Iranian-Arab Relations in Light of WikiLeaks Disclosures

The following article was written by Chelsi Mueller, a junior research fellow in the Center for Iranian Studies and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University.

by Chelsi Mueller

As Arab leaders’ private statements about Iran began to pour forth from Wikileaks, Iranian leaders strove to counter the Islamic Republic’s depiction as an isolated and feared Middle East bully. The leaked diplomatic cables suggest that the leaders of Arab states including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, view Iran’s nuclear program as a threat. One released cable reportedly describes a meeting between Saudi King ‘Abdullah and US General David Petraeus in which the Saudi King, referring to Iran, urged the US to “cut off the head of the snake.” In another leaked cable, UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed reportedly stated that an Iranian nuclear bomb would be more dangerous than al-Qaeda. And in reference to Iran’s nuclear program, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly said, “we are all terrified.”

President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad alleged that the release of the documents was part of a US “psychological warfare” campaign (Press TV, November 29, 2010). Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast stated that the release of the documents was a calculated move aimed at fomenting discord among states in the region and called upon the regional states to exercise vigilance in the face of these American tactics (Press TV, November 30, 2010).

If to move beyond the accusation that the leaks were intentional on the part of the US and analyze the statements of these Iranian leaders, some important developments can be seen in Iran’s perceptions of Middle East security, the American role in the region, and the current state of relations between Iran and its Arab neighbors.

Iran, since the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi, has viewed itself as the most legitimate security provider in the Gulf, and since the Islamic Revolution, has aspired to be the leading Islamic power in the Middle East region.  Presently, Iran’s primary foreign policy goals are to reduce and weaken the US presence in the region, particularly in the Persian Gulf and to strengthen its own position. President Ahmadinejad and others close to him are persuaded that regional dominance is Iran’s right and destiny and they are convinced that the Arab states eventually will accept—and have already begun to accept—Iran’s assumption of its rightful leadership role.

The largest obstacle to Iran obtaining its long sought position in the Gulf has been the reliance of the Arab Gulf states on the protection of a hegemonic foreign power, the British until 1971, and now the Americans. Presently, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman all host US bases or military installations. While the Arab Gulf monarchies view American forces in the Gulf as a guarantor of their own security, Iran views the American presence as a menace and an obstacle to its regional ambitions.

Throughout the 1990s, President Clinton’s “dual containment” of Iran and Iraq aimed at isolating Iran and diminishing its regional influence. But, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in 2003, and the chaos that followed the American invasion, constituted an unprecedented strategic opening for Iran to gain influence in a major oil-producing Arab Gulf state and challenge American supremacy in the region.

Iran seized the opportunity to create a zone of influence in Iraq, cultivating its cultural, religious and commercial ties with the Iraqi Shi’i majority, supporting Shi’i militias in their sectarian fighting against Sunnis in particular and supporting resistance to the American occupation in general. Likewise, Iran found war ravaged Afghanistan to be fertile ground for the promotion of its interests.

Encouraged by its successes, Iran did not stop with Iraq and Afghanistan, but continued to project its power throughout the region—bringing its influence to bear on factional and sectarian fighting from Lebanon to  Gaza and Yemen. In each of these arenas, governments and factions supported by Sunni Arab states and aligned with the West found themselves mired in bloody sectarian conflicts with factions supported by Iran. Analysts began to speak of an Arab-Iranian “cold war” in the Middle East.

Casting an image of itself as the only state capable of leading the Islamic resistance against Western and Zionist forces in the region, Iran continued to thumb its nose at the West on the issue of its nuclear program.  Iran has gained a significant degree of sympathy among the Arab publics who favor a strong Iran, even a nuclear Iran, as an Islamic counterweight to Israel and the US. Iran’s popular appeal undermines the legitimacy of the Arab leaders, who are portrayed as capitulating to Western powers.

Furthermore, Arab leaders fear that a nuclear weapon will enable Iran to assert hegemony in the Gulf and dominance in the region. The Gulf Cooperation Council, for example, issues frequent statements in support of Iran’s “right to possess nuclear energy technology for peaceful purposes,” while also urging Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Much speculation about a possible American or Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities has prompted Iranian leaders to threaten retaliation against American bases hosted by the Arab Gulf states. In June 2007, ‘Ali Shamkhani, defense advisor to ‘Ali Khamene’i, described a “retaliation plan” against strategic targets in the Gulf states, as well as oil refineries and power stations. Fearful of such a confrontation, Arab Gulf states have sought to appease Iran on the matter of its nuclear program. In May 2006, Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah told journalists: “There is no room for concerns about peaceful nuclear activities of Iran,” and in February 2007 Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid, articulated his country’s support of Iran’s sovereign right to a “peaceful nuclear program” (Gulf States Newsletter, June 23, 2006; arabicnews.com, February 26, 2007).

