Many in the Middle East fear that a nuclear deal Tuesday between the Iranian regime and global powers will make the world a more dangerous place, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
“Regional critics say the pact appears to reward Tehran for a series of interventions in conflicts that have ratcheted up sectarian tensions, from Syria to Iraq to Yemen. The conflicts have fueled perceptions in Sunni-dominant countries—and shared by rival Israel—that Shiite Iran is waging stealthy proxy wars to widen its role as a regional power broker and check Saudi Arabia’s influence,” the paper wrote on Wednesday.
Case in point, said Ahmed Ramadan, a Syrian opposition leader based in Istanbul, are the billions of dollars the Iranian regime has spent propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime since the start of that conflict more than four years ago. Mr. Ramadan held little hope that the nuclear deal could pave the way for a change in the Iranian regime’s stance in Syria, where it has also dispatched thousands of fighters to support Mr. Assad’s Shiite-aligned government.
“Iran’s hands are dripping with the blood of Syrians,” Mr. Ramadan told the WSJ. “It will have to do a lot to wash this away.”
Assad sent telegrams on Tuesday to both the Iranian regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani, congratulating them on Tehran’s “glorious victory,” according to Syrian state media. “We are confident the Islamic Republic will continue to back and with more vigor the just causes of all people,” he said.
The Iranian regime’s efforts to build its influence in the Middle East “have plunged the region into a full-fledged sectarian war between Iran and its Shiite allies against Sunni groups of all stripes. These people fear a rapprochement between Iran and the U.S.—absent any change in Tehran’s behavior in the region—will only add to Sunni grievances, which have increased since the U.S. invasion of Iraq more than a decade ago.”
While Turkey welcomed the nuclear deal, the country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu hoped it would present an opportunity for Tehran to change what he called its “sectarian-driven policies” in the region.
“Iran needs to review its role in Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” said Mr. Cavusoglu speaking to reporters during a visit by Iraq’s Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
In Iraq, where the Iranian regime has played a pivotal role in supporting the country’s Shiite majority, many Sunnis worried the agreement would embolden Tehran further and complicate efforts to build more of a cross-sectarian consensus to battle Islamic State (ISIS), which controls swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday cautiously welcomed the deal and said that it has always supported an agreement with Tehran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons with strict verification measures and mechanisms to snap back sanctions if Tehran violated it.
“In light of the nuclear program agreement, Iran must use its resources to serve its internal development and improve the conditions of the Iranian people instead of using them to cause instability in the region,” said an unnamed official quoted by state news agency.
