Is Iran Turning Arab?

I haven't written much about Iran lately because I don't read Persian (which doesn't stop most other people, I realize) and haven't been really focused on the issue.  But I think I'm going to start writing more about it.  Partly because of Rice's diplomatic initiative, which I'm delighted to see, though I have some issues.  Partly because Iran is likely to become a major issue for international relations and for US domestic politics over the summer and fall whether or not I want it to. And partly because Iran is becoming more and more of an Arab issue, in all kinds of ways.  So take the long, rambling post to follow as a first toe in the water - with more to come as I dig into the materials I'm collecting. 

How is Iran becoming an Arab issue?  Most obviously, Arab states will be directly affected by any military confrontation with Iran, and would have to be active participants in any kind of serious sanctions regime.  Gulf fears of Iran are nothing new, and we've been hearing more and more such fears from pro-American Arab regimes outside the GCC.  Abd al-Hadi al-Majali, the conservative Transjordanian-origin speaker of Jordan's Parliament, caused a bit of a stir by declaring Iran to be a threat to Jordan's security.  This follows King Abdullah's remarks last year about his fears of a "Shia Crescent" from Lebanon to Iran, and Hosni Mubarak's "incautious" remarks on al-Arabiya last month that most Shia were more loyal to Iran than to their own countries.   

Official Arab suspicion of Iran isn't new, but extending it to the Shia more generally should be very concerning.  For one thing, a focus on the Shia rather than just on Iran aligns America and pro-American regimes with key elements of the Iraqi insurgency.  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's intense, fanatical hatred of the Shia and hopes of stirring up Sunni-Shia war are well-known. Abd al-Salam al-Kabisi, on behalf of the Association of Muslim Scholars (one of the key Sunni players in Iraq), just accused Iran of meddliing in Iraqi affairs.  During a recent al-Jazeera interview, the prominent Gulf analyst Abdullah al-Nafisi called on Saudi Arabia to intervene in Iraq to tip the balance there against Iran.  Kind of wild that the Sunni insurgency and the most wild-eyed jihadi fanatics would become America's supporterrs if it became serious about curbing Iranian power.   

On the other side, much has been made of Ahmednejad's play for popular Arab support.   Playing pan-Arab cards like offering financial support for the Palestinians and challenging  American hegemony is business as usual for an Arab would-be player, but Iran is not, lest we forget, Arab.  Iran is not part of the Arab identity community or Arab narrative, and can not simply pick the "Nasserist cloak" off the rack.   It's not a member of the Arab League (or of the GCC -- which has always been something of an anti-Iranian club).  Its leaders aren't given fiery speeches in Arabic.  It has real ideological and identity issues with Sunni Islamists, not just with extremists like Zarqawi. I've heard from people in Egypt and Jordan that pictures of the Iranian President are appearing everywhere - I'd love to hear more from people on the ground as to how true and/or widespread it is.

Another way that Iran is "turning Arab" is that it is receiving more and more coverage on Arab satellite TV.  The volume of programmes and news about Iran on al-Jazeera has increased dramatically, and not only about the nuclear issue.  Since al-Jazeera has always been rather inwardly-focused, with its talk shows overwhelmingly concentrating on Arab issues, this expansion of its brief to include Iran is noteworthy (especially since critics of al-Jazeera - especially Iraqis - have often labeled it "Sunni TV" for its alleged bias in favor of the old regime and/or the insurgency).  In addition to its coverage of Iran, al-Jazeera has also been heavily covering Hezbollah - it seems like there's a live speech by Hassan Nasrallah or an interview with Mohammed Fadlallah every week.  Some key Islamist figures like Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Fahmy Howeydi have condemened Zarqawi's attacks on the Shia and have urged open relations with Iran.   Al-Arabiya has been paying attention to Iran too, in a more hostile way - most recently, with this interview with the Iranian opposition figure Hossein Khoemeini calling for democracy in Iran and an end to the wilayat al-faqih.

So is Iran "turning Arab" in the sense of becoming an integral part of Arab public arguments and political identity issues?   If so, how does it matter?  We're already hearing a lot of arguments about Arab attitudes towards Iran that seem to have been lifted unaltered from the Iraq debates - Arab leaders secretly want Iran's regime changed but won't say so in public, the "Arab street" will or won't rise up in support, and so forth, the Iranian people will or won't greet Americans as liberators.  My sense is that Iran's role in Arab public opinion and in Arab regime calculations is fundamentally, deeply different from Iraq's in the 1990s-2003 period, and that transposing the Iraq frame onto Iran doesn't really work.  Is that right?  These are some questions to work on, at least!

UPDATE - and right on cue, here's another Zarqawi broadside against the Shia and Iran, just today - and even against Hezbollah, which like usual puts him strongly outside the al-Jazeera Arabist and mainstream Islamist orbits]. 

Comments

[hummbumm]

will be interesting to follow,especially with reports of iranian oppression of minority arabs as well as other minorities. That could become a wedge issue, though it will not fall on sunni-shia divide but rather arab-persian divide. In short, Iran has an uphill battle. I think it will be seen as a "foreign" regional hegemon by many, and in the long run many would prefer the far devil (USA) from the near devil (Iran). That is why Hizbullah is so integral to Iran as it is their Arab card, take that away, and I doubt Iran will resonate with the "Street"

[SP]

Interesting questions. The Iranian revolution became a source of inspiration for some Sunni Islamists too, and I have a dossier from CEDEJ somewhere titled La Revolution Iranienne dans la presse Egyptienne...an Iranian friend who visited Egypt was startled when cabbies declared her a "good Muslim!" when she announced she was Iranian (amusing given that she's a non-believer) and of course it's the political definition of what it means to be a good Muslim at play here. The Saudis were also worried about the influence of the Iranian revolution on their own Shia population, as Madawi al-Rasheed discusses in her History of Saudi Arabia.

