After failing in it’s attempt to implement it’s new Middle East initiative,
the White House felt compelled to change it’s strategy and began fomenting
conflicts in the Persian Gulf region.
It is obvious that an arms buildup by the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf
could also threaten Iran's national security, because the U.S. would surely try
to provoke them to act against Iran's interests in the future.
In addition, such an arms buildup would allow the United States to send more
military experts to the Persian Gulf region under the pretext of training Arab
armies.
Saudi Arabia and other regional Arab countries will definitely face internal
challenges because of their cultural backwardness and their refusal to
democratize, but no foreign power is going to threaten them. The purchase of
U.S. weapons by Arab countries sought by the Persian Gulf will certainly foster
distrust between the countries on both sides of the Persian Gulf, and may also
undermine their economic development, but will not guarantee the security of
these undemocratic regimes such as UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi
Arabia.
The actual winners of this game will be western countries including the U.S.
military-industrial complex, which takes advantage of the situation between
Islamic countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. And the losers will be the
people of these countries.
Seeing as Iran is a home to 75 million people, it is unrealistic to expect that
western countries can exclude Iran from any conceptions of Middle East security
in the future. But the Western countries have already recognized that as long as
the United States dominates the region and Iran seeks to undermine this
dominance, other Persian Gulf States and external global powers such as China,
Britain, Germany, Japan, and France with a stake in the region would be reduced
to a status as "friends" or "enemies" of one another. The Persian Gulf States
need to put more trust in their relationship with Iran as a peaceful
alternative, and need to realize the strategic commonalities between their
states. Unfortunately, the current US-British strategic framework leads to the
presumption that Iran is a threat that requires the counterbalancing force of
the United States, and a situation in which "each side believes that the other
is the locus of the security deficit in the region."
Many argued that the "natural geographic proximity driving Iranian concerns"
makes the United States’ interference in destabilization of Iraq seem
hypocritical.
Some nationalistic Iranians are not thinking about Iraq however, but instead are
focusing on U.S. involvement in the region and how to teach a lesson to those in
Iraq. As a matter a fact, if Iraq is destabilized and the U.S. pull out, certain
civil war would most likely happen and it will destroy Iran's chances at
building bilateral economic ties with Iraq and other Arab countries sought of
the Persian Gulf, and that could potentially spark internal problems with it’s
own people.
There is very important ground questioning concerning if the establishment of
the Shia government in Iraq is important for Iran's strategic goals, and it
might be considered just one step in decreasing U.S. involvement in this region.
It is unrealistic to believe that it is in Iran's best interests to see Iraq
descend into a bloody civil war.
External powers such as the European Union, Japan, and China expressed a desire
to see a better equitable and balanced U.S. leadership role in the region.
Within this security framework, major outside powers (Germany, France, Britain,
Japan, and China) would feel more comfortable investing in trade and new energy
projects, whereas the Persian Gulf Arab states could comfortably negotiate with
both the United States and Iran and all of the other countries that they could
provide aid for domestic political developments in the region.
It has to be recognized that the United States will always have an interest in
the security of the Persian Gulf. A subtle shift towards bilateral negotiations
and more cooperative action could reap enormous economic and socio-political
benefits for the region including its enemy, Iran. Some assessments are that the
United States will need to adopt a more comprehensive approach to the region’s
problems while advancing such other regional goals as a secure access to cheaper
oil.
The United States is trying to reconfigure and reshape its security and military
relationships with regional friends and allies in the Persian Gulf to take
account of their changing security perceptions and policies.
In the last decade, the overriding U.S. concern was preserving access to the
Persian Gulf oil at reasonable prices, despite its internal political problems
at home, Iran possessed only a limited ability to dominate its power and
influence beyond their borders; the Persian Gulf states acquiesced to a
significant U.S. military presence on their soil, despite the domestic costs,
and the United States was reasonably successful.
Besides all these arguments, there were grounds for questioning whether shifting
more of the political and military burdens of supporting U.S. military strategy
to the smaller Persian Gulf states (Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar) was
sustainable over the long haul, and if it could inflame the tension between
these two countries, the USA and Iran over dominating the power in this region.
The most comprehensive vision by Iran on the issue of Persian Gulf security
includes:
Preparing common security grounds for fighting terrorism, organized crime and
drug smuggling, as well as other joint security concerns.
Gradual removal of all restrictions in political, security, economic and
cultural fields.
Development of trade ties by taking the countries' potentials into consideration
and conducting joint investment in economic projects to achieve a regional
free-trade mechanism.
Guaranteeing the security and energy export of regional countries to secure
their interests and achieving a sustainable mechanism for energy needed by the
world.
Making foreign military personnel exit the region and establishing full security
by the regional countries.
Unfortunately, there is only a dim prospect for this proposal's acceptance by
the Arab states of the PGCC, which have devised their own version of "collective
security" that does not include the region's two most populous states, Iran and
Iraq, and which have traditionally relied on US protectorate power. The PGCC
comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates.
Source: Baztab
Comments (6)
1. Written by Kumail five on 10-08-2007 00:43
One thing is 100% sure that usa is aiding baathist and sunni tribes who just don't like shia and will not accept the fact that shia are majority. Shia are trying to be nice and not using usa help is destroying sunni and in return they get sunni tribes loyality to usa. I don't know what to do with these sunni, where there real islam is in usa or israel.
2. Written by Kumail five on 10-08-2007 00:55
Watch tv www.presstv.com
3. Written by -FAWWAZ- on 10-08-2007 02:18
AS-SALAM-Alikom Every muslim people should respect each other. People should fellow what SHIA Khomeini and SHIA Sistani. We should be in one hand.
4. Written by Zakeer on 15-08-2007 15:02
salam
shia lost the best opportunity they ever had 3 years ago due to Iran. 3 years ago the whole of the world was pro-shia, as they were the \'peace-loving\' ones in Iraq who refused to kill innocent Sunni Muslims. They had the support of the US, Europe and the populations of the world. Today, thanks to Iran and its arming of militias and directing badr and mehdi army, shia are now the terrorists, and today the US is arming sunni tribes to fight these \'shia\'-iranian backed militias. Thank you Iran, thank you Etila\'aat.
5. Written by Fareed on 15-08-2007 22:36
^ It appears you've been watching too much Fox or perhaps you're aiming for a place in the Pentagon. Iran is the only nation in the whole of the Middle East that can even claim that it is working for the Unity of the Ummah. The Saudi kings are busy licking Condis sandals and working together to send their Wahhabi puppets to blow bombs in markets and schools.
Thank you, your Majesties. You have surely taught us a lot.
6. Written by rauf on 16-08-2007 19:26
iran is a regional superpower. the us is not ready to acknowledge this or more accurately it is still in a state of denial as to the reality of the middle east today. they better start believing before it's too late.
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