Iran: don’t let the naysayers prevail
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/11/iran-dont-let-naysayers-prevail-france
France, Israel and Saudi Arabia are the rejectionists whose interests aren’t served by a nuclear rapprochement with Tehran – but the world’s interests must come first
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Confused and not forewarned by their American ally, France, Israel and Saudi Arabia are lashing out in wild and undiplomatic terms. Each of these new rejectionists has specific interests. Israeli hardliners have spent decades building up their claims of an Iranian military threat, which they fear, but which also has the effect of drawing attention away from what is still the biggest source of the area’s tension: Israel’s old rejection of an equitable deal with the Palestinians. The tactic has been successful, both in the US Congress and among a majority of the Israeli public which used to want peace with the Palestinians but now prefers to live in an armed camp and besiege them. Binyamin Netanyahu is desperate to block any deal with Tehran, at least in part for fear of losing his alibi for not making the necessary concessions on Palestine.
In Saudi Arabia the reactionary monarchy has long been worried that calls for internal liberalisation will radicalise the large Shia populations who live in its oil-producing areas. Against all evidence it claims an Iranian hand behind their demands for justice. Riyadh also stands to gain from continuing sanctions on Iran and the higher world oil prices they bring. Whether they are cynics or victims of their own propaganda, the Saudi rulers, like Israel, want no deal with Tehran.
France is a latecomer to this witches’ feast. It is true that relations with Iran went sour under Nicolas Sarkozy, when the foolish Mahmoud Ahmedinejad called him “young and inexperienced”, but François Hollande, Sarkozy’s successor, seemed to have bypassed that by meeting his new counterpart, the more emollient Hassan Rouhani, at the UN in September. But other considerations go deeper. The lure of arms sales is one impulse, in particular the hope that angry Saudis (as well as other Gulf petro-emirs) will switch from US and British suppliers to Dassault and Thales.