Iran's Expansionism is a Threat

By Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press

For centuries, Persian dreams of expansion were held in check on its western frontier. Until the end of the First World War, the Arab lands were governed by the Ottoman Turks. 

Following that conflict, a number of semi-sovereign Arab states were created, under British and French tutelage, but the dream of a unified Arab nation fueled ideological pan-Arabism.

After 1952 its main champion was Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, but others, including the leaders of the Iraqi and Syrian Ba’ath parties, were also firm advocates. In 1958 Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic. Though it only lasted three years, the idea remained alive.

Even the mercurial Colonel Muammar Gadhafi at various times attempted to unite Libya with neighbouring states.

It was a period when mainly secular rulers, with left-wing policies, had the upper hand in the Arab world. The ultra-Islamic state of Saudi Arabia stood mainly on the sidelines of pan-Arabism.

All of this made Iran, then a monarchy ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, largely irrelevant to Arab politics.

But the rise of a Shia theocratic state in Iran in 1979 changed everything. While pan-Arabism as a form of secular nationalism had not succeeded in unifying the Arab world to any degree, it did bind the Arabs in their belief of a common sense of destiny.

From now on, however, the main fault-line would become one older than any divisions between the Arab states formed in the 20^th century: the historical Shia-Sunni split within Islam.

When Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was unable to forge a pan-Arab coalition to defeat Ayatollah Khomeini’s Shia state in the 1980s, it was clear the tide had turned.

Suddenly, the Persian state, using the banner of Shia religious unity, began to penetrate those parts of the Arab world with sizeable Shia Arab minorities. By the turn of the century, Hezbollah, representing the former downtrodden Shia Arabs in Lebanon, had taken effective control of that state. 

The American overthrow of Saddam Heussein’s Sunni-led dictatorship in Iraq in 2003 provided the Iranians with further gains; the Shia majority government in that fractured state has now become a vassal of Tehran.

Iran has taken advantage of the past six years of turmoil in the Arab world to steadily expand its reach and military capabilities. It commands the loyalties of tens of thousands in sectarian militias and proxy armies that are fighting in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. In the latter,Tehran has financed the Shia Houthis in a rebellion against a regime that has been a close ally of Saudi Arabia, the centre of Sunni Islam.

The final piece in the puzzle to create a Shia crescent is Syria, where Iran has been heavily involved in buttressing Bashar al-Assad’s Shia Alawite regime against various Sunni Islamist militant groups. 

So Iran is now in control of with swaths of territory running from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea; and from the borders of NATO to the borders of Israel, and along the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Much of the west’s attention has been focused, understandably, on the various Sunni terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. They have wreaked devastation across the region, and have also committed unspeakable terrorist crimes throughout Europe and the United States.

But abhorrent as they are, they will eventually be defeated. Their political extremism makes them unable to act with any sense of pragmatism and, lacking any major state support, they will fade away.

Think of them as the equivalent of murderous thugs in motorcycle gangs – dangerous, but in the end unable to withstand a concerted effort to check their activities.

Iran, however, is a major state with tremendous resources, and willing to play the long game. It has proved itself militarily proficient and politically adept in achieving its aims, and it goes from strength to strength. 

Its leaders are wily shape-shifters who keep their foes, including the United States, off-balance. They play the “good cop, bad cop” game to perfection.

The analogy regarding Iran might be with the Mafia and organized crime, with tentacles deep in society, and far more difficult to eliminate.