Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, launched a proposal a few days ago for the Gulf States to sign a non-aggression pact with Iran. It is interesting that he launched his proposal from Baghdad, the Arab capital, which radicals of Iranian regime boast as it is one of the four Arab capitals controlled by the Iranian regime, as well as Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa.
Zarif’s call did not come from a vacuum, not an expression of political luxury, but came as a political message that its sender wanted , which is responsible for the expression of foreign policy of his country, to contain the consequences of a regional political and international climate hostile to his country, and cut the road for practical steps that have taken place recently , through forming a regional alliance that includes Arab states and Israel, whose goal is to confront Iran. While there are those who see the call as a political maneuver, in the context of the Iranian regime’s attempt to circumvent the American pressure, by sending assurances to the Gulf States.
Since all aspects of relations between States begin with political understandings, it is impossible to talk about understandings of a security nature, without a consensus on the establishment of normal and usual relations. However, Tehran’s behavior indicates rejection of relations of this kind, citing American hegemony and Israeli ambitions, as if the good response to that hegemony and greed is to invent hegemony and ambitions from another side ….. Islamic ones.
Zarif calls for contracts in which everyone wins in the region, and tries to invent the gunpowder again, everyone wins when normal relations arise; there is no place for illegal ambitions outside the border. Such aspirations, coupled with cross-border interventions and transnational sectarian discourse penetrates the integrity of societies and national and imperial military speeches, can not establish normal relations and, in most cases, allow formal diplomatic relations, as in Tehran’s relations with a number of Arab capitals.
Gulf States have already proposed a dialogue with Tehran at the bilateral level and at the regional and (Gulf) level, and Tehran has shown no willingness to review its policies that have stalled the dialogue. In the sense that it showed no recognition of the problem, or the desire to resolve it, and already rejected any dialogue on the three islands it occupies.
The question that arises in the context of Zarif’s proposal: Who offends who? Is it the Gulf States that attack the Iranian regime “the depositary” which raised the slogan of exporting the revolution since he came to power in Iran, or the regime of the mullahs itself, who is haunted by the fever of vengeance from the Arabs of the deep past?
It is known that the Non-Aggression Treaty is a document signed by two or more countries to ensure that there is no direct aggression between them, avoiding wars and armed conflicts, and avoiding proxy wars. Therefore, Zarif’s invitation does not have any merit or serious, especially since it did not coincide with the calm in the region by stopping Iran’s interference in the affairs of its countries, especially in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, and stopping the aggressions and force reviews carried out by the Revolutionary Guards and their war cruisers (battleships) in the Gulf Arab , refraining from military , air and naval maneuvers, and so on.
The Iranian minister is trying to market his proposal by the desire of his regime to build balanced relations with all the Gulf States, and the readiness of the Iranian regime to receive any initiative to help reduce the escalation and build constructive relations with all neighboring countries. It is a naïve attempt covered, in a deceptive meekness that resembles that of the mullahs that the regime tries to present itself with a belief in “the principle of securing collective interests, the need to respect them, rejecting the motives of superiority and authoritarian tendencies, and excluding all other players.” All these “values and principles” completely contradict the behavior of his country’s regime and its role in our Arab countries, which is embodied in its act of fragmentation, damage and vandalism, on an abhorrent sectarian basis.
Nevertheless, Zarif wants to market a false claim of non-aggression of the mullahs, that it shows it as a peaceful regime that extends its hands again to its Arab neighbors, considering it a strategic option for this regime, while the option of this political regime in the Arab region since 1979 has based on a religious ideological project that has taken different colors in the region and raised the banner of opposition and resistance in a false and blunt manner. In fact, it is a project that a political mind is behind it that it mixes and confuses between religious and national, that is between a sectarian doctrine , according to the vision of radical clerics, and the Persian national ambition Which goes deep into an outdated ideology and the ancient history , which makes it a project, combining to actively seek hegemony and change by force , and attempts to achieve it in various ways and violent means . The Iranian mullahs’ regime built its project on false doctrinal claims, which were not related to the Shiite sect, or to the Islamic religion, but were built according to a virulent Persian narrative that was rooted in the contemporary Iranian nationalist political consciousness that produced hatred and narrative hostile to the Arabs, and specifically to the Sunnis. To the extent that they follow the radical doctrine rooted in Iranian consciousness , as a product of the Persian nationalist and Iranian political process of the nineteenth century, they are also equally influenced by ethnic and fascist claims in the western Europe , it intensified with the arrival of the mullahs to the rule of Iran, and sought to achieve the project of domination and hegemony over Arab region, especially the Mashreq and the Arabian Gulf.
