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Iranian diplomats have spoken a great deal in recent weeks about betrayal. Tehran accuses Washington of using negotiations as a ploy while preparing strikes on Iranian cities and admonishes Gulf neighbours hosting American bases. The sense of grievance is loud, theatrical and conspicuously one-directional.
On Iran’s betrayal of those same Gulf neighbours – who have seen attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure even after President Masoud Pezeshkian publicly pledged they would stop – they are silent. Nor do they seem to recognise Iran’s continued betrayal of other regional neighbours like Iraq and Lebanon, whose interests Tehran claims to hold in high regard but whose sovereignty has been fractured by decades of Iranian support for rogue militias.
As the UAE and other Gulf states have said repeatedly, this is a war they did not want. But to understand long-held concerns about Iran, one must look beyond the events of the past few months. And to end the war, all parties must ensure those events are not allowed to repeat themselves in the future.
Iran’s insistence on arming and directing militias across Arab states – in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon – created a tinderbox that made a conflagration like the one we are witnessing now all too likely. Its so-called “axis of resistance” was never a defensive architecture, but rather an instrument of bald-faced power projection.
Against this backdrop, the peace frameworks now being floated by Tehran are inadequate. Ideas advanced by current and former Iranian officials – including some in an essay by former foreign minister Mohamad Javad Zarif in Foreign Affairs last week – continue to propose a familiar formula: sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear concessions. Mr Zarif’s proposal that Tehran “declare victory” and pursue a broad agreement with Washington, while overlooking its attacks on Gulf neighbours, is – as Dr Anwar Gargash, Diplomatic Adviser to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed, put it – “fundamentally flawed”. This is a rehash of the terms that have characterised US-Iran diplomacy since the failed nuclear deal brokered by then US president Barack Obama more than a decade ago. It does nothing whatsoever to address the Iranian expansionism that is a fundamental driver of regional instability.
That expansionism – not the nuclear programme alone – has given Gulf states cause to feel threatened by Iran for a generation. Tehran professes to want stronger regional co-operation, yet it behaves as an aspiring hegemon and a driving force of extremism.
Most alarming of all is Iran’s insistence on retaining unilateral control over the Strait of Hormuz even after hostilities cease. If the regime genuinely sought co-operation, it would not cling to such a demand, which renders talk of regional security partnership little more than a fig leaf for a broader aims of subjugating the region and holding the world's economy hostage.
A peace deal that addresses only Iran’s nuclear aims and missile programme, while leaving its proxy network and maritime stranglehold intact, will not bring lasting stability. Instead, it risks resetting the clock on the next war.
