I couldn’t resist posting this video that I found on Iranian.com. It is footage from 1971 of Mohsen Pezeshkpour, leader of the ultra-nationalist Pan Iranist Party, railing against the Shah’s decision to separate Bahrain from Iran in a deal with the British. The party is now largely defunct, but its expansive Iranian nationalist sentiments live on in the Islamic Republic through words of people like Hossein Shariatmadari of Kayhan and now Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, former Majlis speaker and member of the Expediency Council.
But while these ideas live on in a minority, comparing 1971 with today shows how much the regional power balance has shifted. In the 70s the Shah was riding high on oil wealth and arming himself to the teeth with American weapons. The Shah’s main concern in the Gulf was Saddam Husein, and today’s Bahrain and UAE were political nonentities with no geopolitical heft to speak of. It was not surprising, then, to see the likes of Pezeshkpour allowed to air their extreme views with impunity on the floor of Parliament.
Iran’s furious backpeddling and attempts at damage control after the current incident are a stark reminder of how Gulf Arab states are in a relatively better position economically and politically vis a vis Iran than they were under the Shah. Clearly Iran does not wish to further galvanize the GCC against it and endanger its lucrative gas deal for the sake of a few ill-concieved and unrealistic nationalistic statements. At a time when the Gulf Arab states spare no opportunity to sound the alarm about Iran’s “hegemonic aspirations,” perhaps this is a reminder that their position isn’t quite so precarious after all.
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