The stumbling blocks encountered in negotiations on the Iranian nuclear question are leading these days the United States and other Western countries to mobilize in order to impose new sanctions on Iran.

However, there is no unanimous international consent: those in favor of new and heavier sanctions, who do not even exclude military action if sanctions are not enough, are opposed by those (including Russia) proposing sanctions aimed only at hitting the nuclear program and who still hope for a negotiated solution, and those – e.g. China – who deem dialogue and painstaking diplomatic negotiations as the only possible path.

But what is the position of Arab countries on the Iranian nuclear issue?

It should be said straightaway that the nuclear question is just one of the factors affecting Arab-Iranian relations and, in some cases, it is not even the main one. This is also true for other countries internationally, even though the focus of the media on Iran’s nuclear program makes it seem as if it were the only factor determining relations between Iran and the rest of the world.

Probably three headlines published in recent weeks in Arab newspapers well capture the conundrum of Arabs with regard to Iran: “Preferring the ‘Revolution’ to the ‘Republic’”, “Arab silence is no substitute for policy on a troubled Iran”, and “A Question for Hard Times: with Iran… or with Israel?”.

The first belongs to an article published in the “Dar al-Hayat” newspaper and it summarizes the main accusation levied by some Arab countries – and in particular the so-called ‘moderate’ Arab regimes – against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was born from the Revolution, which overthrew the Shah in 1979, but many Arabs accuse Iran’s regime of having preferred to continue advancing a revolutionary ideology in the effort to ‘export’ the Islamic Revolution to its neighboring countries, instead of focusing on the consolidation of the new Republic’s institutions.

The fear that the Shiite Revolution of 1979 could also be exported to Arab countries lies behind the support that these countries almost unanimously gave to Saddam Hussein and Iraq during the bloody and exhausting Iran-Iraq War, which broke out in 1980 following the Revolution and lasted 8 years. The conflict is commonly called the “Imposed War” in Iran because the war was forced upon it by Saddam Hussein’s aggression.

This war, which drained both countries, lies at the root of the mistrust and resentment still existing today between Iran and many Arab countries.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan accuse Iran of maneuvering Shiite minorities in the Arab world – in Lebanon and Iraq as well as in the Arabian Peninsula (countries like Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia all have large Shiite minorities) – and ‘Arab resistance’ movements (Hamas and Hezbollah) to advance its own regional influence at the expense of the regimes in power in Arab countries.

The fear fueled by the threat of the possible rise of the ‘Shiite Crescent’ stretching from the Arabian Peninsula through Iraq and Lebanon to Palestine was launched in 2003 by the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, shortly before the US invasion of Iraq. The idea endorsed by Abdullah and others was that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would play Iraq into the hands of Iraqi Shiites who are politically close to Iran.

The confrontation between ‘moderate’ Arab regimes and Iran is very often described as a sectarian one between Shiites and Sunnis. This is especially true for the rivalry between Teheran and Riyadh. The Saudi regime, as the custodian of Islam’s holy places at Mecca and Medina, poses itself as the guardian of Sunni orthodoxy against what the Saudi press often dubs as the ‘Shiite threat’.

According to many observers, this description hides, though, a different picture, namely that the reasons behind the confrontation are political rather than religious and that these have to do with regional supremacy. Moreover, this description risks leading to a negative approach by Arab regimes towards the Shiite minorities living in their countries (with a Sunni majority). These minorities have always been an integral part of the Arab world and are a piece of the history of these countries and not a foreign body maneuvered by non-Arab powers (namely Iran). As some have underscored, the very fact that these minorities are often discriminated is what actually makes them fall prey to external forces.

There are those who have pointed out that the same also applies to the ‘Arab resistance’ movements (especially Hamas) and to Islamic currents in the Arab world. Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni movement whose ties with Iran have been consolidated following the movement’s isolation after its 2006 electoral victory in Palestine. The government set up by Hamas was boycotted by ‘moderate’ Arab countries as well as by Israel, the United States and Europe and this situation has driven it to seek support elsewhere.

The Muslim Brotherhood too is often accused by some Arab governments as being Iran’s ‘agent’. However, while the Egyptian and Palestinian Muslim Brotherhoods (Hamas is considered an offspring of this Islamic current) often do have positions close to Teheran’s, this is mainly due to the fact that Iran’s regime poses itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause. The Muslim Brotherhoods in the Persian Gulf Arab countries (and recently in Syria too) have often been irritated by Iranian meddling in the internal affairs of their countries.

These considerations show that there is not necessarily a symbiotic bond between ‘resistance’ movements and Islamic movements in the Arab world, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other. Some Arab observers have stated that while it is true that Iran is trying to leverage these forces to stretch its influence in the region, it is just as true that this is made possible by the internal weaknesses of Arab countries where some minorities (especially Shiites) are discriminated and where political opposition movements are repressed by undemocratic regimes. These regimes harshly react to Iranian ‘interference’ because it is aimed at supporting movements threatening their absolute power.

Having said as much, it is clear that positions towards Iran vary greatly in the Arab world both among regimes, on the one hand, and opposition movements, on the other, and among the governments of the various countries. While the so-called ‘moderate’ Arab regimes have an antagonistic relationship with Teheran, a country like Syria has an alliance with Iran lasting 3 decades now.

