What the Iran Street Protests Mean for the Arab World

Saudi Arabia is in a subtle Cold War with the Iranian regime. The arrogant, corrupt and deceitful Saudis have long resented the Iranians under both the Shah and in the age of the Islamic Republic. Saudi royals are guided more by geopolitical considerations while the clerical establishment preaches Shias are heretics worthy of discrimination [which they do face in fundamentalist Saudi Arabia].

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The Saudis heavily funded and promoted Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. It was the lousy palace poets of the Gulf who made Hussein an Arab nationalist icon.

Saudi Arabia was able to establish hegemony in the Gulf after the defeat of Hussein in the Persian Gulf. But as Iran raises as a regional power, the Saudis look fearful as the prospect of having their dominance challenged by the Persian country especially if Iran has nuclear weapons. In this endeavor, Saudi Arabia has tried to [unsuccessfully] stir Arab fear of a nuclear Iran. The Saudis along with the Israelis and previously, under Bush, have tired to divide the Arabs into Sunnis and Shias so as to create a Sunni opposition front against Shia Iran.

This effort has failed entirely. Even though the effort to divide Arabs into Shias and Sunnis was successful, what the Saudis failed to initially realize is that although Sunnis may bear prejudiced views of Shias; their opposition to Israel means that any effort to create a Sunni-Israeli front against Iran would never work...at least while the Palestinians remained occupied, oppressed and routinely murdered by the victimizing Israelis. Saudi Arabia eventually dropped their hate mongering after realizing that it was achieving nothing for their Iran front and, instead, sowing seeds for instability in the Kingdom by alienating the 10% of Saudis whom are Shia.

So although Saudi Arabia is no longer playing the Sunni-Shia card, it has not given up its efforts to tarnish the image of Iran. It sought to do this during the election by foolishly thinking that by broadcasting the Iranian television debates it would somehow stir anger against Iran. This is the myopic thinking of a bunch of illiterate, regressive sheiks who think public debate is sinful. As the often insightful Angry Arab explains:

Saudi media have been constantly airing segments from the TV debates by the presidential candidates. The aim of Saudi media, especially Al-Arabiyya TV (the station of the brother-in-law of King Fahd) is to air Iranian criticisms of the Iranian president who they detest without saying it--Saudi rulers are always under-handed. But no matter what we think of the controlled Iranian political system, it is certainly superior to most of the political systems in the region. I will argue that those scenes of the TV debates are really hitting a cord throughout the Middle East and revealing to the Arab viewers what they knew not before about the Iranian political system. Arabs will not measure the Iranian political system by the criteria of some abstract notions of democracy or by the features of Swedish democracy, but the standards of the lousy regimes... So the scene of presidential debates may be hurting Saudi interests but Al-Arabiyya editors may not be smart enough to realize it.

So while the scenes of debates may have undermined the image of authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, the Saudis and the rest of them except Iran, Lebanon and somewhat Kuwait, the street protests are certainly leaving a stronger impression on the average Arab watching the development.

Arabs are seeing hundreds of thousands of Iranians courageously standing up against tyranny for days in the face of deaths. This is not to say Arabs will take to the streets, but it must certainly make some of them pause and think why they do not act in such a strong show of force in the face of their oppression and fraud elections. Iranians started to demonstrate for the tiny amount of freedom they would have gotten in a contest between the lesser of two evils. Arabs though seem to only care about the voting results of Star Academy.

Persians have showed Arabs how tyranny should be met with. I hope they take notice.