Arab Daily Questions Sincerity of Tehran’s Diplomatic Outreach

An article published yesterday in Saudi daily Al Jazirah questioned the sincerity of President Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic outreach to the Gulf Arab countries and called the Iranian president’s recent trip to Oman and Kuwait a “public relations” campaign to portray a positive image of Iran to domestic and international audiences. The author of the article, Ali al-Qurni, stressed that Rouhani’s “flowery rhetoric” did not match Iran’s actions in the region. “President Rouhani’s visits to Oman and Kuwait are an attempt to deceive public opinion, especially Americans’, into thinking that Iran is not an enemy to countries in the region, and that it is trying to improve its relations with the Gulf states,” he noted. The author further argued that Rouhani’s “political maneuvers” were aimed at influencing the Trump administration’s aggressive approach toward Iran, an approach that “is threatening Iran and challenging its expansionist policy.”

Comment: Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia took a nosedive in January 2016 after Iranian mobs torched the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also recalled their ambassadors to demonstrate solidarity with Riyadh. Last month, Kuwait’s foreign minister paid a rare visit to Tehran to deliver to Rouhani a message from the six-member Gulf Corporation Council (G.C.C.) that called for frank dialogue between Iran and the Gulf states. But as the commentary in the Arab daily shows, suspicion about Iran in the Gulf region runs deep, and Iran’s neighbors are unlikely to believe that Tehran is sincere in its desire for rapprochement as long as the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) continues its interference in the Arab world by supporting terrorist and sectarian groups.