Iran's diplomatic overture to Saudi Arabia this week
appeared designed to smooth over allegations that Tehran had tried to
assassinate a top Saudi envoy, suggesting Iran is stepping up efforts to
safeguard its role as a key Middle East power player.
Tehran is already under pressure from the West over its nuclear program. In
recent months, it has come into increasingly pitched diplomatic conflict with
Saudi Arabia, its traditional rival for influence in the region. The goal of
this week's meeting--for which Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi
traveled to Riyadh to meet with the Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdel-Aziz Al
Saud--appeared aimed at calming tensions on the nearer front, analysts said.
Iran's foreign ministry said that during the meeting, the sides discussed
regional security and policies. But the key to the intelligence chief's visit,
analysts said, appeared to be his effort to address U.S. accusations in October
that Iran plotted to have the Saudi ambassador to Washington killed.
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"The U.S. has leveled baseless charges against Iran. Transparent and frank
talks are needed to remove suspicions and clarify what objectives are sought
behind these scenarios," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin
Mehmanparast told the state Al-Alam Arabic television channel on Wednesday. He
said Iran was eager to have friendly relations with its Sunni Arab counterpart.
The Iranian intelligence chief was in Riyadh representing "the regime, not
the government," Iranian media said. That suggested he was acting not as a
messenger of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or other political figures, whose
decisions in Iran can be overruled by its ruling cleric, but as a messenger for
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is seen as issuing Iran's final
word.
Iran and Saudi Arabia, two of the world's top crude-oil producers, have long
stood as polar Mideast powers. Shiite Iran represents the interests of Shiite
minorities that are often discriminated against in Sunni Arab nations, and
champions resistance against Israel and the West. Saudi Arabia is the dominant
Sunni power, with favorable relations with the West.
The Arab Spring, which upended old dictators, forced both Iran and Saudi Arabia
to examine alliances and act assertively, and often at odds with one another,
most notably in Bahrain and Syria.
With Iran already at loggerheads with the West, its leaders have worried that a
continuing rift with Saudi Arabia would compromise Tehran's standing in the
region, analysts say.
"Iran will do everything it can not to lose its position of power in the
Middle East," said Roozbeh Mirebrahimi, an Iranian journalist and author
now living in New York. "It knows it can't fight the West and the Arabs at
the same time."
Iran has attempted to align itself with antiregime protests across the region
this year, branding them an Islamic awakening inspired by its own 1979 Islamic
revolution. Analysts expect Iran to seek to influence the course of events in
the region's new democracies, as it did with Iraq after the U.S. invaded in
2003.
Iran funded Islamist political parties in Iraq through a sophisticated web of
clerics, social workers and mosques, leaving many indebted to the Islamic
Republic for its support and funding. Some Iran analysts say similar efforts
are under way in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Iranian officials have said recently
that their outlook is positive for closer ties with Egypt's future government
and the two will likely have much in common.
However, there is little natural overlap between the rulers of Iran, who are
Shiite Persians, and the Sunni Arab Islamists who are gaining influence in
Egypt and the other emerging North Africa democracies.
Islamists gaining influence in these places have said they don't
associate with
Iran's ideals, but rather look for inspiration to Turkey,
a secular, Western-friendly democracy run by an Islamic-leaning party.
Iran's possession of a downed U.S. drone, which could contain the CIA's
secret
surveillance of Iran's nuclear sites, could help boost its image in the
Arab
world as technically able to challenge the U.S.'s most sophisticated
spying
equipment.
Iran paraded the drone on national television and boasted that its
Revolutionary Guards and Air Force had technically manipulated the drone and
forced it to land. Iran has refused the U.S.'s request to return the drone,
saying the aircraft is now considered Iranian property.
In Vienna, at Wednesday's meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, Iran's oil minister Rostam Ghasemi said Iran and Saudi Arabia had
reached a deal that Saudis wouldn't raise their oil production to make up for
Iran's market share in case U.S. and Europe sanction Iran's oil.
It wasn't clear whether there is a connection between the Iran-Saudi meeting
and the OPEC decisions.