.

Recent statements to the annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference by Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the United States and former intelligence chief, reflect the Saudi fear of perceived changes in U.S. policy in the region and their implications for Iran’s regional conduct. Faisal also addressed the options, including the nuclear one, available to the regional states as part of their response to U.S. policy. He discussed among other things:

Acquiring a nuclear deterrent. “I have suggested that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members carefully weigh all options, including acquiring a nuclear deterrent, if the Iranian leadership succeeds in building a nuclear weapon.”

Iran portrays itself as the leader of all Muslim revolutionaries who stand up to the West. “Iran portrays itself as the leader of not just the minority Shiite world, but of all Muslim revolutionaries interested in standing up to the West.”

Iran’s meddling and destabilizing efforts in countries with Shiite majorities. “Another concern we need to address in the coming decade is the Iranian leadership’s meddling and destabilizing efforts in countries with Shia majorities, Iraq and Bahrain, as well as those countries with significant minority Shia communities, such as Kuwait, Lebanon and Yemen, and the fact that it still occupies the three Emirati islands in the Gulf and refuses to talk about them. Their invasion of Syria is underway and growing…much of [Iraq’s] potential is being crushed by Iranian interference.”
Hizbullah in Bahrain still exists. “Those who claim that the recent disturbances were not instigated by Iran forget that Khomeini’s creation, Hizbullah in Bahrain, still exists and that Iranian propaganda broadcasts beamed at Bahrain have never ceased. Iranian officials frequently issued statements that Bahrain is a province of Iran…the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will never accept that Iran take power in Bahrain.”4

The Iranian leadership and media responded to this statement by Faisal and similar statements by portraying Saudi Arabia (along with Israel, the Gulf States, and France) as seeking to sabotage a nuclear agreement with the West out of narrow economic interests. At the same time, as part of its “charm offensive,” Iran continues to proclaim its desire for normal relations with all of its neighbors, “far from the influence and malign involvement of the United States.” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is leading the nuclear negotiations with the West, addressed this issue in a wide-ranging interview on Iranian television. Zarif claimed that the negotiating team continued to enjoy Khamenei’s backing, and said in an appeal to the Gulf States:
We do not know why some of the Persian Gulf States are suddenly fearful. We want to emphasize that you have nothing to fear, and relations with neighboring states are at the top of Iran’s foreign policy priorities….The interests of our friends [the Gulf States] are opposed to those of the Zionist regime, and they need a good and beneficial relationship with their large neighbor [i.e., Iran]….We want to maintain relations with them in accordance with common interests.

Zarif also emphasized that he aimed to visit some of the regional states so as to “allay their fears.”5 He also published an op-ed in the influential Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat titled, “Our neighbors are our priority.”6
At the same time, Iran’s Fars News Agency referred to reports that Saudi Arabia intended to purchase a nuclear bomb from Pakistan; according to several reports, Saudi Arabia had in the past helped Pakistan attain its nuclear capability.7
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