Some like to talk about Iran as an added strength to the Arab power to support us in the face of the Zionist danger and the risk of global domination and then it must be allied , a logic can be a sound basis for not being an Iranian hegemony project, which the 1979 revolution dressed it religious clothes while it is a radical nationalist par excellence. In the framework of this project , the Iranian influence has been happened extending in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and finally Yemen , in this context, the Iranian regime officials statements are coming that emphasize those dominance. For example, and not as a limitation. In November 2014, “Ali Reza Zakani” MP in the Iranian parliament said for his country’s control of four Arab capitals, “Sanaa, Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut.” In March 2015, Ali Yonsei, Iranian presidential adviser, Hassan Rowhani, said that “Iran today has become an empire as it was throughout history and its capital Baghdad now, which is the center of our civilization and our culture and our identity today as in the past,” he said, referring to the re-Persian Sasanian Empire before Islam, which occupied Iraq and made Ctesiphon its capital . He added that “the geography of Iran and Iraq are indivisible and culture can not be dismantled, so either have to fight together or unite,” referring to the Iranian military presence in Iraq during the late period .
In the last November, several statements from Iranian officials were made and on the forefront from Iran’s supreme leader (Murshed), where Major General Mohammad Bagheri head of Iran Chiefs of Staff, that his country is moving toward “building naval bases on the coast of Syria and Yemen, to meet the need of the Iranian fleet for far bases “, and added: « we are relinquished about our nuclear strength but we compensate it now by building a naval force that will give us greater value, a military fleet in the Sea of Oman and another fleet in the Indian Ocean, and build naval bases on the coasts or islands in Yemen and Syria, and the development of our military intelligence through drones in our extended Navy”. Bagheri’s remarks followed the next day directly by statements of the Iranian supreme guide(Murshed) himself during a meeting with leaders of the Iranian naval force which he called for strengthening the Iranian presence on the high seas, saying that it enhances the ability of the country .And the spread of velayat-e faqih in the Arab and Muslim world, Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said that “the world is moving towards the establishment of a global Islamic government managed by Iran.” According to the “Faris”, Safavi, considered that the young people of the Islamic world in Yemen and Iraq are imitating the model of youths of Iran, in reference to the establishment of militias ,groups and parties belonging to the system of Velayat –efaqih in Tehran . The question in this context, how the expansionism tendency has been grown with the Iranian regime?
The Iranian regime tried , which adopted Imami Twelver as the official doctrine of the Iranian state included in the text of the Constitution, after 1979, presenting himself as the protector of the doctrine, and began working on the expansion in the region, by supporting Shiite minorities in neighboring countries, the beneficiary of marginalization policies adopted by the ruling regimes , which, It is , truth be told, affected all of its citizens, whether they were the Sunnis or Shia or otherwise. However, this expansion was not easy, as the Iranian regime, tried first, to extend its influence to Azerbaijan, considering that most of the residents of these are Shiites, but it failed in the era of the Soviet Union, and failed after its fall , as the independent Azerbaijan resisted , which is governed by the secular system “Otaturke” strongly , the Iranian regime attempts to force them from the gate of doctrine. Azerbaijan today take severe policies of hostility towards it , so much so that Azerbaijan offered the use of its territory for a military strike against nuclear facilities of Iranian system.
as India and Pakistan, and even Afghanistan, have confronted to its attempts to force it through their existing Shiite minorities. And with closure the field in front of it in the north and east, it was left in front of the Iranian regime , but the Arab world to try to stretch in it. Initially failed to produce a breakthrough in Iraq, because of its strength and its ability to repel, but they succeeded in establishing a close alliance with the Damascus regime, which helped to create a foothold in Iraq through the religious parties and in Lebanon through Hezbollah , which has turned into one of the most important Iranian regime arms In the area.
Resulted in the decision to invade Kuwait in 1990 to weaken Iraq ‘s ability to resist Iranian infiltration and weakened the central authority in Baghdad against the growing ambitions of ethnic and religious components of society (Shiites and Kurds) that took looks to the outside , ” the Iranian regime and the United States” in order to get support and assistance . the invasion led by USA did not occur in Iraq in 2003 until it was ready to fall into the Iranian grip, allowing the emergence of the arc for the Iranian influence crossing border from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean. So many people believe that Iranian influence in the Arab region reached unprecedented levels, especially after the United States toppled Saddam Hussein ‘s regime in Iraq.
The Iranian regime found in the Arab spring an opportunity for further expansion, this time in the Arabian Peninsula, having managed to secure the western borders, where Iraq has become under its dominance even before the United States withdraws its military forces from there .the Iranian regime tried to take advantage from the Shiite uprising in Bahrain on the eve of 2011 but the quick intervention of Saudi Arabia and Peninsula Shield forces foiled this attempt, then the Iranian regime received another hit in with Syria with the outbreak of the revolution which threatened to the undermining of all its achievements of the past two decades noting that the fall of Assad regime threatening to isolate Hezbullah even it would not lead to end it ,and threatening to loss the Shiite control on the authority in Baghdad then the direct Saudi military interference in Yemen came in march of this year, this expansion pushed one of the Iranian officials to say “why it wants a nuclear program which meant here Iran , if it managed to control over Bab-el-Mandeb strait ” the issue then was not a random statement of the regime of Iranian officials but it was reflection of a clear policy that the tendency of domination was not the new but its tools especiaaly the new navy tool as the first time the Iranian officials are talking about navy arm to exceed the waters of the Arab Gulf in which the Iranian navy movements in it could be understood from direct security perspective but talking about enhancing the Iranian navy presence on the high seas and about permanent or moving navy bases exceeding the direct field of the Iranian security of the regime was no more than a manner in conformity with the domination project of the Iranian empire , as we are certainly in front of anew attempt to support the Iranian expansion out side its borders and to be expanded in new ways , Baqri was saying the truth when he described it that it was stronger in ten times than the the nuclear ability , as it was known that this ability since it had been used for the first and last time in the end of the second world war was not except an ability to deter the aggression and not to be ready for actual use due to its devastating effects noting that it has passed about three
Quarters of a century without use it for a second time, despite the growing nuclear capabilities of the great and big powers and spread over time. The tools such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards of the Iranian regime and the militias the military are as we see wreak havoc in more than one Arab country, let alone spillover of Iranian military power with navy arms freely around the entire region, and not hidden surely the evidence of specific reference to statements made by the Iranian Chief of Staff to Syria and Yemen, where Iranian tools are working actively which confirms the our general perception about the project of Iranian hegemony.
But despite the statements of domination of the Iranian officials, the most important question remains to what extent the Iranian regime was able to translate this influence to achieve its national interest of increasing the power of the state itself and achieve the sustainable security, economic prosperity for its people ? On the economic side, it is noted that the core pillar of the Iranian regime in the Arab region, namely Syria, formed an enormous economic burden it so that the Syrian regime’s life has become dependent on Iranian financial support, but even that many political analysts saw in the non-interference of the United States in the Syrian war throughout the past years, a chance to drain the Iranian regime economically in Syria until the degree of collapse. On the other hand, the expansion of al-Huthi in Yemen is the other comes with a high economic bill which is reflected in the statement of one of Huthi leaders who said that «these – What is meant here tens of thousands of Huthi fighters – will not come back from this confrontation with the state empty-handed», as Houthis expected an economic compensation befitting from the size of their sacrifices. As the Yemeni state on the brink of bankruptcy ,it does not stay only the Iranian regime to pay this bill as well. If the security tensions in Yemen turned into a civil war with the tribes and «Al-Qaeda» and the Reform Party and others , which its heralds began in various areas in Yemen, it would have on the Iranian regime’s funding of a new war, in addition to those being waged in Syria, which exhausted the economy of Iran for the past five years, although Iran still is already suffering from the impact of economic sanctions, and falling oil prices. These data put enormous and serious challenges against Iranian expansion, which requires financing wars may be long-standing.
Political and security, the picture is not much brighter, as the Iranian regime is unable to translate his control over the four capitals to achieve the temporary and long- term interest . Just before the beginning of the Arab Spring, Syria’s most important ally in the region and the leader of the so-called axis of resistance, and it seeks to achieve a strategic balance with Israel. For now, Syria has turned into a failed state and has lost most of its territory in favor of what it calls its armed groups. And it has become a huge burden on the Iranian regime by all standards. As for the organic ally -Hezb ullah, there is no similarity between 2006 and 2016, when the party came out in the last war with Israel (2006) with massive popular incubator , not only in Lebanon but in most of the Arab world. Today, it has been exhausted by a Syrian fierce weary war that it has nothing to do with it and a shift from the role of leadership in the defense of the fairest humanitarian issues – the Palestinian issue- to the defense of the loss of legitimacy and bloody regime, in front of his people and the world. And concerning Baghdad, the third capital in which Redha Zakani is proud of controlling on it , it was divided by sectarian disputes and lost alarge part of the state for the benefit of armed organizations such as Daesh and others.
At the internal level, the Iranian regime is suffering from the divisions and contradictions amount to animosity between liberals and conservatives, and between democracy and religious forces, and there are growing tensions between peoples and ethnic groups and sects that make up of it, the percentage of the Persians do not exceed, according to official figures, 51% of the total population, as Azeris 24%, and the rest are distributed among Kurds, Arabs, Baloch and others, although the majority of the population owe the doctrine of Twelve Imams (85%), but 58% of them only speak Farsi, while the 26% spealing Turkish, and the rest of the population speak Kurdish, Arab and other languages. This means that the Iranian regime is less in conformity, even from the Levant, which were fragmented by ethnic and religious conflicts, and makes the Iranian regime to be candidated , like other countries in the region to engage in conflicts of this kind, due to the severity of the tension prevailing in the region, and the tendency of all players in the region to use the paper of sectarian, ethnic and religious diversity as a tool of conflict and confrontation, and this mix seems would be more exposed to the explosion, which all the deferred issues and internal dispute will float on the surface, as soon as the disappearance of the picture of the bigger devil.
It is clear that the Iranian regime has learned nothing from the Soviet experience, which support the revolutionary movements around the world, which were able to mostly access to power, and the Soviet Union gambled that these countries will be the main supporter to him in deferred confrontation with world imperialism, but these allied countries contributed to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union before the confrontation with imperialism. Even if the Huttees of Iran tightened control of the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, that will not bring back one dollar to the Iranian treasury and the closure of the strait will not happen, that Iran is interested in more than the world imperialism against the occurrence of any military confrontation, and the best evidence of this, the denounce of the head of coup Political Council in Yemen to the Iranian statements concerning naval base, which raises question marks about whether he was serious or whether this is a face- saving as long as the Iranian regime is the first booster to them and is now exposing their subordination.
Finally, the Iranian regime is called upon today, more than ever, and with neighboring Arab states, to the reformulation of competition and conflict relations on a new basis based on cooperation, mutual respect and away from sectarian and ethnic tension. The alliance with the Arab broad masses who voluntarily believes the organic relationship with neighboring Iran is a state which will be a real protector of it from any external aggression and the vital tributary of the Iranian economy, not bringing sectarian systems to the power in the four capitals which are a burden on the Iranian economy and draining it even to the collapse. On the Arab side , it must be re-consideration to Arab national security after making sure that the global and regional powers all working to achieve its interests only.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies