MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-22 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Keep your friends closer..
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wsj.com
Israel-U.A.E. Diplomatic Deal Ratchets Up Tensions With Iran
Sune Engel Rasmussen in Beirut and Aresu Eqbali in Tehran
8-10 minutes
In a nationally televised speech Saturday, Iran’s president, Hassan
Rouhani, said, “We warn the Emirates: Don’t open the region for the
Zionist regime to step in.” If the agreement leads to expanded Israeli
influence in the region, Mr. Rouhani said, “Things will change, and they
will be dealt with in a different way.”
On Sunday, Iran’s top military commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Baqeri,
said Tehran’s attitude toward the U.A.E. will change fundamentally and
that the armed forces “will also deal with that country with different
calculations.”
The U.A.E. and Israel had been quietly forging commercial and security
links for years before the two nations decided, at the urging of the
Trump administration, to conclude a formal diplomatic accord.
Israel and the U.A.E. agreed to establish formal diplomatic ties in a
U.S.-backed shift that signaled Tel Aviv’s warming ties with Gulf Arab
states. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images; Michael Reynolds/Press Pool;
Emirates News Agency/AP
The agreement followed a period of de-escalation between the U.A.E. and
Iran, and the timing caught Tehran by surprise, according to Diako
Hosseini, director of the World Studies Program at the Center for
Strategic Studies in Tehran, which is affiliated with the presidential
office.
“Trust has been lost to a great extent, and it won’t return quickly,”
Mr. Hosseini said. Still, he said he thought the likelihood of imminent
military action was low. “I don’t think we will see a radical reaction,”
Mr. Hosseini said. “We should wait and see the outcome … whether the
region will turn into a counterintelligence and counterespionage
battlefield.”
The Emirati foreign ministry summoned the Iranian charge d’affairs
Sunday and condemned the threatening rhetoric from Tehran, the ministry
said in a statement.
Iran and the U.A.E. have a mutual interest in maintaining relations in
some form. As Iran’s economy has suffered greatly under U.S. sanctions,
the U.A.E. has provided a vital trade and banking channel for Tehran to
keep up some level of foreign trade, which also benefits the Emirates.
During the past year, the U.A.E., which is within reach of Iranian
missiles, has sought to reduce tensions that could lead to military
confrontation. When explosions blew holes in four tankers near the
Emirati port of Fujairah last year, Abu Dhabi didn’t blame Iran, even as
Washington and Riyadh did so.
Recent Iranian Clashes
Jan. 7, 2020: Iran launches missiles at base housing U.S. troops in
Iraq.
Jan. 3, 2020: A U.S. drone kills Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani
in Iraq.
Sept. 14, 2019: The U.S. and Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of attacking
the Aramco oil facility with ballistic missiles.
July 18, 2019 : U.S. shoots down Iranian drone over Strait of Hormuz.
June 20, 2019: Iran shoots down U.S. surveillance drone over the
Persian Gulf.
May 12 and June 13, 2019: The U.S. accuses Iran of sabotaging
tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
The tanker attacks were part of a series of incidents that have kept
Iran and its adversaries at the edge of conflict.
Tensions peaked in January when the U.S. killed a top Iranian general in
a drone strike in Iraq. Iran responded to the killing by launching more
than a dozen missiles at a base in Iraq housing U.S. troops.
Some analysts predicted Tehran would respond to the Israel-U.A.E. deal
by reinforcing links to regional militia groups, from Iraq to Syria to
Lebanon and Yemen. Those groups have remained hostile to the U.S. and
its Arab allies, and often served as Iran’s first line of defense—and
offense.
Ali Fathollah-Nejad, an Iran expert at the Brookings’ Center for Middle
East Policy, said the pact “solidifies the view in Tehran that there is
an unholy alliance between some of its Arab foes—basically, Arab
collaborators—with Israel and the United States.”
For Iran’s clerical-led government, resistance to foreign interference
in the region has been an ideological cornerstone. Since the 1979
Islamic Revolution, it has vied with Saudi Arabia for the mantle of
leadership among Muslims in the Middle East. The two nations have long
portrayed themselves as competing champions of the Palestinian cause.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to temporarily suspend
a plan to annex parts of the West Bank in its deal with the U.A.E.
Photo: abir sultan/press pool
As part of Thursday’s diplomatic deal with the Emirates, Israel agreed
to temporarily suspend a plan to annex parts of the
Palestinian-populated West Bank. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
didn’t take it off the table, though.
Iran has never been at outright war with Israel, but it funds a host of
militias in Israel’s vicinity, including militant groups in Gaza, such
as Hamas, and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
In a phone call Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reassured
the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, that the
accord would only strengthen popular support for the Palestinian cause,
according to the semiofficial Iranian ISNA news agency.
But in Iran itself, the Palestinian cause is of diminishing importance,
particularly to the younger generation. Antigovernment protests have
featured chants calling for Iran’s leaders to spend money at home
instead of on revolutionary causes in Palestine and Lebanon.
President Trump announced the diplomatic agreement in the Oval Office on
Aug. 13.
Photo: Doug Mills/Press Pool
Iran keeps a strong foothold in Syria, bordering Israel, after helping
President Bashar al-Assad defeat the armed opposition. It has vast
influence in Iraq through powerful militias that have fought Islamic
State, U.S. forces and gained political power—and it maintains trade
ties pivotal to both countries.
Iran has also forged ties with Turkey based on trade and shared enmity
with the U.S.
Despite these deepening fault lines, the U.A.E. has so far taken a
pragmatic approach by striking a tenuous balance between Tehran and its
rivals.
The U.A.E. backed the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from
the 2015 international nuclear deal and impose crippling sanctions on
Iran. It has supported forces opposed to the Iran-backed Houthis in the
Yemeni war.
At the same time, the U.A.E. remains Iran’s fourth-largest export
destination, according to the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries,
Mining and Agriculture.
“Iran will still have to deal with the U.A.E.,” said Amir Handjani, a
nonresident senior fellow with the Truman National Security Project.
“Most countries have relations with Israel, and Iran has relations with
most of those countries.”
Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at sune.rasmussen-at-wsj.com
--
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