Talking Past Each Other

"Cooperation between Iran, its neighbors and the whole international community could open unprecedented possibilities of peace for the region, starting from Syria, Yemen and Iraq."
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini


"Mogherini's Guardian op-ed lacks context and understanding of Iran's regional and aggressive policy and sectarian overtones that have polarized the Middle East."
"Her task of 'regional cooperative framework' must evolve from a clear understanding of Iran's interventionist and sectarian foreign policy and ensuing polarization."
Anwar Gargash,  UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani delivers a speech to the nation in Tehran, Iran July 14, 2015.

Reuters President.ir/Handout

It is passing strange how individuals and groups with an inflated sense of self-importance are so certain they are right and that those who are intimately involved in situations cannot possibly give them advice that rationally they should act upon. The EU's Federica Mogherini is, like most of those around her, and in fact, all those who were involved in negotiating the Iran nuclear file agreement, oblivious and with great deliberation, to the reality of Iran's ambitions.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on the other hand, experiencing first-hand the ambitions of the Shiite Republic to control the Middle East by sheer dint of forceful manoeuvring, substituting diplomacy for the more impressive attainment of nuclear arms, have very good reason to be alarmed and fearful of the outcome where the Iranian Republic has been given effective permission to continue with its self-aggrandizing mission.

Iran's eventual success in building atomic bombs in the near future will inevitably lead to a Middle East even more egregiously dangerous in its splintered allegiances and alliances and ferociously unstable aggression of sectarian hatred and violence. Those wealthy (Sunni) Arab oil-rich countries that have reason to be suspicious of Aryan (Shiite) Persia's belligerence and its reputation as terrorism-central, spiralling even further into destabilizing conspiracies will see it central to their existence to pay for nuclear devices of their own.

Not necessarily that having a nuclear arsenal of their own will ensure their safety, in persuading Iran that they can gain nothing by employing or threatening to use nuclear warheads with their long-range missiles since total destruction doesn't faze Iran; it only portends an early arrival of the Hidden Mahdi and the rise of the faithful to Paradise alongside the destruction of the rest of the world. The concerns of the ultra-wealthy oil states are existential.

The concerns of the Asian countries anxious to do business with Iran, hoping that the European rush to do the same will leave enough room for them to also cash in, is to become as wealthy as those Middle Eastern oil states. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has already jumped the gun with his visit to Tehran, where doubtless lucrative contracts will be signed. Russia and China are lining up to boost their future coffers.