Passivity in the face of ongoing Iranian provocations is hurting American credibility in the Middle East, particularly with the Gulf States, a former U.S. State Department official wrote in CNN on Friday.
Aaron David Miller, now the vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, argued that the Obama administration’s reluctance to push back against Iranian provocations hasn’t instilled confidence in regional allies. “[While] the Gulf states and Israel may see some advantage in delaying Iran’s nuclear problem with this deal,” Miller observed, “it will not be enough to help them overcome their fears of Teheran’s regional aspirations — or America’s seeming willingness to acquiesce to them.”
Miller explained that the Obama administration undercut the trust of its allies in three ways, the first being by acting as “Iran’s lawyer.” While Secretary of State John Kerry has pointed out provocations by Iran, which even President Barack Obama acknowledged hasn’t adhered to the spirit of the nuclear deal, he was also left to argue that Tehran would be more dangerous if not for the agreement.
Meanwhile, Yousef al-Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the U.S., warned last week that Iran was as “dangerous as ever” in the wake of the nuclear accord. When the administration fails to strongly oppose this danger or seeks additional ways to ease Iran’s reintegration into the international community, “the Gulf states wonder what is it about Teheran behavior that Washington doesn’t understand,” Miller argued.
Furthermore, the administration’s credibility was hurt by Iran’s own behavior. This has included renewed ballistic missiles tests, which defy the language of the United Nations Security Council resolution that implemented the nuclear deal, as well as continued support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and Shi’ite militias in Iraq. Notions that moderates would be strengthened by the nuclear deal were also put to rest, with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently rebuffing a call from former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to place diplomacy ahead of a military buildup.
Finally, Miller pointed out the damage done by administration statements suggesting that the U.S. is disengaging from the Middle East and leaving its allies to deal with Iran. According to Miller, “the Mister Rogers-like notion that Obama expressed in the [recent] Atlantic interview [with Jeffrey Goldberg] that the regional parties will have to learn to share their neighborhood is one that fundamentally contradicts the Arab states’ and Israel’s view of the Iranian threat — and what they had believed was a strong U.S. commitment to blocking Iran’s rise.”
In the wake of a nuclear deal that failed to restrain Iran, the Gulf states “may well be thinking to themselves that the Obama administration itself is becoming part of the problem, too,” Miller concluded.
Miller suggested a year ago that, in the absence of Iranian moderation, the nuclear deal would see the U.S. avert one crisis in exchange for “a bigger one down the road.”
Influential Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called Obama’s remarks about Saudi Arabia in his recent interview with Goldberg “destabilizing” in March.
Last year, The New York Times reported that Saudi Arabia had begun to organize an alliance of Sunni states to counter Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East.
The growing discomfort American Gulf allies felt with the administration’s outreach to Iran was described by Jonathan Spyer in the January 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine.As a result of this, said [Saudi Ambassador to the United States Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz], Saudi Arabia may have “no choice but to become more assertive in international affairs: more determined than ever to stand up for the genuine stability our region so desperately needs.”
The ambassador’s article is the bluntest public expression yet of just how worried the Saudis and the other Gulf states actually are, but it is not the only indication of their concerns. Bahraini Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, for example, said in a recent interview with the Daily Telegraph that America’s “transient and reactive” foreign policy could force it to lose influence in the region. “America seems to suffer from schizophrenia when it deals with the Arab world,” said the prince. He referred specifically to the American stance in relation to Egypt, Syria, and Iran. He also contended that U.S. behavior was leading to the exploration of alternative alliances by former regional allies. “The Russians have proved they are reliable friends,” he said. “As a result, some states in the region have already started to look at developing more multilateral relations rather than just relying on Washington.” This process was seen in practice in the recent visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Egypt—the first such visit in 40 years.
In a similar, rare public expression of Gulf sentiment, Nawaf Obeid, a senior adviser to the Saudi royal family, accused Washington of deceiving Riyadh over the Iran nuclear deal. “We were lied to, things were hidden from us,” Obeid told an audience in London that was also quoted in the Daily Telegraph. He went on to vow continued Saudi resistance to Iranian machinations across the region. In particular, he expressed Saudi determination to turn back the Iranians in Syria. “We cannot accept Revolutionary Guards running around Homs,” he said.
Source: The Tower, April 11
