A Final Warning from Arabs to Biden

by Khaled Abu Toameh, GATESTONE  •  March 16, 2022 at

• In a message directed at the Biden administration and the other Western powers involved in the Vienna negotiations, the Arab countries said that Iran and its terrorist militias are continuing to create chaos and instability, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.
• The Arabs, including the Arab League, are telling the Biden administration that, in their view, it is not only Iran that threatens their security, but also its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
• The Arabs are clearly worried about the financial and military aid that Iran is providing to the terrorist groups.
• Any deal with Iran will further strengthen these groups and encourage them to step up their terrorist attacks.
• The Arabs are also worried that when Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they will sooner or later find their way into the hands of its terrorist proxies and other terrorist groups, including Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda.
• “This president [Biden] is deaf. He cannot be trusted.” – Ali Al-Sarraf, Iraqi political analyst, Al-Arab, March 12, 2022.
• If the Biden administration and its friends reach a new deal with Iran’s mullahs, we are likely to see more Arabs come out against the US.
• “We have made it very clear that if Iran acquires a nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same.” — Adel al-Jubeir, then Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, to CNN, May 9, 2018.
• The Arabs consider Iran a lethal threat to their national security and the stability of the entire Middle East and other parts of the world. If the Biden administration is going to align itself with the mullahs, it will lose the support of its Arab and Muslim allies, who feel bitterly betrayed and fear that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of these very mullahs and their terrorist groups.

Arab states are worried that when Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they will sooner or later find their way into the hands of its terrorist proxies and other terrorist groups, including Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda. “We have made it very clear that if Iran acquires a nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same,” said Saudi Arabia’s then Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir in 2018.

In what appears to be an eleventh hour and desperate warning to the Biden administration against striking a deal with the Iranian regime, four Arab countries have expressed deep concern over Iran’s ballistic missile program and ongoing support for terrorism.

In a statement issued in Cairo on March 9, the Arab Quartet Committee — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt — said that Iran continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Arab countries and play a role in sowing sectarian discord among them by supporting and arming terrorist groups such as the Houthi and Hezbollah militias.

The statement was issued amid growing concern in some Arab countries, that the US and other Western powers could reach a deal with Iran to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

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