Stability is not the word most are using to greet the arrival of Iran back in the global economy as sanctions are lifted, but that might just be the outcome. With Tehran backing proxy forces locked in struggle in Syria and Yemen, and its prickliness underlined by the brief detention of American sailors in the Gulf recently, many are apprehensive of how its arrival as a regional power will affect the turbulent Middle East.
Most obviously, the opening of its oil taps will see global oil prices temporarily plunge below $20, cutting ever further into the oil incomes of those who share the waters of the Gulf.
Let’s face it; it’s all about the oil price; an American game related to fracking in the US. But that’s another story.
Saudi Arabia raised tensions with the execution of a prominent Iranian cleric. The execution of Shiite Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr just days before international sanctions came to an end, was probably an attempt to solicit a vengeful ‘unreasonable’ reaction from Iran to stop the rapprochement. It didn’t work. The Persians are an old and wise civilization, second only to China.
And yet, the unprecedented violence and instability wracking the Middle East takes place outside Iran’s borders. The monarchy in Saudi Arabia in particular is facing a crisis over how to keep a grip over restive populations, while the region’s Sunni population is targeted by Isis and Al Qaida, ironically a spawn of Saudi Wahhabism. This is one of the main problems of the region.
The Iranian Shiites are by contrast immune to Isis and its rivals on the extremist stage. Immune also to the charms, and failures, of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation having an existential crisis of its own after its failure in the Arab Spring.
The Brotherhood’s appeal to a non-violent pan Arab caliphate has failed to ignite, or even produce a cohesive blueprint for how such a super state should look.
None of these negative currents flow through Iran’s 75 million Shiites. Tehran’s political fission is an internal affair between Persians, as the Ayatollahs struggle with more secular forces to agree what kind of State should now reach out to the world. Their February elections will be critical.
And reaching out it is. Not with weapons and armies, but with trade and goodwill. Unlike its Gulf neighbours, Iran has an economic hinterland, now impoverished, but with sanctions lifted able to offer prosperity independently of the country’s oil and gas.
For outside states, meanwhile, Iran offers a huge market, hungry for just about everything. This prosperity dividend is already being felt on both shores of the Gulf, as the UAE and other GCC states gear up to becoming a bridge, commercial and financial, for Iran trade.
Contrast this with the state reckoned to be Iran’s key Gulf rival, Saudi Arabia.
A new Iran that is reserved, careful, but prepared to play by the rules of the outside world, as it rejoins it
What appears to be a vacuum in Saudi’s hitherto wise, conservative pragmatic sensibility is confusion over where the power lies in Saudi Arabia. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is reportedly ill and the position of his Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, is unclear. The strength of the Deputy Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the 30-year-old son of the king, seems much stronger.
There is talk of a new Saudi order that would allow a father-son royal succession, sidetracking the Allegiance Council, the Saudi body that represents the ‘pure-blood’ sons and grandsons of Saudi Arabia’s founder, Ibn Saud from his favorite wife.
Possibly Saudi ‘Young Turks’ will gain control of the kingdom, and their rapprochement with Turkish president, head of the most powerful Muslim Brotherhood government in the region, is already underway.
Yet whoever ends up controlling the House of Saud will face the same problem, which is to justify why this ruling family should continue to control Arabia and its 20 million-strong population.
And yet, the apprehension that greets Iran’s return to the world is misplaced. Iran has no territorial ambitions; no need to invade its near neighbours or confront the US or anyone else in the Gulf. Why should it? With its huge well-educated population it is poised to become an economic powerhouse in the region.
Internally, that is where the pressure is coming from, with a population determined to enjoy the benefits of fitting into the global jigsaw. Iran has no equivalent of Isis, nor the Brotherhood, and is not riven by the sort of existential crises gripping so much of the Arab world.
And the clearest indicator of Iran’s new role came in the most unexpected way; those US sailors who mysteriously sailed off course were detained, accorded full rights, fed, offered medical treatment and allowed to go with full due international process observed.
It was a sign, for those wanting to look for it, of a new Iran; reserved, careful, but prepared to play by the rules of the outside world, as it rejoins it.
If the West decisively militarily embarks on a campaign to destroy Isis wherever it may be, it will without doubt win. Why do they hesitate?
The West may even need Iran’s military help to do so. We should ask Iran for its help.
Richard Galustian is a security analyst.