On a recent trip to Bahrain, a self-assured Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, professed to have the answer to the Gulf's troubles.
Speaking to a largely Arab and western audience, he suggested Gulf stability was best achieved by removing American forces, well entrenched across the region, and setting up, with Tehran, a regional security alliance.
The call for more self-reliance in the Gulf has some appeal among ordinary Arabs, resentful of the US and frustrated by their own governments' over-dependence on American security.
But official circles, in both the Gulf and the US, see his suggestions as a reflection of Iran's suspected ambition for regional superpower status.
"It's amusing," says one American official. "Iran is saying, 'Get rid of foreign forces and take us as the regional power.'"
The events of the past year have underlined Iran's growing influence in the Middle East and its determination to become a nuclear power. But they have also reinforced the perception of Shia Iran as the biggest strategic threat to Washington's Sunni allies in the Gulf, home to two-thirds of the world's oil reserves.
Tehran's regional strategy has been to back militant groups that confront Israel, positioning itself as a stronger defender of Arab and Palestinian rights than its Arab neighbours.
This approach worked remarkably well in the summer, when the Iranian-backed Hizbollah group in Lebanon stood its ground against a month-long Israeli offensive. Arab leaders who had criticised Hizbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, the act that sparked the war, emerged from the conflict weakened while Iran was emboldened.
What now alarms the Sunni Arab regimes most, however, is that an American failure to rescue Iraq from sectarian conflict could shift the balance of power in the region even more in favour of Iran.
Arab leaders largely back the minority Sunni in Iraq. Iranian officials say they support the central Iraqi government, dominated by the Shia majority. But according to senior Iraqi officials, Tehran's strategy is more complex, and involves support for individual Shia groups, with the apparent aim of building separate links to Tehran.
Arab officials say Iran's resurgence should not be exaggerated: its pursuit of a nuclear programme will bring greater international isolation, and this carries economic costs that will gradually become more apparent. But the Arab Gulf states have yet to formulate a coherent or common approach to address the perceived Iranian challenge.
Reluctant to throw their lot even more decisively behind a weakened and seemingly confused America, most are also worried about a potential dialogue between Washington and Tehran, fearing it could affect their own interests.
Saudi Arabia has been holding its own bilateral talks with senior Iranian officials but people close to its government say little progress has been made on easing regional tensions.
In an unusually bold move the Arab Gulf states announced this month they would study the possible development of nuclear technology, insisting – as Iran does – that the purpose would be energy production, not atomic weapons. Seen as a message to Tehran, the announcement also raised concerns about proliferation in the region.
The US, for its part, has been seeking to underline that its commitment to the Gulf is unwavering, whatever happens in Iraq.
Washington has launched a security initiative designed to strengthen security and defence ties with the Arab Gulf states, while the US has increased its naval presence in the region.
But Washington's ultimate ambition to create a multi-lateral security system has received a cool response. Wary of each other, the Arab countries prefer to focus on deepening their bilateral defence ties with the US.
"The Gulf knows it needs to beef up its defences. But for the set-up that the US wants, which is to deal with the region as one institution, Gulf countries need to have a different relationship between each other," says one senior Arab official.
US officials acknowledge that some of the smaller Gulf states are also weighing their military relationship with the US against the risk of alienating Tehran.
The Bush administration has been particularly concerned about gas-rich Qatar, where the US maintains its largest military base in the region.
One US official says Washington has been seeking explanations from the Qatari government about recent decisions at the UN and the Arab League that have appeared more supportive of Iran's regional interests rather than those of the pro-western Arab states.
Arab regimes, meanwhile, have been pleading with Washington to press for progress on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, hoping moves towards the creation of a viable Palestinian state will help tip the strategic balance in the region back in their favour.
Some Iraqi officials argue that the Arab states' best strategy to check Iran's influence is to build bridges with Iraq's Shia majority.
"The Shia in Iraq are Arabs [not Persians] and they feel the Arabs have rejected them," says an Iraqi official. "What the Arabs should do is embrace the Shia government of Iraq and try to make it a counterbalance to Iran."
Officials in Baghdad say this message, regularly relayed to Arab rulers, is only now starting to sink in.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01tehran.html> January 1, 2007 Tehran Radio Lets Critics Vent Over Iran's Nuclear Plans By NAZILA FATHI
TEHRAN, Dec. 31 — A radio program on a government-run station has been conducting an open debate for the past month about whether Iran should change its tough stance on its nuclear program.
