Iran's hegemonic venture

Iran's hegemonic venture
Iranian claims on the Gulf state of Bahrain are the latest example of Tehran's growing hunger for power and influence
Mohanad Hage Ali
Last week, the Arab Gulf countries took a deep sigh. In a speech reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's expansionist appetite, Nateq Nouri, the Iranian supreme leader's adviser, bluntly stated that Bahrain, home to the US fifth fleet, was his country's 14th province until the shah lost it in 1970.
What followed was intense, for the former British colony has a history of internal tensions between the Sunni ruling family and the Shia majority, many of whom have Iranian roots. The Jordanian king, Abdullah II, made a swift solidarity visit to Bahrain, while the support calls poured in from many Arab countries, including a one from Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and Iran's foremost ally in the Arab world.
In the Arabic media, editorials condemned "Iranian irredentism" and drew comparisons with Saddam's ambitions and their catastrophic end.
Nateq Nouri's comment might have been considered as another criticism of the late shah's legacy, except that it isn't the first time Iran has jolted its tiny neighbour. In 2007, the conservative Kayhan newspaper, a publication closely aligned with Khamenei's clique of power, his counsellor Hussein Shariatmadari, and the Iranian MP Darius Qanbari reiterated this claim.
The late shah of Iran did not "lose" Bahrain, as it was never under his control. His role, termed "the policeman of the Gulf", was to protect the smaller states from Iraq's nationalist ambitions. Thus, he was dubbed "the Protector of Kuwait's Independence". Due to his fixed dependence on the west, his role served American policies in the region. Today's Iranian policies and ambitions do not converge with American policy; both countries are competitors for power in a volatile region.
A year into the Iranian revolution in 1979, Saddam launched an eight-year bloody war against Iran, leaving one million dead and destruction which would require 70 years to reverse, according to one estimate. During the war, Iran – where the majority belongs to Islam's Shia sect – supported Shia fundamentalists inside Iraq and other Arab states. Financial support for the Iraqi side from Arab states in the Gulf poisoned their relations with Tehran for many years.
Despite Saddam's failure to win the war and his catastrophic adventure in Kuwait, his regime remained an Arab barrier to Iranian ambitions in the region. The Islamic republic's first postwar president embarked on an ambitious reconstruction project and was more concerned with rebuilding a country ravished by war and economic turmoil. In 1997, another barrier to Iran's power rose in central Asia. The Taliban, with Pakistan's help and support, took over Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, where it murdered seven Iranian diplomats.
Aside from Pakistan, the only two countries with diplomatic representation in Afghanistan were Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Tehran boiled with rage again. Nevertheless, change was a few years way. After the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban regime was overthrown in an American-led invasion, while Saddam paid more than a year later for his decade-old brutal error of invading Kuwait. Finally, the two walls that separated the former Iranian empire from its two regions of influence, the Gulf and Central Asia, were brought down.
In Afghanistan, Tehran closely cooperated with Washington to handle the post-Taliban power-sharing agreement which guaranteed Iranian influence. In Iraq, the Shia majority rose to the ranks of power. The Arab Gulf states grappled with both al-Qaida affiliated activities, and reforms required by the United States in the context of its new democratisation drive in the Middle East.
The recent Iranian claims on Bahrain were the latest example of the country's growing hunger for power and influence in the region. Despite that Iran's foreign Ministry and Parliament speaker stressed their country's commitment to Bahrain's sovereignty and independence, the timing of these irredentist claims remains suspicious and prompts many questions – especially since their source is the most powerful man in Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. Were those claims early signals to the leader's repudiation of forthcoming direct negotiations with the United States? Or is the supreme leader raising the stakes for such talks?
It is unlikely that Tehran will act upon its claims. It is, rather, another indication of its unprecedented sway over the region, along with its powerful roles in both Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
What remains certain, according to Gary Sick, Jimmy Carter's aide on Tehran, is that the Bush administration rid Iran of its two worst enemies, "Saddam in the west, and Taliban in the east". Now the Obama administration has to deal with another, albeit unexpected, Bush legacy in the Middle East: a powerful Iran whose ambitions and influence threaten the current regional status quo.