Iam not surprised that Tehran has been somewhat paralysed over Riyadh’s decision to break off ties after an Iranian mob attacked the Saudi embassy following the execution of the leading Saudi Shia cleric, Nimr Baghir al-Nimr, on 2 January. Since President Hassan Rouhani assumed office in August 2013, he has failed to formulate responses to Saudi policies challenging Iran, so prompting criticism from hardliners that his lack of leadership fans Riyadh’s intransigence.
The failure is clear in statements issued by Rouhani’s aides since Riyadh severed ties and other Gulf Arab states downgraded relations. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, has spent the better half of his time talking to western counterparts rather than trying with Iran’s Arab neighbours to find a way to reduce tensions with Riyadh.
Iran expected mass western condemnation of the Saudis’ execution of Nimr. Only when this failed to materialise did Tehran’s UN ambassador, Gholam Ali Khoshroo, express regret over the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran.Iran’s belated letter to the UN Security Council, saying 40 people had been arrested for the embassy attacks, came only once Saudi Arabia had already filed a complaint and the council’s 15 members had condemned Iran - so putting Tehran at odds with the international community as it tries to end the controversy over its nuclear programme.
Neither did much result from Iran’s attempts to build a wedge between Riyadh and the European Union through President Rouhani’s offer after the severing of ties with the Saudis to fight alongside the Europeans against Sunni extremists. Yes, the EU is sympathetic to Iran’s position, and wary of Saudi Arabia, but Europe has never been a reliable partner for Iran.
The EU wants to ensure the continued flow of oil and gas, and to protect wider business interests within the region, but has neither the power nor the commitment to take sides in a long battle of wills between Tehran and Riyadh. If it did, the conflict in Syria would be long resolved.Aside from engaging Europe, Iran’s response has been rhetorical. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, has said the Saudis will face “divine vengeance”.
Eshaq Jahangiri, a vice president, has suggested Saudi Arabia will suffer from severing diplomatic ties but did not elaborate. Hamid Aboutalebi, nominated by Iran as UN ambassador but refused a visa in 2014 by the United States, has warned the Arab states not to act against Iran given Iran has cards to play. Again, he did not specify which cards Iran might be holding.
President Rouhani’s own response to the break-up of ties, criticising Nimr’s execution as well as the mob attack, came fully 24 hours after the Saudi embassy was assaulted. While his statement seemed reasonable, its timing suggested it was a means to appease hardliners who still fault Rouhani’s inaction over the accident in Mecca in 2015 that led to the death of over 450 Iranian pilgrims performing the hajj.
Such distressed statements by Iran’s authorities reflect the simple fact that Iran has been outmanoeuvred. They also reveal Iran’s lack of any clear or consistent policy towards Saudi Arabia.
The severing of diplomatic ties was a slap across the face. Iranian officials have consistently bragged to me that even in hard times, the Saudis and Iranians had retained embassies in each other’s capitals. Now, Tehran’s efforts trying to be both conciliatory and firm only point to the bind it is in.
As a conservative president, Rouhani is anxious to strike a middle ground at home. That includes not being either too hostile or too friendly towards Saudi Arabia, with which Iran has had historical rivalries.
He has done so in his own style, which means avoiding direct responsibility for controversial policy and instead passing decisions to aides. Nowhere was this more clear than over the nuclear agreement with world powers, which Zarif received a free hand to negotiate, despite the red lines that Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sought frequently to draw in the course of the talks.
When I first spoke to the Iranian president in New York in September 2013, he asked for my opinion on how a tricky interview could best be handled. I was impressed that President Rouhani felt at ease asking for help and taking advice, but also detected a tendency to delegate decisions.
He has done so in his own style, which means avoiding direct responsibility for controversial policy and instead passing decisions to aides. Nowhere was this more clear than over the nuclear agreement with world powers, which Zarif received a free hand to negotiate, despite the red lines that Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sought frequently to draw in the course of the talks.
When I first spoke to the Iranian president in New York in September 2013, he asked for my opinion on how a tricky interview could best be handled. I was impressed that President Rouhani felt at ease asking for help and taking advice, but also detected a tendency to delegate decisions.
This style also serves to keep open the Iranian president’s options with domestic opponents. Rouhani tends to avoid criticism by allowing those around him to take on the task of convincing the Iranian public about his foreign policy. That way, he remains more immune to the barrage of onslaughts from both hardliners and reformists.But Rouhani remains vulnerable over foreign policy. An immediate challenge is a growing popular dislike in Iran of Saudi Arabia due to the beheadings of Iranian pilgrims convicted of various crimes and the death of hundreds more during the hajj. Popular sentiments have an impact on the political elite, who themselves fault Riyadh, often in public, for encouraging the growth of Sunni extremism, including the Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria.
While the government in Tehran aims to contain criticism of the kingdom, negative views about the Saudis fester as Rouhani fails to achieve progress in fixing ties or to offer any credible alternative.
When I interpreted for the Iranian president at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York in September 2013, I felt concern over relations with the Saudis. Amir Hussein Zamaninia, a close Rouhani advisor, told me the president would not accept an invitation to Saudi Arabia extended to him by the late King Abdullah. While I believed this would upset Riyadh and damage Saudi-Iranian relations, I avoided making any comments.It did not surprise me that when, around a year later, nothing came of talk about Zarif going to Riyadh. Nor that he received a cold shoulder when he went to pay condolences when King Abdullah died in January 2015.
