By Vestnik Kavkaza
The US Senate has adopted a draft bill requiring the prevention of the creation of a nuclear weapon by the Iranian authorities. However, the Associated Press reports that the draft notes that it shouldn’t be interpreted as permission for using military force against Iran. The ambiguity of the draft could be explained by the changed situation in the region of the Persian Gulf.
Vladimir Sazhin, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, expert on Iran, thinks that the main players in the region are Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel, the US and to a lesser extent Russia. “The strongest discrepancies between Iran and Saudi Arabia emerged after the Iranian nuclear issue became the main political problem in Iran, about which the Arab Gulf countries became very worried. And for almost 10 years this crisis has become more intense,” Sazhin thinks.
He says that a very important event that happened in Iran was the presidential elections: “The sanctions, especially sanctions that were imposed unilaterally by the United States and the European Union against Iran (the oil, banking, financial and insurance sanctions) have had a great effect. The economy has felt the effect of these sanctions in two years. And it caused a lot of stress in the upper echelons of power in Iran. And the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who, in general, holds conservative views, once the main champion of the candidacy of President Ahmadinejad, together with his entourage, has come to the conclusion that something had to change. So, of course, the coming to power of the relatively liberal according to Iranian standards Hassan Rouhani was symbolic. It was symbolic not only for the Iranian people, who longed for change, but for the whole world.”
According to Sazhin, “even without eliminating major sanctions, without signing the basic comprehensive agreement, Iran started to export not 700,000 barrels of oil per day, as in the worst period in 2013, but already 1.2 million barrels. That is 500,000 more. And the treasury received more than $10 billion. Therefore, the easing of tensions in the nuclear field led to changes in Iranian politics not only on the domestic front, but also in foreign policy.”
The expert is sure that Iran has always occupied good positions in the Gulf. But I think that today the offensive trend that was used by Iran especially during the rule of Ahmadinejad will be followed by more constructive and productive relations with all the countries of the Gulf: “The current Iranian government wants changes, and has good relations with Oman and Kuwait, and I think that territorial disputes with the UAE will be frozen at least at some point. Therefore, I still believe that in the future, after the Iranian nuclear issue is finally resolved, the "bogey" which in the form of an Iranian nuclear bomb, in general, has always been in the Persian Gulf (the Saudis were especially scared of this "bogey") will be eliminated. I'm sure about it. Everyone is interested in it - the US and the EU, especially the EU, and, of course, Iran. Therefore, the process on the resolution of the nuclear problem is ongoing, it is accelerating. And I think that by July 20 there will already be some practical solutions to this problem. And, accordingly, after that Iran will undertake new steps in the Gulf.”
