UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran has long prided
itself on its forceful defiance of the United States and Israel, a
resistance that has defined the Shiite-led Islamic Republic for the 40
years since its revolution.
But the limits
of Iran’s ability to go it alone were on display at the United Nations
this week as it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic outreach amid
increasingly crippling isolation by U.S. sanctions that are eating into
its economy and its ability to sell its oil.
For
months, the European nations that signed Iran’s nuclear accord have
been trying — unsuccessfully — to find ways around U.S. sanctions that
were imposed after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the
agreement last year. Trump argues the deal, completed under the Obama
administration, fell far short of the curbs needed to block Tehran’s
regional ambitions.
Addressing world leaders Wednesday, Rouhani’s message pointed a clear way toward easing tensions and resuming negotiations: “Stop the sanctions.”
But
before getting to that, he opened his speech by paying homage “to all
the freedom-seekers of the world who do not bow to oppression and
aggression.” He also slammed “U.S.- and Zionist-imposed plans” against
the Palestinians. Such language characterizes Iran’s self-styled
championing of Islamic causes worldwide.
Away from the podium this week, Iran has been engaging in nothing short of a public relations blitz with America’s biggest news outlets. Rouhani met with leaders of media organizations including The Associated Press and granted an interview to Fox News, where Trump and his Iran policies enjoy vehement support.
The
Tehran government’s fraught history with the U.S. has essentially
locked it out of the global financial system, making it difficult to
find partners, allies and countries willing or even able to do business
with it.
Rouhani accused the U.S. of
engaging in “merciless economic terrorism” against his country, saying
America had resorted to “international piracy by misusing the
international banking system” to pressure Iran.
As Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers unravels under the weight of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign, previously unimaginable alliances are emerging between Gulf Arab states and Israel, united by what they see as a common threat.
Across
the Middle East, Iran’s reach is consequential in Syria, Iraq and
Yemen, where proxy wars have taken on a sectarian tone that pits
Iran-supported Shiites against Saudi-backed Sunnis.
On
the battlefields, Tehran’s rivals see it as a menacing and
destabilizing force that has exploited failed uprisings, military
interventions and chaos to expand its foothold in Arab states.
Iran
counters that it was the U.S. that invaded Iraq and Saudi Arabia that
invaded Yemen. In his U.N. speech, Rouhani pointed to Iran’s role in
fighting Sunni Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State and
al-Qaida. He described Iran as a “pioneer of freedom-seeking movements
in the region.”
Iran’s elite paramilitary force has led that charge, cementing Tehran’s footprint far beyond the country’s borders.
The
Revolutionary Guard Corps, created after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution
in parallel to the country’s armed forces, is effectively a corps of
soldiers charged with preserving and advancing the principles of the
uprising that created modern Iran.
It
answers only to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
and its power is not just theoretical but very real: The force directly
oversees the country’s ballistic missile program.
It
is the Guard Corps that has become a major sticking point in Iran’s
relations, or lack thereof, with the United States under Donald Trump.
The
Trump administration, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel
say Iran used money from sanctions relief under the nuclear accord to
increase the Revolutionary Guard’s budget.
Those
nations say any new negotiations must include discussion about the
Guard’s activities in the region and its missile program, and support
for that notion seems to be gaining traction.
This
week, Britain, France and Germany joined the U.S. and other allies in
blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil sites earlier this month. The
implication: That because missiles were involved in those attacks, so
was the Guard.
Speaking at the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York this week, a top Saudi diplomat described
Iran as being “obsessed with trying to restore the Persian Empire and
trying to take over the region.”
“Their
constitution calls for the export of the revolution,” Adel al-Jubeir
said. “They believe that every Shiite belongs to them. They don’t
respect the sovereignty of nations.”
“Iran,” he said, “has to decide: Are you a revolution or are you a nation-state?”
As
Rouhani departs a city that is effectively enemy territory and goes
back home this week, he and Tehran’s clerical leadership must decide
which of those paths to take: Will they merely confront, as the 1979
revolution did? Or, as nation-states do, will they sit down and talk as
well?
___
Aya Batrawy covers the Persian Gulf for The Associated Press and has reported from the Middle East for the past 15 years.
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