The swapping of the roles between the symbols, wings and tools of the authority in Iran in a harmonious escalation against the project of union between the Arab Gulf states, topples the theory related to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's erring away from the higher Iranian policy determined by Guide Ali Khamenei. The parliamentary elections, which addressed a strong blow to the president's supporters, cost Ahmadinejad the foreign policy tampering card, which has used for a long time either by carrying out outbidding over the Guide's stringency or by provoking crises. This card is now without value. Moreover, the president relinquished his dream after he had claimed on several occasions that he wished to erase Israel from the map, thus angering the West and obstructing – via the escalation at the level of the nuclear file – the negotiations with the major states. And as soon as the door was reopened before negotiations over the file, Ahmadinejad revived the crisis of the occupation of the three Emirati islands, i.e. the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa islands. However, his visit to Abu Musa and his defiance of the Gulf states this time around, did not aim at serving internal political goals, while the Revolutionary Guard's bullying of the United Arab Emirates and all those who reject the Persian character of the Gulf, gave the impression that the Guide was acceptant of the course of escalation and confrontation. And as soon as the chapter of the Gulf union was opened (especially during the Riyadh summit last Monday), Iran moved to the second stage of the political confrontation with the GCC countries which were always addressed by Tehran with a superior and directing tone, applying on the regional level the same method it used throughout the Middle East – thus granting certificates of good conduct to the “nationals" and accusing all those who do not belong to them of treason. A few hours after the Bahraini Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires in Manama to protest against what was said at the Shura Council (parliament) in Tehran - especially by its Speaker Ali Larijani - the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council announced the staging of crowded protests tomorrow throughout Iran against the Gulf union project between the GCC member states, one which the Iranian wings are claiming is an attempt to annex Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. As to the Coordination Council's selection of provocative terms to call for the demonstrations, it blocks the way before any calm and proves that Iran has relinquished the gray area through which it insisted for years on the extension of the hand to the neighbors on the media level, while supplying organizations, parties and groups with financial and military aid under the cover of protecting the Shiites and the people's rights. Clearly, the Iranian command could not forget the blow seen in the dispatch of troops from the Peninsula Shield Force to Bahrain to stop the expansion of the turmoil in the country last year. And while it is not new that signals are pointing to an Iranian wish or instigation which fueled the protests in that Kingdom once again – maybe to alleviate the Arab pressures on Damascus and its suppression of the oppositionists by use of violence – Tehran cannot revamp or elude what was stated by Larijani. Indeed, the fact that he considered the Gulf union option to be a “Bedouin behavior" is not a mere slip of the tongue, but rather the public embodiment of an underlying wish to belittle the others out of arrogance and under the illusion of the monopolization of urbanism! Once again, one should recall the Iranian dichotomy in defending what Tehran dubs the rights of the Shiites in Bahrain, the classification of the oppositionists in Syria as being terrorists, the instigation against Gulf authorities, the defense of the Syrian regime and the use of the Houthis' card in Yemen under the headline of their legitimate demands, while Tehran's record with its oppositionists is known. Today, while confrontation in the Gulf is nearing the peak, Iran is disregarding the rejection of its threats by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and his call for the settlement of the issue of the Emirati islands as a condition for normalization with the GCC states, and unleashing the demands to “restore the Bahraini province" at the Shura Council. However, it is unlikely that the Gulf states will succumb to the conditions of the rowdy neighbor and relinquish the union plan, even if its birth were to be a few months late. It would be naïve to assume that the GCC will fall in an Iranian trap trying to trigger war, as soon as the nuclear program deal with the West is sealed, knowing that Tehran's optimism toward this deal is provoking suspicions among the Gulf populations. Hence, some still ask the difficult question: If Khamenei wants to play a role in the redrafting of the political map, what price would satisfy him in exchange for the low-enriched uranium and the taming of the regime in Damascus?
