One of the greatest achievements of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution had been to perfect a universalist Muslim discourse that won popular appeal around the Islamic world…Now the Arabs have their own heroes. Iran’s clear pursuit of its own interests with Syria has exposed the hollowness of its revolutionary rhetoric…
By standing with President Bashar Al Assad against the protesters, Mr Ahmadinejad now looks as hypocritical as some other leaders. The fact that the Iranian flag has been burned in Syria has not gone unnoticed in Tehran…
In this light Iran’s position does not look so comfortable. As American troops prepare to leave Iraq, it is not hard to predict a new outburst of sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, with the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki forced to rely ever more on his Iranian backers. With Sunni Muslim Arab states supporting the Iraqi Sunnis, we could be looking at civil war….
There may come a time when Iran looks back with nostalgia on the time when America held the ring, and Iran’s role was to creep below the radar, rather than taking responsibility.