However, even the Persian Gulf Arab countries do not share a same stance with regard to Iran. This is due to the fact that many of these countries have close economic and commercial ties with Iran whose coasts are just a few kilometers of sea away. Qatar shares with Iran the huge Pars gas reservoir; Dubai has close financial relations with Teheran and it has an influential community of Iranian expatriates; and Kuwait, still mindful of the 1990 Iraqi invasion, shares with the Iranian regime the interest in preventing the rebirth of a strong Iraq.

While all the Persian Gulf Arab States fear an Iran with nuclear weapons, they have not developed, though, a common strategy to address the Iranian nuclear question owing to their often conflicting interests.

This situation is well captured by the second headline (published in “The National”, a UAE newspaper ) mentioned above: “Arab silence is no substitute for policy on a troubled Iran”.

In other words, while many Arabs are aware that Arab silence – namely the lack of a policy on the Iranian nuclear question – is harmful to Arab interests, no one, though, knows how to reach a common strategy.

Leaving aside those who do not fear Iran as a nuclear power (with nuclear weapons) and who do have substantial political weight in the Arab world, those who want to stop the Iranian nuclear program are called to find a solution to a tough dilemma.

The military option is the last resort (above all, for the Persian Gulf Arab countries) owing to the huge risks involved. In case of a military attack, Iran warns that it would close the Strait of Hormuz blocking oil tankers and striking the Arabian Peninsula. Some do not rule out the possibility that Teheran might also strike through its allies in the region (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and maybe even Syria). This might unleash a regional war, which no one knows how Arab masses will react to.

A military attack against Teheran would not only be a direct threat to the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, but, more in general, it would also put the stability of Arab regimes to the test.

However, no one in the Arab world expects a regime change in Iran. Mir Hossein Mussavi, leader of the Iranian opposition, has proven that he is not less determined than Ahmadinejad in pursuing Iran’s nuclear program. While there are some in Arab countries who hope that a more democratic Iran would not rely heavily on regional allies like Hamas and Hezbollah, others fear that, posed before an internal threat, the Iranian regime would launch a regional offensive to quash internal dissent mobilizing the country against an external threat.

There is still the road of negotiations and sanctions. However, considering that sanctions will hardly convince Iran to give up to its nuclear program without receiving anything in exchange, both these paths lead to two worrying scenarios for many Arab countries and especially for the Persian Gulf States: the need to coexist with Iran as a nuclear power if negotiations and sanctions fail (leading to an arms race in the region and an even greater dependency of these countries on the US for their security) or a great agreement between Iran and the US (which would shift Washington’s economic priorities away from Arab countries to Iran).

In either case, Arab countries (especially the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries) would risk being further downsized politically and seeing their dependence on foreign powers increase: namely the US as a superpower and Iran as a regional power.

Of course, this opinion is not shared by those in the Arab world who already feel being the hostage of Washington and the threat posed by the Israeli nuclear arsenal. They believe that Washington and Tel Aviv not only fear Teheran’s nuclear ambitions, but also a regional alliance including Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah pitted against Israel challenging its military primacy and US military hegemony in the region.

In their opinion, the Israeli-US mobilization against Iran aims not only at taming Teheran’s regime, but also at destroying this regional alliance.

Then there is the question of whether the Iranian regime will actually be able to continue its nuclear program. In the light of the technical difficulties, which Teheran appears to have encountered, there are those in the Arab world who say that Tel Aviv’s and Washington’s insistence on the alleged ‘threat’ posed by an Iranian nuclear bomb, as remote as it may be, is just a way for Israel not to face the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – and the painful concessions it would entail – with the excuse of having to face the ‘enemy’ Iran.

They also believe that Iran as a nuclear power, far from being a destabilizing factor in the region, would actually contribute to containing Israeli aggressiveness and even drive Tel Aviv to seek peace with its neighbors solving the Palestinian Question.

In the light of these contrasting positions in the Arab world, a worsening of the Iranian crisis as a result of tighter sanctions and even the threat of military intervention is clearly bound to worsen the confrontation and the climate of conflict in Arab countries – countries already heavily polarized by the wars and tensions of the Bush era. The risk being run by the Arab world in case of an escalation in the crisis is perfectly summarized in the third headline (published in the Lebanese newspaper ‘al-Safir‘ ): “A Question for Hard Times: with Iran… or with Israel?”.

According to some, this conundrum reflects the dead end that those countries which would inevitably side with the Israeli-US axis to oppose Iran would find themselves in, at the expense of the Palestinian Question and, more in general, Arab interests.

As the article states, this question may be the key issue at the next Arab summit to be held in Libya at the end of March. If this were the case, it might bring back to the surface and exacerbate all those crises, which have torn the Arab world in recent years, with possible repercussions in Iraq (where sectarian tensions are already high in view of the March elections), Lebanon (a country, which once again seems to be nearing the brink of institutional deadlock) and Palestine (where the siege of Gaza is still continuing and where there is no hope for a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas at least in the short term).

Some might say that Arabs probably have nothing to gain from taking sides either with the US and Israel or Iran. They can only benefit from a common and firm Arab stance safeguarding Arab interests.

However, a common Arab position appears to be rather remote for the time being.