This week, global news media outlets have been prolific with
announcements of the death of former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani on Sunday, January 8.
Many of these reports focused on the legacy of Rafsanjani as
an Iranian politician who proposed moderate solutions to complex political
problems, and promoted greater ties with the country’s GCC neighbors.
With that in mind, a Reuters piece Monday showed most GCC
Gulf neighbors sending routine condolence calls to the Iranian government, but noted
that although heads of state in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates
contacted the Iranian republic, Iran’s largest foe in the Gulf region, Saudi
Arabia, was notably silent.
Experts cite the proxy war in Yemen and other hostilities
between the two nations, including the legacy of the extremely divisive and
bloody conflict in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. These conflicts, as
well as the ongoing tragic civil war in Syria, add to political turmoil in the
region.
For more insight on how this current news reflects the
relationship between the two major Middle Eastern powers, Gulf News Journal
spoke with Dr. Hossein Varamini January 10. Varamini is a professor of finance
and international business director of the International Business Program at
Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania.
“I think the lack of a Saudi condolence to the Iranian
government was not surprising,” Varamini said. “Both regional powers have been
competing on several fronts for the past few decades. The recent disagreements
between the two nations about the issues in Syria, Yemen and Iraq have
heightened their war of words.”
Varamini spoke about Rafsanjani’s legacy.
“Rafsanjani has been credited as one of the main founders of
the current regime in Iran and has been an extremely influential figure in
Iranian politics in the past 38 years,” Varamini said, mentioning Rafsanjani’s
third-term loss to Ahmadinejad in 2005 and the closeness of that election.
“(Rafsanjani) was supporting closer ties with the West, while trying to find a
balance to work with the neighboring Arab countries. His pragmatic views about
domestic economic issues, privatization of state-owned industries and his
desire to avoid conflicts with the West were not very popular among the
conservatives in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Varamini said it’s hard to speculate about how gestures like
a condolence call affect international politics.
“Clearly, the political, historical, cultural and religious
issues in the MENA region are among the most complex ones to understand and to
predict,” Varamini said. “In addition to internal forces shaping their
relationships, these countries have always been the center of attention and
interference by the superpowers. Consequently, the region has suffered from
wars, violence, political uncertainty and surprises.”
Varamini said many people and governments are curious about
the result of the upcoming presidential election in Iran this summer, looking
to find out whether President Hassan Rouhani, now a standard bearer for more
moderate views, will be re-elected.
“Iran has a very complex set of relationships with Russia,
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, other Gulf States, Syria and Israel,” Varamini said. “If we
add the result of the recent U.S. election to this mix, it becomes very
difficult to predict the future of the Middle East in the next few years.”
