Egypt and Saudi Arabia make new overtures to Iran

Are US Arab allies playing 'good cop' with Ahmadinejad to US 'bad cop'?

By Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 14, 2007 edition

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Cairo - Iran is suddenly enjoying a thaw with its Arab neighbors – all close US allies – in the wake of a US intelligence report that judged Iran probably suspended its work on nuclear weapons four years ago.

Regional actors, in particular, are scrambling to engage Iran diplomatically, and analysts say they have the tacit approval of the Americans.

Egypt, a US ally and the only Arab state not to have full diplomatic relations with Iran, this week sent a high-level delegation to Tehran for the first time since that country's Islamic revolution in 1979. On Thursday, Russia said it would resume work on an Iranian civilian nuclear plant.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was invited by the Qatari emir to speak to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) earlier this month – the first time that has ever happened. On Wednesday, Iran announced that Saudi Arabia had invited Mr. Ahmedinejad to participate in the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, a first for an Iranian leader since the 1979 revolution.

"Qatar could not have invited Ahmedinejad to the GCC without an understanding with the Americans. I don't think Egypt would be sending a diplomat without some sort of green light either," says Emad Gad, an expert on regional politics at the Al Ahram Center, a government-linked think tank in Cairo. "All of this is part of a strategy, and I think it's an American strategy as well, to keep the freeze on the nuclear program while creating a friendlier climate."

The strategy that's now being crafted looks very similar to the one that US hawks felt was discredited before the American decision to invade Iraq: One of sanctions and limited diplomatic outreach, with only muted threats to use force.

Then, proponents of an invasion argued that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction in defiance of UN sanctions and that such measures were insufficient. While it turned out that Mr. Hussein had no such weapons, analysts like Mr. Gad argue that the US invasion of Iraq was decisive in prompting the Iranian's change of course.

"Iran's decision came in the autumn of 2003 ... at least six months after the occupation of Iraq. So the issue here is not sanctions, but the occupation, " he says. "If the [Bush administration] came to know that [Iran's nuclear weapons] program had resumed, then the policy would change again."

Indeed, while the thaw may be pegged to the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), there remain concerns. The US is pushing for stronger sanctions against Iran – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Iran a "danger" in an Associated Press interview Wednesday – and has the backing of Germany and France. These countries and others, particularly Iran's Arab neighbors, worry there's little difference between evidence of an active quest for nuclear weapons and a civilian nuclear program that could, at short notice, be turned in a military direction.

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