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Diker: Iran's Unfriendly Takeover of the Middle East
The current instability in the Middle East has created a power vacuum in the Middle East that Iran is seeking to fill. However, it surprisingly provides real diplomatic opportunities for Israel to restructure its relations and find common cause with its Arab neighbors who are also threatened by Iran's growing influence, according to Dan Diker, former IBA News analyst and currently Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He spoke to Likud Anglos in Netanya on May 25, 2008.
The current instability in the Middle East has created a power vacuum in the Middle East that Iran is seeking to fill. However, it surprisingly provides real diplomatic opportunities for Israel to restructure its relations and find common cause with its Arab neighbors who are also threatened by Iran's growing influence., according to Dan Diker, former IBA News analyst and currently Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He spoke to Likud Anglos in Netanya on May 25, 2008.
The Israeli Government is still operating under the discredited paradigm that making territorial concessions to Palestinian Arabs will bring regional peace. But believing that "solving" the Israel-Palestine conflict caneliminate the Iranian threat is a like protecting a sandcastle on the beach from the lapping waves while a tsunami is fast approaching,
Diker explained that Iran's President Ahmedinejad is now implementing the policy of the Revolutionary Islamic movement established by Ayatollah Khomenei in 1979, to take over the Middle East, as a stage in its drive to destroy the West. As King Abdullah II of Jordan noted in 2004,Iran is attempting to establish a Shia arc stretching from Iran thru Iraq (with 60% Shia population), Syria, and the Shia area of Southern Lebanon.The Assad dynasty who control Syria are part of the Alawite minority (17%) that are affiliated with the Shia, and their alliance with Iran has deep roots.
Meanwhile, Diker said, the Sunni Arab States see themselves losing ground in Lebanon and Gaza to Iranian proxies Hizbollah and Hamas. For example, the blowing up of the Gaza-Egyptian border by Hamas at Iran's behest threatens Mubarak's regime, already weakened by the Muslim Brotherhood. And only 10 out of 22 states attended the failed Arab League meeting in Syria as an unprecedented protest against Syria's policy of assassination and support of Hizbollah terrorism in Lebanon. The Sunni Arabs from the Gulf to Egypt now feel more threatened by Iran than Israel.
For more on this topic see the book Diker has recently edited for JCPA titled: Iran's Race for Regional Supremacy: Strategic Implications for the Middle East.
