Omid Memarian- While Americans might have been satisfied when Iraq’s Cabinet approved a proposed security agreement on Sunday, Iranian leaders will be thrilled with the consolidation of the Iraqi Shiite government in Baghdad.
Next door to Iraq, Iranians, who had opposed an agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, now are assured that Iraq will not be used to attack them. Even though Iraq is not a Shiite theocracy like Iran, the Iraqi Cabinet’s decision was significantly affected when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, signed off on the deal.
The approval of this security pact, coupled with President-elect Barack Obama’s “no more war” rhetoric and the promise of direct talks and tough negotiations, will pressure Iranian leaders to respond responsibly to the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support of Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the only leader from the “axis of evil” club to congratulate Obama on his Nov. 4 victory. This act might be interpreted as an olive branch from Tehran, or at the very least, it suggests that Iran sees the United States in a new light. This gives the United States an opening to restore its reputation among Muslims that was damaged by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The relationship with Iran is significant because Iran is the ideological and political engine for Shiite Muslims around the world. From the streets of the Al Hasa region in Saudi Arabia, where much of Saudi Arabia’s minority Shiite population and, coincidentally, most of its oil is situated, to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Bahrain, Yemen and even India, the Islamic Revolution has been an inspiration for the minority Shiites, especially those in Iraq where the majority of the population is Shiite.
But now, Iran’s anti-American image is in a paradoxical situation. President-elect Barack Obama ran a campaign based on ideals such as government for the people, justice and equality – populist slogans that have also been centerpieces of the Ayatollahs’ premise to change the world and pave the way to heaven for their people.”
Obama’s victory disarms leaders such as Ahmadinejad, who for decades have used inefficient American foreign policies as excuses to justify their own failures, mismanagement and corruption. Earlier this year, Ahmadinejad said that the “U.S. (political) establishment will not let Obama win the presidential election.” This was believed because in none of the Muslim countries, including Iran, does a man of a minority ethnicity like Obama have even a slim chance of getting a position in a high office. But American democracy allow this.
Obama’s middle name, Hussein, and his unique stories from childhood to his campaign against John McCain, resonate with millions of Shiites. Obama’s victory fits into their cultural mythology. Obama’s election in many Islamic countries, including Iran, now is similar to President Bush’s place in the world after the 9/11 attacks, which created a high level of international sympathy for the United States.
While the Islamic Republic of Iran won’t drop its anti-American rhetoric any time soon, the promise of the United States to begin talking with Iran will diminish the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s revolutionary image and force the Iranian government to end mischief in the Middle East.
Obama’s response to Ahmadinejad’s letter could be the first step toward drawing a new foreign policy framework to put the United States on the right track.
Omid Memarian is a Rotary World Peace fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/18/EDVF1468LG.DTL
This article appeared on page B – 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle