Although both sides publicly the issue during the recent Washington visit by Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, it is clear that Arab governments do not share the Obama administration's enthusiasm for the nuclear deal with Iran.
Many Americans see the deal as a practical means of delaying, if not stopping forever, Iran's ambitions of becoming a nuclear weapons power. In the Arab world, however, the nuclear deal -- and the concomitant lifting of economic sanctions -- raises the specter of unleashing Iran's at levels similar to the days immediately after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Iran already has sympathetic regimes in Syria and Iraq and supports strong militant groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Bahrain. Only last February, the commander of the foreign wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, , told a that, proudly of Iran's successes "From Bahrain and Iraq to Syria, Yemen and North Africa."
President Obama has that the nuclear deal should not be judged on whether it , the president sees the deal solely as an instrument to "prevent Iran from breaking out with a nuclear weapon for the next 10 years" and as "a better outcome for America, Israel and our Arab allies than any other alternative on the table."
That offers who anticipate a better funded Iranian campaign to exert greater influence across the Muslim world than in the past. Such a campaign would result in renewed competition for influence between Iran and the Saudis, causing strife among Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia.
Even under sanctions, Iran managed to in Syria and make a force to reckon with. Sanctions did not prevent Tehran from in post-Saddam Iraq even though the new order in Baghdad was created with and treasure.
Iran's influence is visible in the events in and , and pro-Iranian groups Arab governments wonder what Iran might be able to do once the sanctions are over and its coffers are full.
Contrary to , it is not a matter of some historic rivalry between Shia and Sunni Muslims. It is a question of existing states trying to defend their sovereignty and autonomy in a region that has often been dominated by larger external powers. In some places, where there is a (like North Africa), for a potential
Historically, Arab states (particularly in the Gulf region) have seen the United States and other western powers as their protectors, against communism from 1945 onwards and against Iran's revolutionary regime since 1979. They now fear the end of that protection.
While have been widely discussed in the U.S. media, there has been much less discussion about the Arab reaction. The Arabs have been , possibly to avoid a public spat with the U.S. president. But their concerns are known to U.S. diplomats if not the American public.
The Americans dealt with the aftermath of Iran's revolution by simplifying their understanding of the Muslim world in a that Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates were valuable allies against global communism. Arab countries helped the United States mobilize Islamist ideology against the communists, culminating in the
Ironically, the spread of puritanical madrasas in the Muslim world was around the Muslim world by Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian revolution. As Shia clerics created a theocracy in ancient Persia, Sunni clerics started nurturing ambitions of similar authority and power in other countries. Some Arab governments made mistakes in dealing with this theocratic push for power by their brand of Islam. But even then, so far, Iran-like theocracies have not swept Muslim countries.
Support for conservative Islamic groups, such as the Wahhabis, But none of the regimes in Muslim countries became radical as a result, and the ones that did (e.g. the Taliban in Afghanistan, the were forced out of power by one set of circumstances or another. That is very different from Iran where radicalism is entrenched in the very nature of a revolutionary regime.
The U.S. opening to Iran, coupled with the Obama administration's neglect of the Middle East, has created a genuine fear that the U.S. might end up embracing Iran in a mistake similar to the one it made after Encouragement of Iran and invoking of Shia-Sunni sectarian rivalry could undermine the that some Arab countries, notably the UAE, have launched against Sunni radical groups in the aftermath of the rise of the Islamic State.
American supporters of the Iran deal have suggested that after the deal Iran is somehow a lesser threat than the radicalism of the variety represented by groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently on the history of diminution of religious pluralism in the Muslim world, some of my Arab friends wondered if I had embraced the same binary view of one form of radical Islam being less of a menace than the other.
In fact, I believe that all radicalism in the name of Islam is damaging and threatens modernity, progress and prosperity of Muslims around the world. Unless Iran gives up its radical revolutionary ideology, it will continue to be perceived as a threat. In its zealous embrace of the nuclear deal with Iran, the United States should avoid the pitfall of considering Tehran's radicalism any less dangerous than that of extremists such as ISIS.