Cold peace flawed, GCC should be part of any new deal with Iran

Will the US step back after coming this close to confrontation with Iran? That would depend on a tactical show of force and smart diplomacy that involves the GCC. The military-clerical regime in Tehran appears to be using the tense situation to consolidate power on the back of public distress and deprivation. Having lived in Dubai for some 13 years, the first time I heard such threats issued was back in 2010. Some noises were also made in 2015 before the now defunct nuclear deal was signed between the US, France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union (P5+1) and Iran.
In 2010, Tehran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of global oil is transported annually when limited sanctions had begun to bite the regime and its ability to do business with the world. The US sent in the same carrier fleet led by the USS Abraham Lincoln that has also been sent recently (a B52 bomber squadron gives it air superiority over the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' forces many times over).
It was a show of force then, it's a show of force now, almost nine years later. And it was pretty impressive back then, I can tell you, because I was on that mission with our Photo Editor Kiran Prasad. We were flown to the USS Abraham Lincoln, a massive nuclear-powered carrier that carried 5,000 troops and armaments. It looked like a floating city primed for war, I remember telling Kiran who was struck by sea sickness from the moment we landed with a bump on the carrier's vast flight deck that must have been the size of two football fields.
But we managed to get some good shots of the US Navy in action: F-18 Hornets taking off from close quarters; drones, heavy machine guns, landing craft, the works. I can say that I've been in the thick of mock action, and have seen how the largest military in the world operates to keep a key maritime chokepoint open. It's clear that Iran is no match for US forces in the Middle East but it beats me why the Iran Revolutionary Guards are itching for a fight? Why brag about military prowess when you cannot win?
The American Fifth Fleet has a base in Bahrain and the airforce flies from several airbases in the region. The US has a military budget of $686 billion, Iran a mere $20 billion, and even that is drying up as economic sanctions hit them hard.
So this Iran stalemate comes to a head every five years with the same fears of escalation, tensions, risks, miscalculation - choice words of columnists, policy experts, military strategists, and reporters to describe the situation. A crisis is brewing, they tell you with all seriousness and experience at their disposal. It stems from the same script - the US tightens sanctions, Iran responds with threats. Washington sends in some major deployments. But what's different this time is that Iran allegedly hit commercial shipping in international waters which can be construed as an act of war. This is where things could get serious.
When the nuclear deal was inked in 2015, I wrote that the GCC, the real stakeholders for peace and security in the region were kept out. They should have been at the table, but the West and others overrode their concerns and went ahead with a deal by outsiders. The agreement only provided a temporary respite from nuclear blackmail for 10 years. A naive US under former president Barack Obama and his secretary of state John Kerry, prodded on by Europe, saw some money to be made from Iran selling oil again and kickstarting the economy. It was a reward for bad behaviour from the regime that hadn't changed its revolutionary stripes since 1979 when it came to power.
The West was more concerned about the rise of Daesh that it took its eyes off the hub of terror - Iran. Obama preferred a 'cold peace' in the region than a open war which would have been catastrophic. "The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians, which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, requires us to say to our friends, as well as to the Iranians, that they need to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood and institute some sort of cold peace," Obama told The Atlantic. Here was a president who was safeguarding his legacy during his final term that he simply wanted to cut and run.
The Obama administration and Europe must shoulder most of the blame for putting the region in peril by courting a sectarian regime that is grounded in ideology. I had warned in an edit that an axis of influence with Iran at the centre was emerging in the Middle East. I was right.
The Trump administration rightly tore up the nuclear agreement for what it was - the appeasement of a military-religious dictatorship - and exited last year. Tehran was given importance for being a state sponsor of terror under the terms of the old deal. Now it has now been brought down to earth, its limitations and frustrations laid bare.
No future deal is possible without the Gulf countries, the country's neighbours across the Arabian Gulf. A cold peace, as envisaged by Obama, is both unacceptable and untenable, and Trump understands that. What the GCC wants from Iran is comprehensive peace. For that to happen, the rules of the covert military game now being played by the regime will have to be rewritten through diplomacy or use of force.
allan@khaleejtimes.com