U.S. policy towards Bahrain and the Iran factor

This article is simulatenously published in Foreign Policy In Focus, Foreign Policy Journal, American Chronicle and On Line Opinion.

The popular uprising in Bahrain has put U.S. foreign policy makers in an awkward position. The U.S. government has largely lent its diplomatic weight to the Saudi regime in stifling popular uprising in Bahrain for fear that any democratic transformation in that country would work to Iran’s advantage, thus undermining its own interests in the Persian Gulf region. This explains why President Obama refrained in his recent address on the Middle East from even mentioning, much less slightly criticizing, Saudi Arabia for its military intervention in Bahrain and why he sufficed with only a soft criticism of the Bahraini regime’s crackdown on its pro-democracy movement. This posture has further undermined the image of the U.S. in the eyes of the Middle Eastern publics, due to its perceived double standards towards regional political developments, and is likely to work to the detriment of U.S. strategic interests in the region in the long run.

In recent weeks, some commentators and political analysts have questioned the rationale behind the current U.S. policy towards political developments in Bahrain by arguing that the popular uprising in Bahrain has nothing to do with Iran and that the Iranian government has actually a lot to lose in the long run from a democratic government in Bahrain. Others have also played down the sectarian nature of the popular uprising in Bahrain, thus allaying U.S. fears that any new democratic government in that tiny island would ally itself with Iran.

While it is true that the Arab popular uprisings, including the one in Bahrain, are not primarily motivated by sectarian identities and that they are home-grown and independent social movements without any ties to Iran, it can hardly be disputed that Iran will benefit from the fall of conservative authoritarian Arab regimes in both Shiite and Sunni majority states in the region . The experience of the democratic transformation in Iraq which led to the political empowerment of Shiites and Kurds bears witness to the fact that Iran is likely to benefit form the outcome of such political upheavals . Similarly, any democratic and popularly-based political system in Bahrain is expected to exhibit some gravitation toward Iran, given the common religious bonds between the two nations and also in part as a symbolic gesture to mark a break with the foreign policy of the previous tyrannical regime, as witnessed in the case of post-Mubarak Egypt.

But the U.S. government does not need to buy into the claim that Iran will end up to be the loser of the Arab Spring in order to recognize that its current policy towards the region, especially in regard to the popular uprising in Bahrain, is untenable. The U.S. policy towards Bahrain is unjustified for the simpler but more fundamental reason that it does not need to define its national interests in opposition to Iran in all contexts.

Defining Iran-U.S. relations as a zero-sum game in all issue areas would afflict the U.S. foreign policy by limiting its room for maneuver. The fact that every gain for Iran in its foreign policy does not necessarily translate into a loss for the United States seems to not factor prominently into the calculations of U.S. foreign policy makers with regard to the recent political developments in the Arab world . It would of course be brazenly naïve to deny the fact that the United States and Iran are currently serious rivals in the region and have conflicts of interests in a number of important issue areas, most notably Iran’s nuclear program, and that it would take extreme compromise by both parties to reconcile these differences under present conditions. But this does not mean that they cannot be tacit partners and have convergent interests in a number of other issue areas.

While not officially recognized and applied in other similar circumstances, there are practical cases of partnership between the United States Iran in the recent past, where the strategic interests of both countries converged. A notable example is the temporary working relationship that developed between the two countries in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the tragedy of September 11th. Both countries coordinated their actions through multilateral settings under the UN and benefited from toppling their common adversary in Afghanistan. Although that brief formal cooperation between the two countries over Afghanistan soon dissipated after former U.S. president George Bush branded Iran as a part of the “Axis of Evil”, their common interest in preventing the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan has withstood the test of time and has enabled the emergence of a tacit partnership between the two countries.

The fact that Iran has since largely refrained from playing a spoiler’s role in Afghanistan despite the fact that it is well capable of creating serious trouble for the United States in that country in light of its geographical proximity and traditional influence in Afghanistan, bears witness to the existence of such a tacit partnership between the two countries over Afghanistan. Iran’s recognition of its common interest with the United States in preventing the resurgence of the Taliban has helped sustain this tacit partnership to this date.

The current political situation in Iraq also shows that any gain for Iran does not necessarily come at the expense of the United States. Both countries have clearly a shared interest in preserving the status quo in Iraq. Despite occasional disputed claims of limited weapons smuggling from Iran to both Afghanistan and Iraq with a view to helping the insurgents in those countries , there is no evidence pointing to any strategic decision on the part of Iran to undermine the status quo in those countries. In fact all major evidence points to the contrary.

That being said, neither the United States nor Iran are yet prepared for any open bilateral diplomatic engagement with a view to redressing their own mutual ties. Yet they can coordinate their foreign policies towards regional political developments through multilateral settings or intermediaries, as in the case of their low-level diplomatic engagement over Iraq, which was hosted by the Iraqi government in Baghdad during the Bush administration. At the very least, the recognition of their common interests in any relevant issue area should enable them to form tacit partnerships and avoid any paranoid reaction to any political developments in the region that benefit either party .

The current political situation in the region, instigated by the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain and the continued suppression of the public uprising by the Bahraini regime, is clearly unsustainable and has the potential to escalate to outright military confrontations in the strategic region of the Persian Gulf. The zero-sum mentality vis-à-vis Iran characterizing the current U.S. policy towards political developments in the region has created unnecessary costs for the foreign policies of both countries and above all has harmed the genuine democratic aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the Bahraini population. The unconditional U.S. support for the Saudi regime and its refusal to apply any substantive pressure on the Bahraini regime will further harm U.S. credibility and long-term interests in the region by placing it on the wrong side of the unfolding history in the region.

Iran-Pakistan relations in light of popular uprising in Bahrain

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy Journal, American Chronicle and Online Opinion.

Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik was recently on a visit to Tehran conveying a special message from the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. The Pakistani minister also met with other Iranian officials including his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Besides the reports of routine diplomatic niceties over the importance of the bilateral relations of the two countries, no details have been reported on the content of the presidential message delivered by the Pakistani minister.

Lack of substantive media reports notwithstanding, there are some indications as to what may have motivated the Pakistani president to dispatch a special envoy to his Iranian counterpart and what issues may have topped the agenda of the meetings between the Pakistani minister and the Iranian officials. Over the past several years, security and economic cooperation have been the staples of the agendas of meetings between Iranian and Pakistani officials at various levels. However these issues are normally discussed in periodic meetings between the officials of the two countries and within structured frameworks governing the relations of the two countries, unless unpredicted situations arise in the relations of the two countries which would require immediate attention by both parties.

What gave urgency to the current situation in the relations of Iran and Pakistan was the ongoing popular uprising in Bahrain and the seemingly divergent positions of both countries toward the political crisis in that country. More specifically, Iran’s declared solidarity with the uprising of the Shiite majority in Bahrain and its strong opposition to any kind of military assistance provided by foreign governments to the Bahraini regime with a view to suppressing the public struggle for democracy in that country has meant that Pakistan had some explaining to do to Iranian officials in order to salvage its growing economic ties with Iran.

What touched Iran’s nerves was Pakistan’s recent decision to authorize the recruitment of thousands of its retired security officers by the Bahraini regime in an attempt to quell the public uprising there. Following this announcement, Iranian foreign ministry officials summoned the Pakistani charges d’affaires in Tehran and conveyed Iran’s strong reservations over Pakistan’s move and warned his government of serious diplomatic consequences if Pakistan followed through with its decision. The recent trip by the Pakistani interior minister to Tehran to deliver a special message from the Pakistani president to his Iranian counterpart can be understood as an effort to patch up political differences between the two countries over Bahrain and to prevent further diplomatic fallout between them.

The statements of the Pakistani embassy officials in Tehran over the political developments in the region in prelude to Malik’s trip to Tehran also indicate that Islamabad has meant to give assurances to Tehran that it does not intend to take sides in the political conflict in Bahrain. According to the Iranian media , the Pakistani charges d’ affaires in Tehran recently stated that "Pakistan's policy is maintaining neutrality and refraining from interference” in the ongoing political developments in the region including the political conflict in Bahrain. In a recent joint meeting, the Pakistani interior minister and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi also expressed their common view that the ongoing popular uprisings in the region are not of sectarian nature.

The degree of Pakistani concerns about Iran’s possible retributions over its position on Bahrain has been to the extent that some Pakistani media interpreted the recent announcement by the Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi that Iran plans to build concrete security fence along its border with Pakistan to prevent border crossing by terrorists and drug traffickers as a response to Pakistan’s decision to deploy security personnel to Bahrain. Although building a security fence along its common border with Pakistan would make Iran less reliant on the not-always-forthcoming Pakistani security cooperation, such a strategic and long-term plan may clearly not have been motivated by short-term developments in the region. Nonetheless, border security arrangements were a major issue on the agenda of the Pakistani interior minister’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart. In this line, the Iranian interior minister Mostafa Najjar has reportedly called on the Pakistani government to step up efforts in disrupting the safe haven of the Jundallah terrorist group across the Iranian border in Pakistan.

In the past, Pakistan has extended limited cooperation to Iran by arresting and extraditing some wanted Jundallah terrorist members in its territory but it has been only a matter of time before Jundallah terrorists have regrouped and renewed their terrorist attacks against civilians in southeastern ethnic Balouchi region of Iran which borders Pakistan’s Balouchistan province. Although Pakistan suffers from a by far worse security condition in its own tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, to the extent that it presents the impression of a failed state to observers in those regions, it is capable of providing wider cooperation to Iran in fighting cross-border terrorism by dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist network in its border areas or allowing Iran’s security forces to use its soil in border areas to pursue and eradicate Jundallah’s terrorist elements.

Pakistani officials may think that putting a decisive end to Jundallah’s terrorist activities in its border areas may not be in their best interests as it might dampen Iran’s incentives for cooperation with Pakistan in other issue areas, especially in the energy sector, once the threat of terrorism is gone for good. In other words, Pakistan may consider its cooperation over combating cross-border terrorism as a bargaining chip for gaining economic concessions from Iran and would thus prefer to keep the option open for a long time by extending a limited rather than full-fledged security cooperation to it . While this may work in Pakistan’s interests for a short while, its drawback is that it would erode Iran’s trust and jeopardize Pakistan’s long-term interests in its relations with Iran. Under such a situation, Iran may be forced to seek a permanent and long-term solution to the threat of cross-border terrorism and thus end its reliance on security cooperation with Pakistan. Iran’s recent decision to build a concrete security fence along its entire border with Pakistan can be interpreted as a response to Pakistan’s irresolute cooperation with Iran in dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist safe haven in its border areas.

The stakes for Pakistan are high in its relations with Iran given the ongoing investment projects between the two countries in the energy sector. The existing natural gas pipe line project which is expected to become operational in 2014, will supply the bulk of Pakistan’s domestic natural gas needs from Iran’s massive South Pars gas field. Forging a strategic relationship with a neighboring country which possesses the second largest natural gas reserves in the world and is expected by official accounts to supply ten percent of the world’s natural gas needs in a not so distant future, owing to enormous investments in its natural gas sector over the past couple of decades, would be on top of the foreign policy agenda of every astute state leader. Pakistani politicians seem to be looking to that horizon despite some contradictory signals emanating from Islamabad every now and then, as in the case of their recent dispatch of security personnel to Bahrain .