ON THE LEG of his eight-day Mideast trip that brought him to the United Arab Emirates, President Bush tried hard to reassure the Arab states perched across the Persian Gulf from Iran that America will continue to guarantee their security. "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," he told local governmental and business leaders Sunday. "So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."
Americans who worry that Bush is heading toward a military strike against Iran may wonder why the Gulf Arab states would need any such reassurance. But those states have reasons for being uncertain about US policy.
Their apprehensions about an American policy shift are partly due to the recent US National Intelligence Estimate, which said that Iran halted work on the design of nuclear warheads in 2003. Contemplating this sign of an altered US stance on Iran alongside the ongoing dialogue about Iraq between US and Iranian diplomats, the Gulf Arabs wonder if Bush is preparing to reach some kind of deal with Tehran.
If so, they don't want to risk being left out in the cold. Hence Qatar invited Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a recent meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council - an organization founded in 1981 to counter the influence of Ayatollah Khomeini's Iranian regime. Ahmadinejad attended, offended his hosts by referring to what they call the Arabian Gulf as the Persian Gulf, and nevertheless was invited as a special guest to the Hajj in Mecca by Saudi Arabia.
Bush's assurance of a strengthened US security commitment to "our friends in the gulf" was his unsubtle way of saying he got their message. Those states have long worried that Iran's occupation of three small islands it seized in 1971 from the United Arab Emirates may presage a similar move against Bahrain, a tiny island state. Highly placed Iranians have recently said that Bahrain, with its Shi'ite majority, rightfully belongs to Iran. Commentators in the Arab press commonly fret that a nuclear-armed Iran will press such claims on the Gulf Arab states.
Bush and his successor must strike a fine balance with Iran. Any military action would only strengthen Iran's hard-liners and delay the Iranian nuclear program a few short years. Current US-Iran talks on Iraq should be expanded to include all topics of mutual concern, including regional security. Financial sanctions rather than military threats should be the penalty imposed on Iran if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment. And the Gulf Arabs have to be persuaded not only that they will be protected but also that they will be included in any grand bargain over Gulf security between the United States and Iran.