Observers see that Zarif did not talk about the parties that targeted four commercial vessels near the territorial waters of the UAE, including two Saudi ships, nor Houthis who have been targeting pumping stations belonging to Saudi Aramco, but he tries to market the Iranian vision , and intelligently to hide the social sabotage followed by the regime of the mullahs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and attempts of this regime to change their demographic structures and tear up their long-standing social fabric , taking advantage of their unstable situations and states of deterioration and crises, with the aim of igniting sectarian and doctrinal wars among the peoples of these communities through the formation of Shiite sectarian militias, used as the arms of the intervention with false claims, in order to achieve the project of hegemony and control, as it is not hidden what is seen in the current Arab situation from the direct interventions of the Iranian regime in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the extent of the interferences of this regime to destroy the social fabric and demographic composition of these countries, as well as to exploit all methods to extend its influence and dominance, at any price.
If the Iranian regime is serious about calling for a non-aggression treaty with the Gulf states, it would be better to stop interfering in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and let the beginning stop supporting the criminal Assad regime , as a starting point to change its regional role and as a prelude for good intention towards its neighbors, but no such thing will happen, because standing by the Assad regime reveals the nature (and composition) of the Iranian political mind that dominates the heads of its politicians, as it refers to the approach adopted by this regime from the beginning in antagonizing the revolution of the Syrians and its unlimited support of Assad’s authoritarian regime , ally to the mullahs’ regime in approach, practice and ambitions where the politicians of the Tehran’s regime did not hesitate to engage various sectarian Militias for the defense of Assad’s criminal regime, from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia to the Iraqi militias to the Afghan militias and others, as well as the mobilization of units and Afghan militias and others as well as to engage units and advisers from the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards in the war against the majority of Syrians.
It would be better for the Iranian regime, if it really wants to mobilize and gain the sympathy of its Arab neighbors and stand up to confront American threats , should stop military and political interference in the affairs of the Arab countries and accurately recalculate the repercussions of its destructive interventions in the Arab region and its repercussions. It would be better to pay attention to the Iranian people , and to spend billions of dollars, wasted on militias, to meet the needs of people in Iran.
The Iranian regime has faced and still – for many years now – a delicate and sensitive political moment on several levels :
Starting from the internal situation, which witnessed several expressions, reflected the growing rejection of the existing Islamic regime , through the celebration of the day of Kurosh or Cyrus , the old Persian king who has issued a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, known as the “Cyrus cylinder” dating back to the sixth century BC, where thousands of Iranians took out on 28/10/2016 in marches to celebrate the day, the protesters who gathered around the tomb of “Cyrus” in Pasargad near the southern city of Shiraz, chanting and shouting national slogans, and the demonstrations criticized the the policies of the foreign regime saying no Gaza ,nor Lebanon , or in demonstration of citizens in more than 100 cities , on the 29th and 30th December of 2017 , and their shouting against the foreign policy of the regime and against the president of the Republic and against the Supreme Leader with the slogan “Death to the dictator” , and let alone to call for the return of the former regime by demanding the return of the heirs of the throne, or the campaign to reject the imposition of the veil carried out by Iranian women in more than one Iranian city despite the repression and arrests that pushed Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and Khomeini’s grandson, to warn of the collapse of the regime, if the demands of people are ignored .