What's really fascinating in what you have mentioned is Ahmedinejad's populist-nasserist turn and the sympathy he has evoked among (Sunni)Arabs. Though I bet there were many non-Islamists and Nasserists in the Arab world who cheered the Iranian revolution for sticking it to the Americans.

[Craig]

So is Iran "turning Arab" in the sense of becoming an integral part of Arab public arguments and political identity issues?

No. And you haven't evn made an argument that it is. The argument you framed is that Arabs may be turning Persian. Which I salo disagree with. I'm just observing an apparrent contradiction between your opening premise, and the points you laid out.

[Craig]

By the way, it's nice to see somebody else getting played by the IRI for a change, instead of just the west :D

[the aardvark]

Craig - you're right that there isn't an argument yet, only a question. That's the point of the preface and the conclusion of the post. I wouldn't advance an argument until I had actually collected evidence.. right now I'm just framing a set of research questions. But the question isn't about Arabs turning Persian, it's about Iran becoming an "Arab" issue for Arabs. That would be an important change in the way Iran has been treated in Arab political discourse - if indeed it's happening.

[John Burgess]

You might want to take a look at (CSIS's) Anthony Cordesman's book National Security in Saudi Arabia to see how the Saudis view Iran as a threat. They see it as a very big threat on numerous levels. I've reviewed the book here.

[issandr]

Kinda off-topic, but an Egyptian friend who went to Iran several years ago says they have several decent Arabic-language dailies. I've never tried looking, but they may be online. Mind you, a lot of papers have been closed there in recent years.

[Craig]

But the question isn't about Arabs turning Persian, it's about Iran becoming an "Arab" issue for Arabs

I was told just yesterday by an Arab frind of mine that she supports Iran getting nukes. Why? Because she thinks a chance to destroy Israel is worth any cost. I pointed out to her that 100 million Arabs would die in such a nuclear exchange, along with 60 million Iranians. I was taken aback by her fatalism, and said so. She said "So what? We're all going to die anyway" to which I had no reply. What do you say to somebody who isn't looking for a win/win, or even a win/lose... but rather a lose/lose. Mind boggling. And she's not even an extremist. And she's got quite a sharp mind.

Whatever happnes, it cannot be explained by countries pursuing their national interests, or even their percieved national interests. The middle east would not be in the state it's in today, if Arabs had ever been following their own self-interests.

[praktike]

I have noticed that Iran gets a lot of coverage in the Arab media ... I have also observed that the Al-Ahram opinion writers are almost uniformly in support of the Iranian position (in contradiction to their government, it's worth noting).

[Mark R. Miner]

Way off topic but, do you have an opinion about the translation of the Quran by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem published by Oxford University Press? Specifically in terms of accuracy and clarity when compared to the original Arabic text?

[Philip Grant]

Regarding evidence from on the ground: it is very weak, but for what it is worth one of my Arabic teachers here in Yemen, with whom I spend ten hours a week on a one on one basis, is a great admirer of Ahmadinezhad. We talk about Iran a lot, as I am a Persian speaker and was in Iran before I came to Yemen. My teacher admires him because he stands up to the US, unlike Arab leaders who are all considered to be spineless and more or less in the pay of the American government. He admires him because of his stand on Palestine. But none of this has anything to do with a sense of pan-Islamic solidarity. My teacher once declared to me that he hated Shi'ites, but made exceptions for Iran and Lebanese Hizbullah. He often mentions Iran's president in the same breath as Hugo Chavez, whom he also admires greatly for similar reasons. He has even expressed admiration for Kim Jong-Il, who is also seen as standing up to the US.

As far as Ahmadinezhad is concerned, I don't think he is making a bid simply for Arab support, but for the leadership of global Islam, in the same way that Khomeini used to do. This is also how his letter to Bush, with its numerous religious references and its wilful ignorance of the conventions of inter-state diplomacy should be understood. Let's not forget that Khomeini sent a letter to Gorbachev urging him to convert to Islam, and that this in turn was in imitation of the Prophet's letters to the Roman and Persian emperors. Ahmadinezhad, with his own letter, and with his various "outrageous" statements about Israel, is staking a claim for the Islamic Republic's leadership of the umma, knowing full well that he is the only head of state of an Islamic majority country that is prepared to make comments of this ilk, and that there are millions of Arabs, Pakistanis and so on who are also only too aware that their own leaders will never voice the kind of opinions that are probably held by the majority of their people.

My guess is that this attempt, just like Khomeini's, is doomed to failure. Belligerent rhetoric about Palestine will be appreciated, but the fact is that the field for leadership of the umma is already too crowded, the umma too fragmented, and Ahmadinezhad and Iran simply too Shi'ite and Iranian for him to succeed.

[upyernoz]

hey i thought of this post when i saw this page of the mahjoob cartoon archive.

check out the 2006-06-02 cartoon and look at what category the jordanian cartoonist puts the comic in.