Tehran wants to redraw maps of the region

What the Arabic press has to say about Iran’s role in the region.

The US secretary of state John Kerry. left, with Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in New York. Jason DeCrow / EPA

Iran’s nuclear programme may be shrouded in secrecy, but its role in regional events is not, wrote Ghassan Charbel in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat.

He said: “Iran is the lead player in Baghdad, but the Iraqi situation is painful and open to all dangers. Iran is the lead player in Damascus, but the Syrian situation is tragic, extremely dangerous and open to all threats. Iran is the lead player in Beirut, but the situation in Lebanon is shaky and could deteriorate. So the Arab world cannot afford to watch Iran playing such a role. Its policy of ruining the balance is meant to redraw maps”.

Iran, he said, rushed to the conclusion that it holds sway in Yemen. But it “faced Arab inflexibility, in the form of the Saudi-led Operation Decisive Storm. More importantly, the Saudi decision to lead a coalition was meant to draw a red line for Iran, rather than letting it take hold of Arab capitals”.

But he cautions that it would be an exaggeration to hold Iran alone to be responsible for the situation. “ Despotism, poverty, marginalisation and illiteracy have had a role to play. That said, Iran poured fuel on to the fire.”

Charbelsaid that “in the face of Iran’s policy of redrawing the maps, Arabs raise the cry of national security, sovereignty and stability. They do not deny Iran’s right to have friends and allies, but they deny it the the right to establish parallel armies and arsenals and sponsor coups.”

He wrote: “Stability in the Middle East requires Iran to play a realistic role, to learn from others’ experiences. The Soviet Union had a massive nuclear arsenal, but its greed and the burdens of an imperial role brought the whole thing to an end. Respecting maps is far better than devouring them.” In Al Ittihad, the Arabic-language sister newspaper of The National, Salem Salmeen Al Nuaimi wrote that one would not understand the current situation in the region without some knowledge of the Sunni-Shiite division. Each regional power is striving to spell out its area of influence, he wrote.

“But the radical currents and organisations that operate at different levels to ignite sectarian and geopolitical conflict lack the courage to move towards a Middle East that would be liberated from its colonial-era dependency on religious, social, cultural and intellectual roots.”

He likened the people in the region to small wooden boats bobbing around on the waves of globalisation.

He also expressed concern at the confusions inherent in the situation. “Whereas the West is offering intelligence against the Houthis and their Iranian allies, they are offering support to Shiites in Iraq and Syria,” he said.

Al Nuaimi remarked that “the Middle East is undergoing drastic changes. Some of these may not be tangible but will have an impact and create a new map of the region.”

* Translated by Carla Mirza