Iran continues to play negative role in region

Memories are short and Washington and its allies seem to have embarked upon a willful exercise of forgetfulness. In the 36 years since its revolution, Iran has steadily emerged as an ever-greater menace to peace and stability in the region.
There was a big freeze in America’s relations with Tehran after the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy hostages. This became permafrost when it became clear that the Iranians were seeking to produce a nuclear weapon.
The Kingdom has long sought good relations with all its neighbors. Iran is no exception. But that quest has not involved rose-tinted glasses. The Saudi view of Tehran is based on a realistic assessment of its ambitions. And that assessment is currently alarming.
Sadly, the Obama White House has come up with a mistaken analysis of the present political dynamics in the region. This is based on the fond assumption that Tehran can be part of the solution in Iraq and Syria. It completely overlooks the truth of the matter — Iran is part of the problem.
The genesis of this dangerous error lies in the long and tortuous negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. For ten years Iran played cat and mouse with the international community. The United Nations began a gradual implementation of sanctions in 2006. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council —China, France, Russia, the UK and US plus Germany, the so-called P5+1 — doggedly sought a deal. It ought to have been very simple. Iran had only to comply with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it had signed. This obliges all nuclear powers to allow complete access to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Since Tehran protested that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful, there seemed no good reason for its non-compliance.
The sanctions were gradually ratcheted up. The Iranian economy began to bleed. Popular unrest that threatened the rule of the clerics began to grow. Four years ago angry demonstrations were brutally suppressed. Yet still Iranian negotiators ducked and parried at the P5+1 talks. One minute there seemed a deal. Then they backed off. In retrospect, it was a cunningly calculated performance.
Then in 2013 Washington’s hopes were raised when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was succeeded by Hassan Rouhani as president. Obama’s people excitedly briefed that Rouhani was a moderate and pragmatic politician who wanted a nuclear deal. Yet it took another two years before a deal was clinched. That ought to have told the Americans something. The real power in Iran lies with the clerics.
But Obama insisted on believing that something in Iran had really changed. And herein lies the subtle but hugely dangerous error the Americans and the international community have made.
The P5+1 talks had dragged on so long, that the final Iranian signature was greeted almost with gratitude. Suddenly Iran had solved the nuclear standoff. It no longer mattered that Iran alone had, in the first place, been responsible for that standoff.
To a simplistic American and European media, Iranians had suddenly become the good guys. Poorly-informed politicians prattled on about being able to do business with the Rouhani government. And of course international businesses, long locked out of the Iranian market by sanctions, smacked their corporate lips. There was a ton of deals waiting to be done.
Yet as the Kingdom has never tired of warning, the reality of Iran is very different. The enduring tragedies in Syria and Iraq could very probably have been averted if Saudi advice had been accepted. Iranian interference in both these conflicts has had devastating consequences. The United States should have acted in Syria against Bashar Assad with the same decisiveness as Saudi Arabia did in Yemen against the Houthi rebellion. The bloody hand of Iran is at play in both countries.
It is high time that Washington and its allies appreciated that Tehran is intent on disrupting the Middle East. It is set on a policy of regional hegemony. Iranian newspapers are full of calls for the resurrection of a Persian empire. These should not be dismissed as media froth. They are in fact evidence of a new-found confidence that Iran can flex its political muscles. That confidence stems from the nuclear deal and the imminent removal of sanctions it brings. The Iranians clearly think they have Washington eating out of their hand. It is high time Obama disabused them.