When I interpreted for the Iranian president at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York in September 2013, I felt concern over relations with the Saudis. Amir Hussein Zamaninia, a close Rouhani advisor, told me the president would not accept an invitation to Saudi Arabia extended to him by the late King Abdullah. While I believed this would upset Riyadh and damage Saudi-Iranian relations, I avoided making any comments.It did not surprise me that when, around a year later, nothing came of talk about Zarif going to Riyadh. Nor that he received a cold shoulder when he went to pay condolences when King Abdullah died in January 2015.
Back at the UN in September 2013, I did tell Hesamuldin Ashna, a senior communications adviser to Rouhani, that Iran could not expect to reap the full benefits of a nuclear deal with the US (which was Rouhani’s most important foreign policy goal) without improving ties with Saudi Arabia. Ashna was not convinced those ties were as critical as I suggested, forcing me to stress that repairing them could take the full eight years of a two-term Rouhani presidency.
While it was understandable that neither Zamaninia nor Ashna would admit to me any concerns they had over the Saudis, I was left with a nagging feeling they did not recognise the level of hostility Riyadh felt towards Tehran over its nuclear goals, a hostility that went back even before the presidency of Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
After his trip to New York, Rouhani delegated policy towards the Gulf Arab states to Zarif, who may feel less comfortable in discussions with Iran’s Arab neighbours than with the west. Other Iranian officials who have taken on the mantle of repairing relations with Saudi Arabia have only confused matters. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had been close to King Abdullah, fell out with the king once he and Rouhani were forced, probably under pressure from hardliners in Iran, to reject an invitation to the hajj in October 2013.
After his trip to New York, Rouhani delegated policy towards the Gulf Arab states to Zarif, who may feel less comfortable in discussions with Iran’s Arab neighbours than with the west. Other Iranian officials who have taken on the mantle of repairing relations with Saudi Arabia have only confused matters. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had been close to King Abdullah, fell out with the king once he and Rouhani were forced, probably under pressure from hardliners in Iran, to reject an invitation to the hajj in October 2013.
Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a native Arabic speaker, played a key role reaching out to Saudi Arabia under Abdullah, but he has also issued mixed statements. On one hand, Shamkhani has offered friendship to Riyadh to resolve differences, but he has also been vocal in criticising the kingdom for fuelling unrest among Iran’s ethnic Arabs and Sunni populations.
Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab affairs, has certainly called for better understanding between Iran and the Gulf Arab states. But when I spoke to him in Tehran in June 2014, he did not anticipate the clearly pending departure of Nouri al-Maliki, who was facing widespread unrest in Iraq, and instead stressed Iran’s support for the besieged Iraqi prime minister.
After repeated calls for Maliki’s departure by both the Saudis and the US, it was only in July that Tehran reluctantly dispatched Shamkhani to Baghdad to seal an understanding over a new prime minister, Heidar al-Abadi, who took office in September.
Another dimension to Iran’s lack of outreach to Saudi Arabia is Rouhani’s hope that Tehran can replace Riyadh’s close relationship with Washington with one of its own. Long before Rouhani became president, he and his team dreamed of a ‘grand bargain’ with the US, which is a concept Iran’s Arab neighbours find unsettling because they fear it implies a threat to their own interests.
In this whole process, Tehran ignores the obvious. The Arab states of the Gulf region are still the preferred partners for the US due to a longer history of friendship. Even before the Iranian Revolution, Washington was more at ease with Saudi Arabia, given the Shah’s regional ambitions, and even then the Arab states resented Iran’s unwillingness to see them as equal partners in the social, cultural and political development of the Gulf region.
In this whole process, Tehran ignores the obvious. The Arab states of the Gulf region are still the preferred partners for the US due to a longer history of friendship. Even before the Iranian Revolution, Washington was more at ease with Saudi Arabia, given the Shah’s regional ambitions, and even then the Arab states resented Iran’s unwillingness to see them as equal partners in the social, cultural and political development of the Gulf region.
The US-Saudi friendship will not suddenly end, even though Washington and the EU are openly condemning Riyadh’s human rights record. Trade between Saudi Arabia and the west still outweighs their differences over political reform in the kingdom, as does a mutual agreement between Washington and Riyadh to contain Iran’s influence in the Middle East.
This prospect will not change when a new president assumes office in Washington at the beginning of 2017. None of the US presidential candidates promise to be a better option for Iran than President Barack Obama.Prospects for Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia depend on both sides refusing to see ties with the US as a replacement for a partnership between them as neighbours. A shared recognition that their political differences result partly from instability in the Middle East in which the US has self-admittedly played a role could help them rekindle the political and religious connections that go back to the establishment of formal friendship ties in 1929. Since then, Riyadh and Tehran have severed relations three times, only to recognise subsequently that their ties needed urgently to be repaired.
This prospect will not change when a new president assumes office in Washington at the beginning of 2017. None of the US presidential candidates promise to be a better option for Iran than President Barack Obama.Prospects for Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia depend on both sides refusing to see ties with the US as a replacement for a partnership between them as neighbours. A shared recognition that their political differences result partly from instability in the Middle East in which the US has self-admittedly played a role could help them rekindle the political and religious connections that go back to the establishment of formal friendship ties in 1929. Since then, Riyadh and Tehran have severed relations three times, only to recognise subsequently that their ties needed urgently to be repaired.
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