Iranian Trap for Obama

Maybe Bush’s strategy, centered on the necessary interdependence between crises in the greater Middle East was too ambitious, but the feeling is that the present administration has decided to create a very dangerous division. This will make the U.S. play a series of tactical battles, leaving Iran with the privilege of moving strategically among sub-regional scenarios. With an audacious, but maybe not much far-seeing move, Hillary Clinton has invited Iran to participate in a peace conference regarding Afghanistan, which will be held before the end of this month.

Even in the darkest moment of the Iraqi crisis, timid attempts of approaching the Islamic Republic were put into action. But they weren’t successful, and the improvement of the situation in Iraq arrived only with the surge and the open policy toward tribal leaders of the Sunni minority, both wanted by General Petraeus. The Afghani case started from a correct premise, the common interest of Allies and Iranians in defeating the Taliban, but the strategic game that Tehran has been playing with lucid coherence over the years is underestimated.

If the Iranian interest in a Taliban defeat in Afghanistan and Pakistan is clear, you can’t say the same for the contribution that a pacification of the region could bring to Iran.

In fact, Sunni Arabian countries are not favorable of the prospect of recognition of Iranian leadership in the region. And we can see how unrealistic the idea of the greater Middle East was by recent developments (only 48 hours ago): Morocco interrupted its diplomatic relations with Iran after the umpteenth threat launched by Tehran at the independence of Bahrain, considered an “ex-Iranian province.” Almost the same words used by Saddam Hussein when he got rid of the Kuwaiti sovereignty before the 1990 invasion, which unleashed the Gulf War.

Instead, the role that the Iranian theocracy is playing in the other large Middle East crisis is anything but unclear, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, where it firmly makes a stand against the reopening of peace processes to the extent that it was invited by Abu Mazen to not interfere in Palestinian business. Iran is not only one of the biggest backers of Hamas and Hezbollah, but also the principal opponent to a rapprochement between Damascus and Jerusalem and for normalization between Lebanon and Israel.

But most of all, as it’s been reaffirmed by the regime’s leaders lined up a few days ago, Iran uses the nonrecognition of Israeli existence as a fundamental weapon in its foreign policy. And it’s unlikely that Iran will leave this position, because it’s the way the revolutionary Iranian regime tries to conquer the hearts and minds of Arabian masses, moving around their governments (considered enslaved to the West) and leaving in the background the Shia and non-Arabic nature of the ones who trouble it.

Such considerations would be enough to convince Obama and Hillary Clinton to be more careful before falling in the “Iranian Trap.” Is it good to become estranged from the Sunni world to please Tehran? And in exchange for what? It remains in doubt whether the present administration will be able to maintain a similar policy when faced by the pressure that in Israel will inevitably put on the U.S. to give up on it, leaving the European Allies empty-handed.

Obviously, the fact that Iran is reticent regarding its nuclear programs, about the existence of which Iran has lied for years, in open violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that it subscribed to freely (and now they suspect that it has almost reached a military capacity), only adds doubts regarding the new phase of American policy. Paradoxically, in this case, it seems like Iran remained trapped in its own web. Conceived as an instrument to secure its leadership claims or at least to take credit as a regional power, the nuclear program could now become the main obstacle to reach that same goal. Now that a lot of people are ready to test Iranian good will, its alleged existence makes it essentially impossible to reach a strategic goal that has been pursued for so long.