MAEENA Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must never have read Dale Carnegie's “How to win friends and influence people”. And if he has, then he must not have understood it or perhaps read a poor translation. Not content with the fact that his country has gradually emerged as a pariah among nations thanks to the belligerent policies of its government, Ahmadinejad added more fuel to a tinderbox, only steps removed from an explosion, by visiting the island of Abu Musa, an island that was placed under joint administration with Sharjah, now part of the UAE. And to add fuel to the fire, Ahmadinejad continued to provoke his Gulf neighbors with a tirade of claims and allegations. He claimed that past documents proved “the Persian Gulf is Persian”, and that the name Persian Gulf was derived from the “culture, civilization and the dominant opinion” in the region. “Since a few thousand years ago, the main culture in most of the world was the Iranian culture and civilization, and it is clear that the naming (of the waterway) would be based on the name of this culture and land. I am not worried about some claims to the Persian Gulf at all, because only one who is weak would be worried”, Ahmadinejad said. The UAE foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, immediately responded to the Iranian President's inflammatory words by expressing dismay at the “provocative rhetoric that only served to expose Iran's false allegations regarding its keenness to establish good relations... with the UAE and countries of the region”. He countered that the Iranian president's actions were contrary to the recent steps being taken “when the two countries agreed to exert more joint efforts” to settle their differences. In urging Iran “to take measures and stances that strengthen confidence between countries and people of the region and refrain from such provocative” shows of defiance, the UAE foreign minister added that “the visit to the island of Abu Musa was a gross breach of this agreement”. Countries of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) joined in with their displeasure at Ahmadinejad's blatant provocation of a member nation, calling it a “violation of UAE sovereignty”. GCC foreign ministers are meeting in Doha to review this latest act of provocation. Iran has not been a stable neighbor in recent times, and such actions further undermine the climate of peace in the region. At a time when Iran should be cultivating friends and making its intentions transparent in the region, with Ahmadinejad at the helm, it seems to be doing the exact opposite. Perhaps he sincerely believes in his invincibility, but history should have taught him otherwise. His failure to understand the political climate of the area is doing his own people a great disservice, by subjecting them to stifling economic and political sanctions. Even moderate Iranian political leaders who have been calling for a policy of meaningful rapprochement with Iran's Arab neighbors are not amused by this latest political blunder. At a time when debates are taking place over the legality of a US or Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iranian president appears to be publicly pounding his chest as if issuing a challenge to the world. It is a shame that 74 million Iranians, the majority of whom live in urban areas, are constantly subjected to the threat of an attack because of their government's aggressive policies. Perhaps it's time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took a leaf out of the book of diplomacy of former Iranian president, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who stated that “Iran wouldn't be in its current straits if it had maintained better relations with Saudi Arabia”. That would go a long way in curing Ahmadinejad of his foot-in-mouth disease and would help his country develop more harmonious relations with its neighbors. (The author can be reached at [email protected]) __
