The Obama administration’s relationship with Iran has echoes of schizophrenia. US foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East has to be the most confusing, feckless and ineffective in living history. In just about every respect, Obama’s decisions, indecision and last-minute changes of mind have served to undermine America’s credibility as the world’s leading power — and unnerved those of his nation’s closest longtime allies, currently engaged in fathoming where his flirtation with Iran is heading.
While John Kerry plays nice with his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Javed Zarif to seal a nuclear deal and his boss lavishes the Iranians with praise, US warships and Iranian destroyers get up close and personal at the entrance of the Bab El-Mandeb Strait in the Gulf of Aden. In response to aggression by Iranian gunboat toward commercial vessels, the US Navy is now escorting American cargo ships in the area and warning Iran not to ship weapons to Shiite Houthis.
Worse, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahain is now openly threatening one of America’s regional allies, Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, he rejected “foreign interference” in Yemen and accused the international community of failing to censure the Saudi-led intervention, warning that Iran “will not allow anybody to play with our (Iranian and Yemeni) common security through adventurous measures.”
On this issue, Iran and the US stand on opposing sides…or, rather, did. There’s a suggestion that Obama is wobbling again and is now pushing for dialogue.
Amir-Abdollahain needs to take a long hard look at a map of the area. Whereas Yemen borders the Kingdom that’s under threat from Houthi rebels, Iran has no frontier and lies almost 2,000 kilometers distant as the crow flies.
More importantly, Yemen is not only an Arab country, but also the ancient Arab heartland. There is no justification for Iran to pull Yemen into its sphere of influence, other than its will to dominate the neighborhood en route to the stated declaration of one of the President’s top advisers to the effect his country is set on recreating the Persian Empire.
A further anomaly is the fact that the White House backs opposition fighters battling Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah guerillas allied with the Assad regime in Syria while simultaneously coordinating/cooperating with the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Al-Quds force and Hezbollah taking on the “Islamic State” next door in Iraq.
Likewise, the Australian prime minister has announced an informal arrangement between Tehran and Canberra on intelligence sharing relative to Iraq. Last month, Australia, a member of the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, sent its foreign minister Julie Bishop to Tehran; the first such high level visit since 2003.
In the meantime, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei still calls for “Death to America” following Friday prayers, while warning of America’s “devilish intentions.” And despite being Kerry’s new best buddy, Zarif writes an opinion piece published in the New York Times, claiming the US manufactured the nuclear crisis and accusing Washington of enabling “Al-Qaeda and its ideological siblings, such as the so-called Islamic State, in Iraq, while effectively enabling their growth in Yemen and Syria.”
Iran insults its wannabe American partner with seeming impunity yet Obama and Kerry continue their sweet talking, “forgetting” to mention Iran’s horrific human rights record (discrimination against minorities, political prisoners, kangaroo courts, stoning, torture and rape of prisoners, imprisonment of journalists and the highest rate of execution in the world) — and not a peep from the White House on Iran’s gross interference in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
Yet, the US president has had the audacity to promise some tough talking to Gulf states on governance!!
According to the Wall Street Journal, GCC member states are now seeking new weapons systems (fighter jets, missile batteries and surveillance equipment) as well as security guarantees from the US in return for their backing of the nuclear agreement with Iran. It would be more appropriate for GCC leaderships to ask President Obama to choose in the same way that George W. Bush demanded of them post 9/11 — Are you with us or with…”
I don’t pretend to know what Gulf rulers are thinking or saying behind closed doors, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would imagine they are counting the days until January 20, 2017 when America gets a new Commander-in-Chief; hopefully one who doesn’t hold his nation’s enemies closer than its tried-and-true friends.
