WarSclerotic

It is hard to convince some people with events that never occurred, as to say for example that Iran planned to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The ambassador was never attacked and hasn’t been killed yet. The accusation requires complete trust in the U.S. political and security accounts, and this is difficult to obtain.

If late Rafiq al-Hariri was not killed in the explosion in Beirut that day in 2005, many people wouldn’t have believed there was a plot to assassinate him. Even if perpetrators had confessed, some people would’ve said the confessions were part of a ploy to jolt Hariri and isolate Iran and Lebanon.

Such skeptical people need to see blood in order to believe it. They need to see the Saudi ambassador getting killed and the assassination recorded by a mobile phone. Even in this case, some might still have doubts unless Iran claims responsibility. And I am not sure even confession is good enough. In Pakistan, some people still don’t believe that Osama bin Laden has actually been killed, although the Americans have claimed responsibility and the Pakistanis have confirmed the news in addition to al-Qaeda that mourned him.

The Sept. 11 attacks were among the most doubted events worldwide, although the whole world watched the collapse of the two World Trade towers live on TV. Investigators at the time provided huge amounts of information and photos of the planes and the hijackers, however, doubtful people insisted that it was a fabricated story. Although al-Qaeda has proudly claimed responsibility for the attacks and released a long video of admission by attackers; some people still have doubts.

The battle of public opinion is very important to fight radicalism. The issue is so simple, since it’s 1979 Revolution, Iran has been following an aggressive policy against its enemies. Iran places Saudi Arabia and the United States on top of the list of its enemies. If we are convinced with these two facts; namely Iran’s violence and its animosity to Saudi Arabia and the United States, then the rest will just be mere details; in other words, targeting a president or an ambassador, a building or a plane, is not the issue.

Revolutionary Iran had only one moderate leader; namely that of Mohammed Khatami, who adopted a moderate policy based on openness to the world. He was welcomed everywhere but his country. Khatami himself was criticized, along with his political party, and was chased by the regime radicals. His newspapers were confiscated and he was insulted by the state’s mass media.

Accordingly, this is the reality of the Iranian regime, whether the regime tried to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, conspired to murder Hariri, funded military operations for the Huthis south of Saudi Arabia, or hosted Seif al-Adl and his partners who join hands in carrying out terrorist operations in Riyadh in the past; those were just activities that only reflected the continuing animosity.

No one here in the Gulf wants a battle with Iran. I believe that today most of the Iranians do not want to get involved in any military adventures with any Arab or foreign country. People are tired of 30 years of cold and hot wars with Iran and others. People’s minds that are fed up of disputes have nothing to do with what is going on in the mind of the Iranian regime, which is dominated by exporting the revolution. The Iranian regime wants to change the world surrounding it: it wants to liberate Bahrain, to burn Israel, to topple the Saudi regime, to help Hezbollah to rule Lebanon, to keep Assad’s regime, to challenge the west and develop its nuclear weapon.

Through such aggressive concept, there will be neither peace nor stability. It is not strange that Iran decides to assassinate the ambassador of its rivals, the Saudis, in Washington, especially that it has recently declared its intention to send its warships very far to the Gulf of Mexico.

(The writer is the General Manager of Al Arabiya. This article was first published in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat on oct.16, 2011 and translated from Arabic by Abeer Tayel.)