The second level is regional and international trend , fed up with Iran’s policies and practices, and its involvement in the affairs of neighboring countries, especially Arab ones, which were expressed by diplomatic and political moves, and the file was presented in the Security Council and the European Parliament more than once. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summed up the situation in a small and expressive phrase: “Iran has to decide whether it wants to be a state or an issue.”
Third level , perhaps the most exciting and heated, is Iran’s nuclear program, the agreement between Iran and the 5 + 1 (permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany) in 2015, commonly known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the American administration’s position on it, which it considered a bad agreement, and called for amendments to it, or to withdraw from it, there emerged the support of an Israeli Gulf to cancel the agreement, and this is what happened – especially in terms of Iran’s continued missile program, and its violation to the resolution of security council No. 2216, which prohibits the export of weapons, by providing Houthis with ballistic missiles with a range over 900 km.
This is all in light of the regime’s failure to cope with the growing economic, living and service problems, with regard to poverty, especially in the light of the government’s decision, in the context of its economic reforms, to cancel the cash subsidy set by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from which 39 million Iranians took advantage ; And its tendency to collect 60% of its resources through taxes and unemployment and its social impact in a country where a large number of its population are young , pollution from dust and desert sands, the decline of vegetation and water scarcity due to low rainfall and the dominance of military and political powers over the economic cycle and looting the countries ‘s wealth , through getting high salaries and stakes in properties of factories, companies and economic giant projects .
The Iranian people also believe that Tehran bears a large part of the responsibility of blackening the region’s space : innocent human beings being killed for no reason, civilian facilities and places of worship being destroyed, the hatred of the Muslims is spreading to each other by raising sectarian banners, unknown matter previously in our societies, wasting billions of dollars in blind battles away from the fight against ISIS , to divert attention from the Israeli challenge, disrespect for countries, peoples and communities as a whole; and disrespect for ties between Arab world as a countries and people and to prevent establishing normal ties between Iranian and Arab people in the light of existed political imbalances .All this undermines the chances of dialogue, undermines confidence, and raises feelings of suspicion, and ignoring it means one thing, and is determined to maintain the existing political anomaly, hoping that the Arab world will turn into torn, winged, powerless entities begging the help from the one who caused the tearing , this explains the statements of Minister Zarif, prior to the publication of his article, in which he expressed the readiness of his government to support those who seek it! It is the best recipe for ensuring the transference of devastation of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen to other Arab countries.
The Arabs have already welcomed the outbreak of the Iranian revolution in the hope of saving the people of Iran from the oppression of the Shah’s regime and to put an end to the ambitions of the shahshiah outside the borders, but the new era re-produces the Shah’s regime with Islamic dress, the oppression towards ethnic and religious minorities has intensified and the revolution is no longer restricted to Iran’s state and its people, but it has become an issue for export, and those who did not want to import, it is exported to them by force, through polarization , lobbying and buying loyalties, and raised the banner of Jerusalem in order to penetrate Arab societies, and impose the Iranian agenda on political parties and forces, and even the season of Haj was turned in to an occasion to poison relations among Muslims , and raise political slogans related to the Iranian government.
In a political symposium in Pakistan in June 1988, the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran spoke of the scourge of the Iraqi-Iranian war, which resulted in great loss of life, public and private property and serious social and humanitarian problems which led our professor Ismat Saif al-Dawalah , peace upon him, to conclude the Iranian regime’s desire to stop the war , this is confirmed in less than two months , Khomeini’s acceptance to the cease-fire, which he described as ” to drink a cup of poison.” Does Zarif’s article in the “New Arab”, in the light of the pressures and dangers of the past consequences , to contain a serious Iranian approach that cuts with Iran’s current policies by moving to state policy by abandoning the policy of interfering in the affairs of neighboring countries and spreading sectarian wars, and a bias towards regional understanding and harmony , opening a gap in the wall of fear of geopolitical dominance that prevailed over the past decades, and thwarted opportunities for regional cooperation, or is a maneuver to mix the papers and hit the plans of opponents and abort their trends? Is there a readiness on the Arab side to meet such a trend if it happens? we hope that.
Iranian Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies