Although both sides publicly sidestepped the issue during the recent Washington visit by Saudi Arabias King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, it is clear that Arab governments do not share the Obama administrations enthusiasm for the nuclear deal with Iran
After Iran Deal, US needs to reassure Arabs over �Pax Iranica�
Husain Haqqani
Many Americans see the deal as a practical means of delaying, if not stopping forever, Irans ambitions of becoming a nuclear weapons power. In the Arab world, however, the nuclear deal -- and the concomitant lifting of economic sanctions -- raises the specter of unleashing Irans divisive impact on the worlds Muslims at levels similar to the days immediately after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Iran already has sympathetic regimes in Syria and Iraq and supports strong militant groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain. Only last February, the commander of the foreign wing of Irans Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani, told a rally marking the 36th anniversary of the 1979 uprising that, We are witnessing the export of the Islamic revolution throughout the region. Suleimani spoke proudly of Irans successes From Bahrain and Iraq to Syria, Yemen and North Africa.
President Obama has argued that the nuclear deal should not be judged on whether it transforms Iran, ends Irans aggressive behavior toward some of its Arab neighbors or leads to dtente between Shiites and Sunnis. As Thomas Friedman explains, the president sees the deal solely as an instrument to prevent Iran from breaking out with a nuclear weapon for the next 10 years and as a better outcome for America, Israel and our Arab allies than any other alternative on the table.
That offers little comfort to governments and people in Muslim countries who anticipate a better funded Iranian campaign to exert greater influence across the Muslim world than in the past. Such a campaign would result in renewed competition for influence between Iran and the Saudis, causing strife among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia.
Even under sanctions, Iran managed to prop up Bashar al-Assads regime in Syria and make Hezbollah in Lebanon a force to reckon with. Sanctions did not prevent Tehran from dominating politics in post-Saddam Iraq even though the new order in Baghdad was created with American blood and treasure.
Irans influence is visible in the events in Yemen and Bahrain, and pro-Iranian groups now exist in virtually every Muslim country. Arab governments wonder what Iran might be able to do once the sanctions are over and its coffers are full.
Contrary to assertions in the western media, it is not a matter of some historic rivalry between Shia and Sunni Muslims. It is a question of existing states trying to defend their sovereignty and autonomy in a region that has often been dominated by larger external powers. In some places, where there is a smaller Shia population (like North Africa), Iran has still managed to enroll radical allies for a potential Pax Iranica.
Historically, Arab states (particularly in the Gulf region) have seen the United States and other western powers as their protectors, against communism from 1945 onwards and against Irans revolutionary regime since 1979. They now fear the end of that protection.
While Israels concerns about the Iran nuclear deal have been widely discussed in the U.S. media, there has been much less discussion about the Arab reaction. The Arabs have been understated in their opposition to the deal, possibly to avoid a public spat with the U.S. president. But their concerns are known to U.S. diplomats if not the American public.
The Americans dealt with the aftermath of Irans revolution by simplifying their understanding of the Muslim world in a Shias bad, Sunnis good approach. Washington assumed that Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates were valuable allies against global communism.
Arab countries helped the United States mobilize Islamist ideology against the communists, culminating in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
Ironically, the spread of puritanical madrasas in the Muslim world was partly a function of the fear generated around the Muslim world by Ayatollah Khomeinis Iranian revolution. As Shia clerics created a theocracy in ancient Persia, Sunni clerics started nurturing ambitions of similar authority and power in other countries. Some Arab governments made mistakes in dealing with this theocratic push for power by giving the clerics money for preaching their brand of Islam.
But even then, so far, Iran-like theocracies have not swept Muslim countries.
Support for conservative Islamic groups, such as the Wahhabis, inadvertently led to Islamist radicalism. But none of the regimes in Muslim countries became radical as a result, and the ones that did (e.g. the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Morsi regime in Egypt), were forced out of power by one set of circumstances or another. That is very different from Iran where radicalism is entrenched in the very nature of a revolutionary regime.
The U.S. opening to Iran, coupled with the Obama administrations neglect of the Middle East, has created a genuine fear that the U.S. might end up embracing Iran in a mistake similar to the one it made after 1979 by funding jihadis in Afghanistan. Encouragement of Iran and invoking of Shia-Sunni sectarian rivalry could undermine the ideological battle against Islamist radicalism that some Arab countries, notably the UAE, have launched against Sunni radical groups in the aftermath of the rise of the Islamic State.
American supporters of the Iran deal have suggested that after the deal Iran is somehow a lesser threat than the radicalism of the variety represented by groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman quoted me recently on the history of diminution of religious pluralism in the Muslim world, some of my Arab friends wondered if I had embraced the same binary view of one form of radical Islam being less of a menace than the other.
In fact, I believe that all radicalism in the name of Islam is damaging and threatens modernity, progress and prosperity of Muslims around the world. Unless Iran gives up its radical revolutionary ideology, it will continue to be perceived as a threat. In its zealous embrace of the nuclear deal with Iran, the United States should avoid the pitfall of considering Tehrans radicalism any less dangerous than that of extremists such as ISIS.
The writer , director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., was Pakistans ambassador to the United States
from 2008-11
