Bush and Chenney, far from frightening Iran into submission, has
instead focussed Iran's attention to its place in the bigger scheme of
things. The article below outlines compelling reasons for an
energized Iran as the linchpin for pan regional co-operation and
therefore regional power and a major player in the global power
league. Such a development will of course greatly diminish US Israeli
power in Arab affairs. It will certainly reduce China's clout in
dealings with Arab countries (should they band together as described
below).
The empowerment of peoples who have little if any power now can only
be good. It is not a development China fears for China has always
maintained correct diplomatic and economic realtions with every
country. China treats them all as independent countries and respects
their sovereignity and independence by not interfering in their
internal affairs. China pays a fair price for everything she buys
from them. And China does not impose onerous and insulting conditions
on the trade, the aid and the loans she provides. Its a very simple
policy rich countries should make an effort to emulate.
Iran moving into the big league
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
May 3, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE03Ak03.html
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's three-nation tour of Pakistan,
Sri Lanka and India and the welter of agreements and understandings
reached between Tehran and these governments serve notice beyond the
mere issue of energy security and Iran's expanding role in the
sub-continent's energy market; rather, these developments signify a
new stage in Iran's foreign policy that is best described as
"pan-regionalism".
From the Persian Gulf to the Caspian region, the Caucasus, Central
Asia, South Asia and beyond, thanks to its unique geographical
location, Iran is in many ways an ideal connecting bridge that has not
until now fully exploited its advantageous "equidistance" from India
and Europe.
Straddled between the two energy hubs of the Persian Gulf and Caspian
Sea, Iran is a suitable conduit for trade, energy and non-energy,
between the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, which are members of the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and the landlocked Central Asian
states. The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates.
Also, with ambitious trans****tation links projected under the veneer
of a "north-south corridor", Iran, Russia and India have conceived new
areas of cooperation that connect northern Europe to the Indian Ocean
via Iran and the Russian Federation [1] . Already, Iran is an energy
ex****ter to Europe through Turkey, funneling through Turkmenistan's
gas and swapping oil with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
Also, Iran has plans not to lag behind the so-called new "Silk Road"
project that involves China, India and the GCC states first and
foremost and yet for every conceivable reason must be considered
Iran-inclusive because of the country's proximity, its expanding trade
and economic cooperation with the GCC, and its own trade
liberalization policies, reflected in the expansion of free-trade
zones.
This is one reason why Iran is modernizing its Persian Gulf islands of
Kish and Qeshm, hoping to turn them into tourist hotspots as well as
hubs for trade and even finance in the near future [2].
The $7.6 billion Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI), meanwhile, has
the potential more than any other existing Iranian project to extend
the purview of Iran's "pan-regional" approach, by organically
connecting Iran to the sub-continent on a long-term basis and by
providing a new Iran-Pakistan-India nexus that could in turn be used
for addressing what is lacking so far, that is, more than paltry
inter-regional trade.
The 2,600-kilometer IPI pipeline, which was conceived in 1994,
envisages trans****ting Iranian gas to Pakistan and then on to India.
Following Ahmadinejad's visit to India this week, Iran re****ted the
three countries were close to signing a "final agreement".
The poor state of Iran's trade with South Asia is reflected in the
sub-optimal trade between Iran and Pakistan, as is the case between
Iran and other members of the region's 10-nation Economic Cooperation
Organization (ECO) [3].
Attempts to make the ECO a fulcrum of regional cooperation have by and
large failed and the ECO's struggle to achieve a major breakthrough in
terms of regional cooperation has not brought significant tangible
fruits.
Yet that may change, particularly if Iran (a) is inducted in the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, at which it is presently an
observer [4], and (b) the IPI project finally gets underway, in which
case Iran's greater integration into larger entities will bolster its
attempt within the ECO to make this regional organization, which is
headquartered in Tehran, more effective.
With respect to the Persian Gulf, the GCC, which continues to shun
Iran's olive branch of cooperation, is under new pressures to rethink
that attitude as a result of the ****'ite-led government in Iraq, a
potential Iran allay in the politics of the Persian Gulf. It is not
far-fetched to think that Iran and Iraq will one day join the GCC
states in a new regional cooperative framework.
Certainly, that is how Iran wants it today, as seen in the recent
unveiling of Iranian plans for cooperative security and the like put
forward at their hitherto recalcitrant GCC neighbors [5], perhaps
better pitched as part of an Islamic common market.
Certainly, significant hurdles confront Iran's "pan-regional" approach
that seeks to make the country an integrative, nodal point of
cooperation between and among various regions, ranging from United
Nations and US sanctions out of fear of Iran and its pur****ted
"nuclear ambition", as well as a host of purely economic and technical
difficulties, such as poor trans****tation links and ***bersome custom
regulations.
Regarding the latter, one of the ECO's key contributions has been in
the area of prioritizing a customs agreement, as well as tariff
reduction schemes, between the member states that would facilitate
trade in the ECO region. Still, the low level of trade between the ECO
states is a harsh reminder of the long road ahead before Iran's lofty
objective of "pan-regionalism" can be fully realized.
Irrespective, the tangible gains mentioned above illustrate the
viability of Iran's "pan-regional" approach that could conceivably
elevate its status beyond a mere regional power and add to the cluster
of values in its arsenal as a global power.
In fact, as reflected in a recent statement by Iranian National
Security Advisor Saeed Jalili regarding Iran as a "global power",
Iran's self-image and self-understanding is global-looking and fuels
an activist foreign policy that is fully within the camp of the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and which constantly prioritizes "global
justice".
Economically, however, for Iran and other NAM states seeking a
redistribution of global wealth, concentrated in Western hands today,
there is no alternative but to push for greater cooperation between
themselves and achieve better coordination at international
institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), in light of
the WTO's ongoing trade wranglings known as the Doha rounds.
Although Iran is not yet a WTO member, it will be directly impacted by
the final agreements of the Doha rounds, due later this year, which is
why it is in***bent on Iranian policymakers to focus on the Doha
rounds and to scrutinize the agricultural and non-agricultural new
policies of the WTO that distinguish between developed and developing
nations. Yet these fall short of addressing the adverse impacts of
globalization and WTO-induced trade liberalization for a whole host of
Third World nations.
One thing is clear, the greater the impetus for Iran's "pan-regional"
goals and objectives, the more Tehran will find itself entangled in
complex regional, extra-regional and global issues and controversies
that impact the country's foreign policies, trade, and security both
directly and indirectly.
One of the understudied aspects of Iran's "pan-regionalism" is,
indeed, how it connects to the issue of globalization that, so far,
has been a mixed blessing for the developing world. After all,
regionalism and globalization have unhappy kindred relations, with the
former simultaneously strengthening and weakening it.
Notes
1. For more information on the International North-South Trans****t
Corridor, click here.
2. For more on the free-trade zones, click here.
3. For more on the Economic Cooperation Organization, click here
4. For more on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, click here 5.
See Iran unveils a Persian Gulf security plan by Kaveh L Afrasiabi,
Asia Times Online, April 14, 2007.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs,
Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also
wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus
Fiction.
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