Iran flirts with the US while Saudis and Israelis unite against the Islamic Republic.
“Just now I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” On 27 September 2013, in the White House press room, Barack Obama announced the first direct contact between a US president and his Iranian counterpart since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
“The two of us discussed our ongoing efforts to reach an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program […] While there will surely be important obstacles […] I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution.” Indeed, two months later, Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister, tweeted about the nuclear deal from Geneva: “We have an agreement” with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Two images, two historic events, marking Iran’s grand return to the global stage, after a 34-year freeze in relations with Washington, once viewed as the ‘Great Satan’ by the ayatollahs in power.
Yet while Tehran, under the guidance of Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani, makes front-page news, Israel and Saudi Arabia are quaking. And the Washington- Tel Aviv-Riyadh alignment, once the mainstay of the anti-Persian alliance in the Middle East, is now teetering. The Saudi kingdom, the cradle of Sunni Islam, and the Jewish state have used their common Iranian enemy as a way of legitimising their role in the eyes of America, and others. Now that the Islamic Republic is re-emerging as an international negotiator, to bring an end to the sanctions and its isolation, America’s historic allies are increasingly concerned and are putting up a common front. There are no official diplomatic ties between the Saudi monarchy and Israel – the Palestinian question stands in the way – but their common enemy Iran, the bastion of Shiite Islam, is bringing them together. Never before has the ‘Zionist enemy’ been so close to becoming a valuable partner for the Saudis. Less than a year ago it was almost unthinkable that Iran would be flirting with the US and that Saudi Arabia would share intelligence with Israel.
Is the Middle East as we knew it a thing of the past?
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Iran flirts with the US while Saudis and Israelis unite against the Islamic Republic.
“Just now I spoke on the phone with President Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” On 27 September 2013, in the White House press room, Barack Obama announced the first direct contact between a US president and his Iranian counterpart since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
