The Long Arm of Iran in the Middle East

Henry Srebrnik [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Back in 2010, Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi called for a “Greater Iran” that would assume hegemonic control over much of the Middle East and Central Asia, stretching from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean. 

“If I am elected as president, I will return the lands of Tajikistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which were separated from Iran” by the Russians, he announced three years later, when planning to run for president.

This was too much even for the Council of Guardians, Iran’s ideological watchdog, which rejected his candidacy. Iran’s government also disavowed his statement. 

Nonetheless, since the ascension to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran has been slowly building an empire in the Middle East. 

Its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah has taken Lebanon hostage, and is now helping Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime in Syria. The Shi’ite government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad is effectively an Iranian puppet.

In chaotic Yemen, the Houthis, also allied to Iran, have taken the capital, Sanaa. The United States has closed its embassy in Yemen following an attack on an American Embassy car on Jan. 19 at a Houthi roadblock.

The militants’ slogan, which is chanted at rallies and painted on walls in Sanaa, includes the phrase “Death to America,” mimicking the one often heard in Tehran.

A man who did run for the presidency of Iran in 2013, Ali Akbar Velayati, last year declared that his hope is for the Houthis to become to Yemen what Hezbollah is to Lebanon, a Shi’a faction in control of an Arab state. 

Velayati, who also served as Iran’s foreign minister from 1981 to 1997, is an advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, so his words must be taken seriously. And Kayhan, the Iranian newspaper controlled by Khamenei, has predicted that the Saudi kingdom would not survive the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.

Tehran has also had a hand in trying to destabilize some of the small Sunni-ruled Gulf states, in particular Bahrain, which has a Shi’a majority population. Throughout the Arab world, regimes fear Iranian subterfuge on behalf of their brand of radical Islam.

Of late, Iran has even taken to bragging about this. General Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the powerful Quds Force, the foreign wing of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, on Feb. 11 announced that Tehran’s regional influence was growing.  

“Today we see signs of the Islamic revolution being exported throughout the region, from Bahrain to Iraq and from Syria to Yemen and North Africa,” he declared.

Partly as a response, Sunni terrorist groups have mounted their own campaigns in the region. The Islamic State (ISIS) controls about 90,000 square kilometres in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Suleimani seemed unfazed by ISIS and al-Qaeda, though, maintaining that the jihadists are “nearing the end of their lives.” After all, the Quds Force was able to keep Baghdad under Iranian control, and Shi’ite militias backed by Iran are increasingly taking the lead in Iraq’s fight against the Islamic State. In Syria Bashar Assad has held on to power thanks to Iran’s support.

As Liel Leibovitz, a senior writer for Tablet magazine, observed recently, American policy has lately swung toward embracing the idea of an unreconstructed Iran as a key U.S. ally in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and beyond. 

“Since the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS began last fall, “Iran has achieved all but public U.S. support for its control over the Iraqi military and for the survival of the Assad regime in Syria,” noted columnist Caroline Glick in a Feb. 12 Jerusalem Post article.

She asserted that President Barack Obama is clearing the path for a nuclear armed Iran that controls large swathes of the Arab world through its proxies. Last November, Obama wrote a letter to Ayatollah Khameini, suggesting that U.S.-Iranian cooperation in the Middle East could be possible should an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program be signed.

 “But partnering with Tehran would require Washington and its friends in London and Paris to accept the Islamic Republic as the legitimate government of a fully sovereign state with legitimate interests,” write Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, authors of the 2013 book Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

That would be a major mistake. Iran is a devious and powerful state, far more adept at destabilizing the Middle East than are groups like ISIS. They don’t engage in gratuitous acts of barbarism such as the beheadings of hostages, which create outrage around the world. 

Tehran doesn’t take on western powers directly, but acts behind the scenes and through proxies – while continuing to work on acquiring nuclear capabilities.