U.S. MIDDLE EAST policy is undergoing an identity crisis. The giddy days of roll-back seem like a distant memory now, as a president who staked his historical legacy on Arab democracy grants Gamal Mubarak an audience at the White House while his father's government is beating and arresting protesters in the streets of Cairo. Is regional transformation rolling up its tent? Have all the sticks turned into carrots? And why is Washington so thrilled at reestablishing full diplomatic relations with Libya? If it is to illustrate what benefits are in store for another prominent power in the region should it abandon its own nuclear program, then maybe there should also be a counterexample of what happens to dangerously intransigent Middle Eastern regimes. Because Iran is looking increasingly unimpressed by the posture of the Bush White House.
The White House has pointedly explained that Iran's nuclear program is a threat to Israel, but Tehran is perhaps a more pressing problem for Gulf Cooperation Council members Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and especially Saudi Arabia. Speculations by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about post-Zionist geography are alarming, to say the least, but Israel has a nuclear deterrent. The Gulf countries, which in the past have shown neither the ability nor desire to protect themselves, depend entirely on the United States for their security.
And that's why Washington isn't talking much about Gulf state concerns: to avoid putting an important ally in an awkward position. The U.S. security umbrella has in the past caused
blowback in the Gulf. Remember that the presence of American troops in the land of the two holy shrines compromised the legitimacy of the Saudi royal family and rallied supporters to Osama bin Laden's cause. Thus the Gulf states themselves have been almost silent on Iran's nuclear program. "Some people are praying that the United States can stop Iran but won't say so publicly," says Tareq al-Homayed, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat. "They don't want to be seen as acting alongside the United States."
"Iran has conducted an effective 'public diplomacy' campaign," says Emile el-Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, who has just returned from Tehran. "Arab populations are fertile ground for Iran's anti-U.S., anti-Israel propaganda [and accept] Iran's arguments about Israel, imperialism, U.S. hegemonic ambitions, and distaste for an Islamic nuclear power."
In other words, the nuclear program is just a part of Tehran's larger game. With Saddam gone, there is an opening for someone to wage the fight for the liberation of Jerusalem and hold high the burning banner of anti-Americanism. The fact that a Persian, Shiite state is doing the dirty work of mainstream Sunni Arabism is hugely discomforting to Arab regimes. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was only the most recent Sunni Arab ruler to vent his grief in sectarian terms, when he told an Arab TV audience last month, "Most of the Shias are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in."
No doubt the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait consider their large number of Shia subjects a potential fifth column, but for the president of Egypt, where the Shia population is negligible, to believe as much indicates the high level of anxiety throughout the region. The longer-term strategic threat the Iranian nuclear program represents is that if the Islamic Republic gets the bomb, others will want one too, including perhaps Egypt. And if large black holes start to appear in a military budget that is mostly transparent thanks to an annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, then a part of the Middle East that has been relatively peaceful for the last 30 years may heat up again.
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