From time to time , an Iranian official comes out with media statements , to express of the arrogance of his country’s arrogant policy of expansion towards the Arab countries ,and it is possible to be said about these statements that it violate the sovereignty of some Arab countries in the eastern Arab states , but it is worth to be noted that these statements were not declared publicly before the US occupation of Iraq on April 9 2003. Despite the blockade imposed on Iraq which worked on the weakening it after the occupation of Kuwait on August 2 / August 1990, but it was a strong deterrent to the ambitions of Iran in the Arab world. In this context, we will tackle some of these Iranian statements and the extent of its political effectiveness on the ground, and the dilemmas posed by such kind of statements?
Ali Reza Zakani
After the control of Houthi militias on the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September last year, the MP in the Iranian parliament, Ali Reza Zakani, who is close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that “the Yemeni capital Sanaa has become the fourth Arab capital of Iran after Beirut , Damascus and Baghdad.” noting that “the revolution of the Houthis in Yemen is an extension of the Khomeini revolution.” Zakani added that “three Arab capitals today, however, are in the hands of Iran, and a subsidiary of the Iranian revolution,” adding that Sanaa has become the fourth Arab capital, which is on its way to join the Iranian revolution. Zakani was noting during his speech before the members of the Iranian parliament that Iran is passing through these days in a stage of “greater jihad,” noting that this stage requires a special policy, and careful discourse could result in many consequences. He explained that the officials in Iran have to know everything that is happening on the regional scene, and get to know all the key players and influential countries in the region, pointing to the need to support the movements that are going in the framework of the Iranian revolution to lift the injustice, and help the oppressed ones in the Middle East, he said . Zakani went on saying that before the victory of the revolution in Iran, there were two basic trends forming the US axis in the region, “namely Saudi Islam and Turkish secularism , but after the success of the Iranian revolution, the political equation in the region has changed in favor of Iran , and today we are at the peak of our strength to impose our will and our strategic interest on everyone in the region. ” He pointed out that the Middle East now is heading to the formation of two main poles , the first led by the United States and its allies of the Arabs, and the second led by Iran and the countries that have engaged in a project of the Iranian revolution. He pointed out that the Yemeni revolution is a natural extension of the Iranian revolution, and that the 14 Yemen governorates will become under the control of Houthis soon out of 20 counties, and it will be extended up to inside Saudi Arabia, saying: “Certainly the Yemeni revolution will not be limited to Yemen alone, and will be extended after its success to inside Saudi territory, and that the wide Yemeni-Saudi border will help to speed up access to the Saudi depth “, as he claimed.
Ali Yonsei
Iraq has witnessed in June of last year, accelerated security incidents represented control of state regulation in Iraq and the Levant “Daash” over Mosul and other Sunni provinces, resulting in the corresponding formation of Shiite militias of popular crowd to repel ISIS attacks against the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the emergence of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani as commander of these militias, in this context, Ali Yonsei said , the Iranian adviser of the president, Hassan Rowhani , as follows: “Iran today has become an empire as it was throughout history and its capital, Baghdad now, which is our civilization and our culture and our identity Center today as in the past”, and that in a reference to the re-Sassanid Persian empire before Islam, which occupied Iraq and make the cities as its capital. ” “The geography of Iran and Iraq are indivisible and our culture is not subject to dismantling, so either we fight together or unite”, in reference to the Iranian intensive military presence in Iraq recently . Yonsei attacked , who served as intelligence minister in the government of reformist President Mohammad Khatami , all opponents of the Iranian influence in the region, adding that “all the Middle Eastern region is Iranian ,” saying “we will defend all peoples of the region, because we consider them part of Iran, and we will stand firm against the whole Islamic extremism, blasphemy and atheism and neo-Ottomans and the Wahhabis and the West and Zionism, “as he put it. The Iranian president’s advisor stressed of the continuation of Tehran’s support for the loyal Iraqi government , and implicitly attacked Turkey, saying “our historical competitors , heirs of the Eastern Roman and Ottomans , are resentful of our support for Iraq,” in allusion to the resentment of Turkey of the Iranian expansion. Yonsei indicated in his speech that his country intends to establish a “Iranian federation” in the region, saying “do not mean of the Union to remove all borders , but all the countries neighboring Iranian plateau should be close to each other, because their security and interests are linked to each other.”
Ali Akbar welayati
Syria , after the revolution that Iran and its allies wanted to change its humanitarian track, such as Iraq after the US occupation of it and the emergence of state regulation in the security landscape of Iraq , has become a hotbed for the Iranian Shiite militias who are fighting to preserve not on Bashar al-Assad, but on its vital interests in Syria, so it was “understandable” that Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s Supreme Leader advisor, Ali Khamenei, to attack critics of Tehran’s interference in Iraq and Syria, saying that “our intervention in Syria comes on a nationalist motivation , and this applies to Iraq, too, as if America took control of Iraq , it would set up bases near our borders.” “Iran intervened in Syria and Iraq in order to unite with the Islamic countries through the axis of resistance . He added: “Since America considered Syria as the weakest link in the chain of the axis of resistance, so it sought to destroy this link ,” as he put it. He added: “But we will not allow this to be achieved , because Syria is the golden link in the axis of resistance. The Americans speak today about the division of Iraq and Syria because they want a weak and scattered Middle East “he said. He attacked Arab countries that seek to solve the Syrian issue, and stressed that Iran stood along with Bashar al-Assad for their interests, and said: “Everyone should know that basher al-Assad remains in power . If we do not repel to the enemy in Syria we have to confront it near our borders. ”
We respond to these statements in the following:
the achievement of the Iranian national interest, whether political or economic, does not require the support of a bloody regime in Damascus or an invasion of Huthia to Sanaa or building a sectarian regime in Baghdad, but to build good neighborly relations with the countries of the region and if these countries noticed any honest and fundamental change in Iran’s behavior towards it , all the Arab capitals –not only four – would open its doors to the Iranian supposed openness . International experience showed that the political models can not be imposed by force from the outside, and the US experience to bring about political change in Iraq was the biggest proof of this failure. Iran’s current relations are linked to the regimes and armed movements and not masses believing of the Iranian model of governance, and here Iran must draw lessons from the American experience which built its relations and ties with Arab dictatorships that were collapsed with the first blow of a masses against it.
Iran can build strategic relationships with the Arab masses based on mutual respect and non-interference in their affairs and away from the sectarian crowd or abhorrent nationalist fanaticism . The good-neighborly relations and mutual respect will not pose any burden or drain on the Iranian economy, but will form a key supporter. Then the Arabs will wait for the arrival of ships of luxurious carpets from Iran and not ships of weapons to ignite a sectarian war that to eat everything and everybody in Yemen. The control by force on the four capitals will not achieve the national interest for Iran, but it will be economically, politically and security burden and Iran will not be able to continue supporting or maintain it for a long time. And the increasing number of capitals to five or six or more as Tehran is aspiring will accelerate the collapse of the Iranian alliance .Accordingly, the Iranian expansion in the Arab region carries the seeds of its own destruction.
It is clear that Iran did not learn something from the Soviet Union experience which support revolutionary movements around the world which most of them were able to access to power ,and the Soviet Union bet that these countries will be the main supporter for it in a deferred confrontation with world imperialism but these allied countries participated to the economic collapse of the soviet union before the deferred confrontation with imperialism,
.Even if the Hutheian of Iranthe tightened the control of the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, this will not bring one dollar to the Iranian treasury and the closure of the strait will not happen noting that Iran is being concerned more than the global imperialism of non-occurrence of any military confrontation, and the proof for that is that Iran signed on the reduction of uranium enrichment ratio from 20 percent to 5 percent , not to mention the disability of Iran to withstand the legal consequences of the closure of a global pathways that international law guarantees the freedom of movement.
In this context it jumps to mind the following question: Do Ali Akbar Velayati accept the interference of Arab countries to defend the Arabs of Ahwaz to achieve the supreme Arab interests.
It seems that Iranian officials statements believe in the theory of “vital area” and implemented it at the level of Iran’s foreign policy, which is based on external expansion, and Germany was the first one which thought of this way in the post-unity in the 1871 year, to secure the necessary raw materials for its economy for the construction of the German nation. Within this theory there is no limit to these ambitions, but its borders are directly proportional to the economic and military growth, so with this mentality, Germany entered into the first and second global war with most countries of the world and caused the destruction of the world and the loss of the countless of humanity and stop the economy and destroyed factories and laid off workers and spread famines, epidemics and diseases and can to say that the work on the theory of the vital sphere had destroyed the world and brought it back to the hundreds of years.
Second, Israel, which was a model for the application of the expansionist ideology in the vital area theory since its inception in 1948 until the present day.
And third was the Iranian revolution which raised the slogan of “exporting the revolution” They are now trying to exploit the unstable situation in the Arab environment to expand its influence.
This theory of vital area as demonstrated by historical experiences that its entrance is expansion and its exist is war, because they do not respect the sovereignty of States and does not hold any significance to the principles of public international law, so it is not for the interest for Iran to install sectarian regimes in the four capitals which form a burden on the Iranian economy and cause attrition of it until to the collapse. The geography, history and demographic facts of Arab countries are more rooted and more established than its expansionist ambitions.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies