The autobahn to Tehran has taken some time to inaugurate, not only as a result of mountains of hurdles, but also because of high cliffs of enmity, primarily between Washington and Tehran. This enmity between the two countries has its roots in the CIA. Acting as a parallel US government, the CIA was instrumental in toppling the Iranian popular democratic regime of Prime Minister Muhamed Mossadeq in 1953. It brought the shah back from Rome to rule with a Westernised iron fist. The cause of that outside intervention was oil, as Mossadeq had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. After the shah was thrown out during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, America became “the Great Satan” for Iran, and Iran, with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini now heading an Islamic Republic, became for Washington “a state supporting terrorism”. The gulf between the two was so poisonous that it hardened into a creed. For nearly four decades, punctuated in the 1980s by then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein attacking Iran with US and Arab support, Iran was made an outcast. But the international wheel of fortune never stops. Khomeini failed to export his austere form of Shia papacy to the Gulf. He assumed the title of “Imam,” while converting the country's Shia scholars (ulama) into a ruling class. The cleavage created between the ulama of Karbala in Iraq and some of the ulama in Qom in Iran became even greater. In 1981, the Khomeini brand of Shiism further alienated the demographically largest Arab state, Egypt, whose capital, Cairo, and its historic citadel of Islamic learning, Al-Azhar, were both originally built by Shias. That was more than 1,000 years ago, however, when the Fatimid Dynasty ruled supreme, and before it was replaced by Saladin (Salah Al-Din), a Kurd and a Sunni. But Egyptian reverence for the House of the Prophet Mohamed (Al-Bait) is a shared quality between historic Persia and historic Egypt. Two states going back thousands of years could not be easily alienated from one another, even if Khomeini gave that historic bridge a shock. When Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat was assassinated in 1981, Tehran named one of its main thoroughfares after his assassin. Al-Sadat had granted the shah asylum, and had concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Now fast forward to the new Iran, headed by moderate President Hassan Rouhani, and the new Egypt headed by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. Sanctions were imposed on Iran by both the US and the UN as a result of Iran's nuclear programme. But Egypt has never been in favour of sanctions, except for those imposed on apartheid South Africa. Even during the Libya of former Libyan leader Muammar Al-Gaddafi, Egypt led the charge, choreographed by its then-foreign minister, Nabil Al-Arabi, at the UN Security Council, for lifting sanctions. Egypt, after signing its peace treaty with Israel, had experienced the bitter taste of regional isolation. But reformers like Rouhani read the pulse of his nation to rejoin the international community. In US-educated Mohamed Jawad Zarif as foreign minister, Rouhani found a superb negotiator. “Get us out of the sanctions and back into the world,” he said, and the decision was made to allay international fears of an Iran armed with an atomic bomb. Over more than two years, negotiations between Tehran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (the P5+1 group) proceeded along the bumpy road of reaching an accord on the nuclear file. In July 2015, the energy of diplomacy, unleashed, won the day. The sword of demagoguery, unsheathed, was blunted. By late January 2016, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had testified that Iran had carried out its side of that historic bargain. Even before the awaited certification was made public, non-American business representatives were descending upon Tehran to sign up for new contracts. The autobahn to Tehran was agog with international traffic. NOT BACK YET: But the season of disruption was not yet over. Sheikh Al-Nimr, a Saudi Shia leader, was judicially, but injudiciously, executed in January, and incensed Tehran mobs attacked the Saudi Embassy in Tehran The attack on diplomatically protected premises was condemned by Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's highest leader, who was joined by Javad Zarif, who lamented, “This was an act that we are not proud of ... I think our Saudi neighbours need to realise that confrontation is in the interest of nobody.” But the shrill voices of confrontation were not to be so easily stifled, especially in America. That is where the Republican Party has continued to emit the piercing sounds of hostility toward Tehran, amplified by the issue of the US journal Foreign Affairs for January-February 2016. “Time to Get Tough on Iran,” shrieked the title of a pugnacious article by US authors Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman and Ray Takeyh. Their thesis is that “the Islamic Republic is not a conventional state making pragmatic estimates of it national interests, but a revolutionary regime”. The voice then gets louder: “Iran is an exceptionally dangerous state — to its neighbours, to close US allies such as Israel, and to the broader stability of the Middle East.” According to the authors, “The agreement recognises Iran's right to enrich uranium and eventually to industralise that capacity.” However, Iran does not require an international agreement to recognise its sovereign right to enrich uranium under IAEA guidelines. It is also a state that has now proven its pragmatism by demonstrating its readiness to rejoin the world community. In regard to its Arab neighbours, Iran's policy on Syria cannot be framed only in a Shia-versus-Sunni context. Regime change by outside intervention is anathema to Iran, and in 1953 it had the bitter taste of such change. This was plainly manifest in its tough stands during the negotiations on its nuclear file, and the result was a win-win situation for all parties. Even American critics of Iran such as Nicholas Burns, a former US under-secretary of state, saw in the agreement a historic shift. In an opinion article in the New York Times on 19 January, Burns described it as “a potential turning point in the modern history of the Middle East.” He continued, “Iran remains a powerful adversary of America across nearly all the conflicts of the Middle East.” That turning point has for the moment been belied by the negotiations surrounding a political exit from the Syrian quagmire, something that cannot be found without the cooperation of Tehran and Moscow. Unfortunately, Burns's language has been mirrored by the language about Iran used by Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Adel Al-Jubeir. In the New York Times on 20 January, Al-Jubeir vehemently asserted, “The world is watching Iran for signs of change, hoping it will evolve from a rogue revolutionary state into a respectable member of the international community.” This is utterly wrong. Within Iran there is more give and take between rulers and ruled than there is in Saudi Arabia. Al-Jubeir's claim that Iran “helps the Islamic State group flourish” is patently bogus, and so is his statement, “We are not the country designated a state sponsor of terrorism. Iran is.” Al-Jubeir should be aware of the politicisation of such designations, and the reasons for selectively applying them. It is in the nature of the exercise of national sovereignty that Al-Jubeir has warned that “Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran to undermine our security or the security of our allies.” In the context of sovereign equality, the same argument should also be marshalled by Iran. The fact remains that both Riyadh and Tehran are engaged in an unseemly ideological battle worldwide. Riyadh supports Sunnism, and Tehran supports Shiism. Oil wealth has been liberally employed by the two antagonistic capitals in the illiberal cause of splitting Islam into two parties, a fiction that has no Islamic jurisprudential basis. There is no Sunni Islam, nor Shia Islam. However, within this seemingly endless battle for the soul of Islam, one finds the roots of the superimposition by both capitals of their brand of Islam on the affairs of state. This is the reason why Al-Azhar's position should be applauded, declaring as it does that “Islam does not recognise a state based solely on religion.” One of the many problems with faith and state in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the absence of analytical reasoning, an ignorance that leads to direct copying of the ideas of others without due scrutiny. This is the kind of black hole that was exemplified by a recent article in the Arabic daily edition of Al-Ahram. In it, writer Hani Imarah said, without citing any evidence, “Iran, like a cancer, has expanded for years in the Arab body.” Where? When? He does not say. This is imagination born of ignorance. As such, it is impossible to prove, unless Imarah is relying on unofficial Iranian hot air about “controlling Arab capitals.” The new Egypt deserves better. Egypt, through its culture and civilisation, should immerse itself in repairing the gulf between Iran and the western shores of the Gulf. Obviously, Iran could not be comfortable with the decades of cooperation between the intelligence services of Riyadh and Washington. That relationship heightens Tehran's mistrust of both. Even after blessing the Iran nuclear deal, the Iranian supreme leader warned against placing trust in America, a message that can only be read in Riyadh as also aiming at the kingdom. The friend of my enemy is my enemy. A restored Cairo-Tehran entente would be the most suitable vehicle for political and religious reconciliation. TAKING THE AUTOBAHN: As we speed along the autobahn to Tehran, let us not forget about a non-substantiated fatwa, or religious judgement, by the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia. He recently declared that “chess is the work of Satan”. On what basis did that gentleman anchor his fatwa? The Qur'an refers to “Satan's handiwork” in the context of “intoxicants and gambling and idol worship and fortune telling” (Sura V/90). None of the above applies to chess. A fatwa is only a non-binding opinion on a matter of religion. The grand mufti's fatwa doesn't advance the cause of Islam, a faith that values science and ijtihad (the application of common sense to the interpretation of the text). His fatwa can only contribute to Islamophobia, like his banning of dancing, music and gender equality. Chess is a cerebral game of strategy and mental agility that was originally developed in Persia, a grand civilisation that has hugely contributed to Islam through its emphasis on science, mathematics and technology. According to an article in the New York Times on 29 January, “Despite lingering animosities and the United States' designation of Iran as a sponsor of terrorist groups, European governments and corporations have made it clear that economic opportunity is going to trump concerns over human rights, security and politics for now.” Tehran is now bringing in Airbus to deliver 118 new aircraft. Rouhani is consorting not only with Italian and French leaders but also with Pope Francis. This is a very welcome dividend of peace, secured through the dignity of equality between sovereign nations. Another cold war seems to be coming to an end. The writer is a professor of law at New York University.
