By Yasmine El-Sabawi
WASHINGTON, July 30 (KUNA) -- Member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are generally concerned about outcomes of rapprochement between the United States and Iran, namely the recently-signed nuclear deal between Washington with other major powers and Tehran. Some of GCC countries' are certain the Obama Administration will ensure Iran complies with the terms in the nuclear deal, but heavy-weight Saudi Arabia, in particular, remains concerned that Tehran's reach will only expand across the region as its economy opens up to the world, experts said. However, the GCC countries, in general, are ultimately adopting a wait-and-see approach, while America's other ally in the region - Israel - is still hung up on the deal itself, they said.
Speaking on a panel at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, the researchers all agreed that Iran may eventually become a "natural ally" of the US in a couple of decades, but until then, the Gulf states and Israel will remain America's best friends - and they want their voices heard on the deal. "The question here is about regional security," said Muath Al-Wari, a Senior Policy Analyst at American Progress who formerly served under the Supreme National Security Council of the UAE. He stressed that the GCC's problem with Iran stems from the proxy wars being waged in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon, where Tehran directly funds local fighters on the ground, and sometimes deploys its own Revolutionary Guard forces.
It's a "silly characterization" that tensions exist because of sectarianism, Al-Wari said. He said the UAE in particular "trusts" that President Barack Obama secured the best deal possible with Iran, because of the decades-long committed relationship between the Emirates and America, particularly when it comes to military and national security issues. The GCC has "no reason to doubt" Obama's goal of preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, Al-Wari said. "It's his legacy on the line," he said of the president. "It's never really about the deal, it's what happens next," he added.
Fahad Nazer, a former political analyst at the Saudi embassy in Washington, said "there appears to be enough in this agreement" to meet Riyadh's concerns about Iran, but also acknowledged that after US outreach to the region, "the Saudi position has shifted slightly," considering all they ultimately seek are security guarantees from the Obama Administration.
"Flexibility and pragmatism" are "hallmarks" of Saudi foreign policy, he said. The Saudis will want the verification process in the nuclear deal to be made public, because the "prevailing sentiment" on the Saudi street is that there are major doubts about the nuclear deal, Nazer said.
He noted that Riyadh still feels the deal will "embolden Iran" because the finances from the unfrozen assets - when the US and UN sanctions are eased - may go toward its "militant proxies" and not its economy. Syria remains a massive concern for the Saudi government, which has spent "tremendous political capital" in the now-ravaged nation, Nazer added. Iran's support of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad fuels far greater anger in the Kingdom than the nuclear program alone, he suggested.
Assad is "the most reviled" political actor in Saudi Arabia, Nazer said. But he was confident that US and Saudi relations will not "rupture," because Iran has "a long way to go" before it "supplants" as America's partner in the region, he said. As concerns about this new phase in US-Iran relations are slowly alleviated in the Gulf, Israel's concerns are only mounting, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently made clear since the nuclear deal was struck. "In the case of Israel, it's about the deal" itself, said Shlomo Brom, a former brigadier general in the Israeli military and expert on the country's national security issues. "It was the centerpiece of Netanyahu's security and foreign policy," especially in the lead up to the Israeli election last spring, Brom affirmed. "Once [the Iranians] get the bomb, they will use the first opportunity to drop it on Israel," he said of the widely-accepted narrative in his country. After the nuclear deal was finalized, however, he acknowledged that a "better agreement [was] not really possible," adding that he is one of the "dissenting voices" in Israel. "In contradiction to common wisdom," Brom said, in his perspective, "Iran is weakening" and no longer has the popularity in the region that it had when the Arab Spring began. But the greatest threat to Israel remains Iran, Brom said - something Nazer also agreed on.
It "may sound absurd" to the West, Nazer said, but many Saudis believe Iran is a bigger threat to them than ISIL. The emergence of ISIL is "new," while tensions between Tehran and Riyadh have simmered for decades, he argued. National Public Radio (NPR) Middle East correspondent Deborah Amos maintained that "Syria is the test" of how the Iran nuclear deal will play out. As the "most complicated" conflict in the region, any efforts to resolve it will require Iran's participation, she said - and the US is now considering that, when it refused to do so before, she noted. "The region is now on fire," and that is what affects people's daily lives - not the nuclear deal, she emphasized. There was no Iranian voice on the panel to respond. (end) ys.rk