https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/opinion/american-obsession-iran-middle-east.html
If there is a common denominator explaining so many recent
events in the Middle East â actions by Saudi Arabia, the U.S.,
Syria, Israel and Yemen â it can be expressed in one word: Iran.
Everyone has Iranâs growing power and influence in the region on
the mind â including Iran â and that obsession is making a lot of
people crazy.
For instance, the Trump administration, like Barack Obamaâs,
actually wants to get away from the Middle East â as much as
possible â but while leaving as little Iranian influence behind as
possible.
Saudi Arabia, under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as
M.B.S., wants to get ahead in the Middle East and reform his
economy for the 21st century â while curtailing as much Iranian
influence in the region as possible.
And the Iranians want to get wide â to expand their influence
from Tehran to the Mediterranean â not by creating a successful and
attractive development model at home that Arabs and other Muslims
would want to emulate, but rather by forcing their way into
Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq through local Shiite militias that
have created states within these states.
This is generating a lot of anxiety in the Arab world, the U.S.
and Israel without enough people stepping back and thinking: So
pro-Iranian militias control a bunch of bad neighborhoods in
Beirut, Sana, Damascus and Baghdad. Tell me, what is second prize?
What are they really âwinningâ?
Iran has a richly talented population, and rich Persian culture.
But instead of unleashing both and enabling Iranâs youth to realize
their full potential â and making the country influential that way
â the ayatollahs are suppressing those talents at home and
unleashing the power of Shiite mercenaries on Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
and Yemen, and compelling influence that way instead.
Itâs actually rather pathetic. The greatest thing that the U.S.
and Saudi Arabia could do is to stop working each other into a
lather over this Iranian âthreatâ and to focus on their domestic
reform agendas. That would be the best revenge on Tehran.
For starters, American, European and Arab leaders should all be
encouraging M.B.S. to keep going where no Saudi leader before him
has dared to go â pursuing his stated goal of reversing the
religious right turn that the kingdom took in 1979, after the
takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Muslim extremists. That
prompted the Saudi rulers at the time to ban fun, tighten the
control of the religious police over society and to much more
aggressively export the most misogynist, anti-pluralistic
interpretation of Islam to mosques and madrasas across the Muslim
world, tilting the whole faith community to the right.
If M.B.S. fulfills his vow to bring Saudi Islam back to
âmoderation,â it will surely improve the status of Muslim women,
the quality of education in Muslim communities and the relationship
between Muslims and other faiths across the globe. We in the West
have spent tremendous sums âcountering Muslim extremism.â We may
finally have a Saudi leader ready to do that work â from the
wellspring of Islam â and it would over time hugely benefit Muslims
and non-Muslims alike.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/opinion/american-obsession-iran-middle-east.html
