Mixed Feelings: The Arabs' View of Iran

posted on: Jul 17, 2009

As public protest in Tehran seems to dwindle, at any rate on the streets, many Arab leaders are quietly exhaling a sigh of relief. At first, a lot of them were quite chuffed by the sight of turmoil in Iran, since they have long felt edgy about their big neighbour’s rising ambition and influence in the region. But as time passed they began to feel queasier: the prospect of revolution in the streets, albeit those of a rival power, is not something most Arab regimes, wedded to the status quo at home, truly welcome.

Arab governments, like most others, had expected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be easily re-elected as Iran’s president. For regimes that oppose Iran and worry about its support for radical Arab groups such as Hizbullah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Mr Ahmadinejad’s continuing tenure seemed happily to guarantee more bad blood between Iran and the United States. A number of conservative Arab leaders are worried that Barack Obama’s apparent eagerness to re-engage with Iran could increase its clout in the region, to the detriment of moderate Arabs.

Leading this camp are the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and their Sunni royal family also fear that the Iranians will stir up the large Shia minority in their oil-rich Dhahran province in the east. In the past few years the Saudi and Egyptian governments have occasionally let their media descend into anti-Shia bigotry and old-fashioned Persia-bashing.

But their officials have generally stayed silent, resisting the temptation to tweak the noses of the ruling clergy in Tehran, since they rail against interference from outside when it comes to their own politics. But they have been quite happy to let the state media ridicule Mr Ahmadinejad.

On the other side are Syria and the rich little Gulf state of Qatar, which sympathise with Iran’s regime, help Hamas and Hizbullah, and welcome Mr Ahmadinejad’s re-election. After an initial period of awkward silence, when they said the “democratic process” should take its course, they have often resorted to mocking Arab calls for democracy in Iran. Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, who deposed his father in a coup in 1995, quipped that “Iran has had four presidents since its revolution, while some Arab countries have not changed their leaders at all.”

Indeed, among Arab republics, only Algeria and Lebanon have had as many recent heads of state as Iran. Many ordinary Arabs know this—and have felt confused about whether or not to side with Iran’s street protesters. They tend to admire Mr Ahmadinejad’s fierce hostility to America and Israel, and are ashamed of their own governments’ far more pliable attitudes on that score. They also tend to believe official Iranian claims that American and Western agents have been trying to stir up a “colour revolution” in Iran. Yet, as they saw the pictures of hundreds of thousands of people taking to the street, they will have been envious too. However flawed Iran’s version of democracy, it still looks more a lot more real than the typical Arab one.

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The Economist