The radio program, Goftegoo Radio, which went on the air last May, has used a debate format to broadcast discussions about any number of formerly taboo issues, but its recent fiery discussions about whether the country should have a nuclear program may be setting new boundaries for talk about one of the most important issues in Iran today.
The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Dec. 23 to impose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, including barring trade in goods or technology used in the program. The measure is aimed at curbing Iran's program for uranium enrichment, which can also be used for making a nuclear bomb. The Security Council has given Iran a two-month deadline to suspend its program or face tougher sanctions.
Iran has refused to comply with the demand and has said it has the right to enrich uranium under the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It contends that its program is for peaceful energy purposes, but the United States and European nations contend that Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear arms program.
Critics inside the country have long been barred from discussing the subject. Reformist newspapers cautiously warned last week that the sanctions could have dangerous consequences for the country. But they refrained from concluding whether enrichment should be suspended to prevent those consequences, apparently fearing that the mere suggestion could lead to a government move to close them down.
But guests on Goftegoo — which means dialogue in Persian — have expressed their criticisms fearlessly, with some calling on the government to put the country's other interests before its nuclear program.
The state-owned broadcasting monopoly, which has great power and an enormous budget, is among the few state-run agencies that is not controlled by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has refused to back down on the nuclear program in the face of world pressure.
The broadcasting agency reports directly to Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all state matters. The new director, Ezzatollah Zarghami, took over the agency in mid-2005, as Mr. Ahmadinejad took office. Mr. Zarghami is a former general of the conservative Revolutionary Guards who is believed to be close to Ayatollah Khamenei.
Analysts say Mr. Zarghami, who is not close to the president, may be using his closeness to Ayatollah Khamenei to build his own power base. But the motivation behind the political discussions on the program is not completely clear.
"Why have the officials linked the country's development to the nuclear program?" Sadeq Zibakalam, a professor of political science at Tehran University who has appeared on the show a number of times, asked on a show three weeks ago. "Why have they tried to convince people with the wrong notion that if we suspend our program we lose our national identity and our independence?"
He said Iran was a developing country whose hospitals and schools still needed major investment. He said spending huge amounts of money for the country's nuclear program — without mentioning the costs of sanctions or a military confrontation — would not contribute to the country's development.
Mr. Zibakalam said in an interview that he agreed to appear as a guest on the show only if he could express his opinion freely. His condition was immediately accepted, he said.
The host of the show, Amir Dabirimehr, a 29-year old doctoral candidate in political science, said the purpose of the program was to allow critics to express their opinions.
"The show wants to provide an opportunity for all ideas to be expressed on the state-run media so that they don't turn to other outlets," he said. "We tell our speakers that they are our guests and we will be responsible for whatever they say."
Many of the people he has invited to appear have been skeptical of his guarantees, though, and have turned down the invitation.
"I welcome the show but it could be dangerous if the state-run media wants to carry the mantle for free speech," said Mahmoud Shamsolvaezin, a veteran journalist and media analyst in Tehran. "If the government really wants to broadcast the voices of its critics, it should let them have their own publications."
Over a hundred reformist newspapers that criticized the government have been shut down by the authorities, and dozens of journalists have been jailed in recent years.
Many people watch satellite programs beamed from the United States by opposition groups in exile. Satellite television is banned in Iran, but many people ignore the law.
Radio and television channels operated in Iran are controlled by the government agency, whose director is appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei. Goftegoo Radio, a daily show, devotes one or two programs a week to political subjects. It usually has at least two guests, one advocate and one opponent of the subject of the day's debate.
On a program last week, Mr. Zibakalam challenged Yadollah Javani, a senior member of the Revolutionary Guards and an ardent advocate of Iran's nuclear program.
Mr. Javani brushed off the sanctions as insignificant and repeated the government line that the United States was manipulating the Security Council against Iran.
Mr. Zibakalam, in response, said, "I don't know if you really believe in what you say or you just say that to people."
He noted that Iran's government had sponsored a conference of Holocaust doubters in Tehran in December and said that it was natural to expect Germany to vote against Iran at the Security Council meeting with that kind of provocation. "Every time we have to deal with the consequences of our actions, we bring up ideological arguments," he said.
"I believe these sanctions are only the tip of the iceberg, and they can have very severe consequences if we don't deal with them within the next two months," he warned. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>