Analysis: U.S. pressure on Iran narrows UAE options
BEIRUT |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Ambiguity has long marked ties between the United Arab Emirates and its powerful Gulf neighbor Iran.
One UAE member, Abu Dhabi, has a prolonged territorial dispute with Iran, but this has rarely disrupted the hum of Iranian commerce with another emirate, Dubai.
Those contradictions are becoming harder to sustain as the United States and its European allies impose unilateral sanctions over Iran's nuclear policy that go well beyond new measures decreed by the U.N. Security Council on June 9.
The UAE has begun curbing Dubai's lucrative, free-wheeling role as a trading and financial lifeline for Iran, a policy that could prove costly for the Islamic Republic -- and for a Dubai economy already hit by debt woes and a burst property bubble.
The UAE Central Bank has told financial institutions to freeze the accounts of 40 entities and an individual blacklisted by the United Nations for assisting Iran's nuclear or missile programs, a banking source in Abu Dhabi said on Monday.
Mounting pressure from the United States, the UAE's main military ally and protector, may be one reason for the action.
"Now when the sanctions have been passed, U.S. focus has turned toward implementation of sanctions with a specific focus on EU and UAE trade with Iran," said Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
"While the arm-twisting has yielded some results, there is also a risk that in this specific phase, tensions between the U.S. and its allies will increase over the Iran policy."
Washington may have smoothed potential friction with the UAE by blessing the Gulf state's own nascent nuclear power plans.
Exasperation with Iran's occupation of three Gulf islands claimed by Abu Dhabi also underlies the stricter UAE stance.
"Abu Dhabi has been weighing down on Dubai to cut back on trade ties with Iran principally as a measure against that long- running sore," said Abu Dhabi-based economist Mohammed Shakeel.
"Dubai inevitably finds itself caught in the middle, unable to resist Iranian trade exchanges but also unable to fend off pressure from its economically more powerful Emirati neighbor."
Tens of thousands of Iranians live in Dubai, many of them involved in a re-export trade to Iran which grew to $5.8 billion last year as letters of credit from European banks dried up.
"Inevitably any slowdown in trade between the two will hurt Iran but also crucially hurt Dubai," Shakeel said.
PUBLIC SILENCE
The UAE has announced nothing publicly about how it is enforcing the latest U.N. sanctions -- even Arab governments fearful of Iran are wary of showing enthusiasm for measures championed by Israel's principal ally, the United States.
The Sunni-ruled Gulf states face a long-standing dilemma over Shi'ite Iran, whose regional clout gained an unintended boost from the 2003 U.S.-led war against its former foe Iraq.
"The Saudis in particular would dearly like to peg Iran's influence back across the region," said Shakeel, citing the popularity of Tehran's anti-U.S. zeal and the implicit Iranian challenge to Saudi credentials as guardians of Islam.
"On the other hand, no one, repeat no one, wants another war in the region," he said, arguing that political and diplomatic animosity toward Iran did not translate into any demand by Gulf Arabs for the Americans to attack their turbulent neighbor.
The Saudi foreign minister has said sanctions won't work either in crimping Iranian nuclear work which the West believes has military aims, not just the peaceful ones stated by Tehran.
The Gulf Arabs have few ready alternatives, but fret that harsher sanctions may only spur on Iranian muscle-flexing.
"The Saudis are concerned that if you put more pressure on the Iranians they will play a more negative role, according to the Saudi definition, in the region -- in Iraq, Lebanon and with the Palestinians," said Qatar-based analyst Mahjoob Zweiri.
Instead, Saudi Arabia stresses the big picture, urging the United States to work harder for Israeli-Palestinian peace to reduce regional tension, Islamist militancy and the appeal of non-Arab Iran as the defender of oppressed Arab and Muslims.
Kevan Harris, an Iran analyst at Johns Hopkins University, said such Saudi arguments cut little ice in the U.S. capital.
"What seems obvious to most individuals living in the Middle East -- that a peace settlement of any stripe in the Palestinian territories would change the calculus in the region -- is barely entertained as a serious strategy in Washington any longer."
U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah made no mention of Iran after their talks in Washington this week, focusing only on the need for Middle East peace.
The Obama administration may in fact recognize some kind of link between Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but simply lacks good options to achieve its goals on either.
The Gulf Arab states, uneasily aware of the limits of U.S. power in dealing with Iran, have to accommodate themselves somehow to the awkward but permanent reality on their doorsteps.
"There is a reluctant acceptance that Iran will continue along its path of belligerence without too much concern about what its neighbors and others may think," said Shakeel.
"I do not think there is any coherent strategy on the part of the Gulf Arabs to put a brake on Iran's aspirations."
(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
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US continues its annual $3 billion assistance to Israel, despite an American law forbidding aid to any country producing weapons of mass destruction. Not only did ISRAEL THREATEN TO SEND SYRIA BACK TO STONE AGE, did Massacre on Freedom Flotilla BUT ALSO Israel offered to sell apartheid-era South Africa nuclear warheads in 1975.Israel opposes creating a nuclear weapons-free zone until Middle East peace has been achieved.
Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is at the moment
FULLY in compliance with it, has no nuclear arsenal, and does not even have a
nuclear weapons program. (The treaty allows countries to enrich uranium for fuel, which is all that Iran
is known to be doing). NPT signatories have treaty-based rights to seek civilian energy production, either by enriching uranium or separating plutonium.
Article IV: 1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.
2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
IRAN IS NOT A THREAT TO WORLD PEACE.
HISTORY SHOWS, IRAN NEVER ATTACKED OR INVADED OTHER COUNTRIES USING FAKED JUSTIFICATION SUCH AS IRAQ WAR WITH NEVER-BEEN-FOUND WMD.
IN FACT, OBAMA TO MAKE WORLD WAR III ON BEHALF OF UNBREAKABLE BOND ISRAEL, TO MAKE IRAN LIKE WAR-TORN IRAQ WHERE A BOMB GOES UP DAILY FOREVER.
Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council’s powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and nonmilitary action to “restore international peace and security”.
CHAPTER VII OF THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER ARTICLE 51 PROVIDES FOR THE RIGHT OF COUNTRIES TO ENGAGE IN MILITARY ACTION IN SELF DEFENSE, INCLUDING COLLECTIVE SELF DEFENSE FOR IRAN.
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