As sectarian violence escalated in Iraq  and factional fighting broke out in the Lebanese and Palestinian arenas in 2006, Saudi leaders became more intrepid in their willingness to blame Iran and its clients for creating instability in the region. Saudi Arabia has the most to lose from Iran’s pursuit of hegemony in the Gulf.  Saudi Arabia’s most strategic area of activity is the Gulf basin, owing to its vast oil assets in the Eastern Province and its need to ensure that oil tankers can travel safely in and out of the narrow Gulf waterway. Given that Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, and given the history of tense Saudi-Iranian relations, Saudi Arabia would rather not see a situation where its shipping is dependent on Iran’s good will. What’s more, the Saudi royal family is suspicious of Iran’s support for radical movements and its promotion of revolutionary ideology because of their potential to destabilize the Kingdom. Given these deep-seated fears, Saudi leaders initially contemplated the US proposal of isolating Iran.

But Iranian leaders calculated that the gradual erosion of American power in the region would increasingly cause the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to acknowledge Iran’s expanding role. The Americans were unable to lower the temperature of the sectarian and factional violence that raged across the region and the Sunni Arab states, namely Saudi Arabia, feared that the repercussions of these conflicts would be disastrous for their regimes.  In addition, the Americans were neither able to arrest Iran’s growing regional influence nor stop its nuclear progress without barreling down a crash course toward a military confrontation in the Gulf.

The acknowledgment that Iran sought from regional powers was finally realized in January 2007 when Saudi King ‘Abdullah broke with the Americans’ policy of isolating Iran and welcomed Iranian chief negotiator ‘Ali Larijani to Riyadh. He opened negotiations with Iran with the aim of reducing the sectarian and factional fighting in Iraq, Lebanon and among the Palestinians. It was the beginning of a series of exchanges. Khamene’i, sent a letter to King ‘Abdullah asking him to help mediate between the US and Iran on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. By the end of that year, the Saudi King had invited Ahmadinejad to become the first Iranian President to take part in the hajj, an invitation that was highly symbolic of the new détente between the two countries.

Iranian leaders were satisfied to see that King ‘Abdullah also cooled his relations with Washington: In March 2007 ‘Abdullah depicted the American  war  in   Iraq  as  an “illegitimate   foreign occupation,” took a back seat at the November 2007 American-sponsored Annapolis Middle East Peace Conference, and cancelled a state dinner that Washington had planned to hold in his honor. His statements and his behavior gave Iranian leaders the impression that Saudi Arabia would not pose a serious obstacle to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Furthermore, a 2007 study commissioned by Iran’s Majlis concluded that “improving relations with Saudi Arabia can increase Iranian diplomacy’s negotiating power against the West” (BBC Monitoring, April 16, 2007).

But the Saudis’ engagement of Iran fell short of being a comprehensive rapprochement. In fact, the Saudis were pursuing a nuanced strategy aimed at both engaging  and  containing Iran, and trying to roll back its influence in the region while not ruling out the possibility of the American military option. As Wikileaks has shown, Saudi and other Arab leaders secretly fear an Iranian nuclear weapon, while publicly, they issue statements in support of Iran’s “right to peaceful nuclear energy.”

Iran, for its part, often emphasizes the public statements of the Arab leaders. The public statements, and as far as Iran is concerned—the official statements—strive to portray mutual harmony between Muslim neighbors. In the wake of the most damaging Wikileaks press coverage, Ahmadinejad responded to the charge that Iran is feared and hated In   the  Arab  world,  saying, “The countries  in  the region are like friends and brothers and these acts of

mischief will not affect their relations” (IRNA, November 30, 2010). Simultaneously, Iranian media outlets issued quotations from Arab leaders echoing Iran’s view—that Wikileaks was part of a US government conspiracy to undermine the close ties between Muslim countries.

Iran’s official position has been and continues to be that the Persian Gulf in particular and the Middle East region in general will be more secure when the US withdraws its military forces and Muslim states assume responsibility for the region’s security. The Arab Gulf states suspect that such a scheme would merely be a temporary phase that would eventually lead to Iran’s domination of the Gulf. In the aftermath of the Wikileaks disclosures, Iran’s recently dismissed foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, sought to persuade Arab Gulf leaders that a more powerful Iran is nothing to fear. Speaking at a Gulf security conference in Bahrain, he said, “Our power in the region is your power and your power in the region is our power…Our growth will only pave the way for others to grow” (al-Jazeera, December 4, 2010). In light of Wikileaks disclosures of the Arab leaders’ deep-seated fears, it is not surprising that Iran’s oft-repeated proposal—US withdrawal and the creation of a regional security framework—has not attracted any takers from among the Arab Gulf states.