Finally, some good news out of the MENA! This is the first time the Arab League has ever sent a delegation to Israel.
What will/can this achieve? Will Palestinian independence be on the table? The Golan Heights? Arab states’ support for Hamas?
Of course, this does nothing directly for Israel’s relations with Iran, which is not an Arab country.
Well, I’m too cynical to be optimistic about much of anything, but there’s no-one there Israel won’t talk to, so I guess it can’t hurt. Note, though, that it’s only the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan - with which we already have full relations - are coming. If an official Saudi envoy were arriving, that would be news.
Heh. In fact, this is probably all happening because the League is terrified of Iran.
Why? What threat does Iran pose to Arab states? (To Iraq, perhaps, but the Iranians couldn’t make anything worse there if they tried.)
Is this a whoosh?
-XT
I don’t think Iran has ever made threatening moves against SA or the Gulf States. It’s putting feelers into Iraq, but SFW?
The entire reason that the Gulf States backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war was because they were afraid of increased Iranian influence in the Gulf and Iran spreading revolution and violence there.
They’ve been scared of Iran since the Iranian Revolution.
Actually, that scenario formed the plot of Richard A. Clarke’s novel, The Scorpion’s Gate. (CS thread.)
I dunno. Revolutionary zeal in Iran has long since faded, and if they try to inspire something similar among the Shi’ites of the Gulf States and SA, they might stir up something too hot to handle: The prospect of a united Arab Shi’a state that would include Iran’s restive province of Khuzestan.
The Gulf States are terrified of Iran, with its larger population and fundamentalist (Shi’a) religious state. The feelers as you put it in Iraq are only the tip of the ice berg BG…you really need to re-evaluate what you think you know about Iran and its relationships in the ME. Think about the recent dust up in Lebanon with Israel and Iran’s role there…or look at things from Saudi’s viewpoint wrt Iran, its size, government type…and RELIGIOUS orientation.
As for the OP, I’m pretty much with Alessan on this (as I usually am with all things involving Israel :))…its pretty much a meh. Egypt and Jordan ALREADY have good relations with Israel (the best in the region)…so unless they are bringing in some stuff under the table from some of Israel’s less friendly neighbors I’m not seeing anything to get worked up over.
-XT
I think it’s the Shi’a rather than the fundamentalist thing that has SA concerned - they have a substantial Shi’a minority.
I could be wrong here, but I think its the combination of Shi’a FUNDAMENTALISTS that have their panties in a twist…and a nation state controlled by such a group. Its got to put SUNNI fundamentalists (and even Sunni moderates) into a cold sweat…
The point is that SA, as well as several of Iran’s other neighbors are and have been sort of looking across the fence as if there is a rabid wolf over there since, oh, about late 1978 or so…
-XT
In case you want to claim that it was “only an editor”, the press in Iran is not free. It only prints policy statements that meet with the approval of the mullahs who run Iran.
Saudi Arabia has a sort of status quo relationship with Israel, being that they are the linchpins of American foreign policy in the Middle-East. They have a sort of proxy alliance in that they are both allied with the United States. There isn’t much need for Saudi Arabia to make peace with Israel. They speak platitudes about hating Israel for the masses, and then step in line with the big money corporate interests that concern their western patronage.
Iran as a regional power is extremely overrated. They have one natural resource, which they lack the capacity to refine adequately themselves. Other than that, Iran’s economy is entirely dependent upon it’s being a central trade route, and the complicated oil shipping deals that get oil between China, Russia, and India.
Iran has a fancy military comparatively to it’s neighbors other than Pakistan which gets a lot of weapons from the US, but that weaponry could be taken out within a week by the two US carrier fleets that are sitting off of its coast, and if need be the third one off the coast of Africa that could get there within a couple of days, and probably can strike Iran as it is. Of course Iran wants power over the Shia population worldwide, of course they would, they are the ‘true’ Islam descended from the prophet Muhammed himself, peace be unto him. 
They significantly lack the resources to be a serious threat. Using proxy militias in other states is about the best they can do.
Ambassadors from Egypt and Jordan don’t really mean much, but then again, neither does the ‘Arab League’. I don’t think Egypt and Jordan are particularly terrified by Iran. Certainly the KSA has a religious interest in containing Shia power, as it wants to maintain its position as the seat of Islam in the world. The KSA, in theory would like to see the third holiest city in Islam come under Arab control. They would also like to see Arabs remain dominant over Persians, but I think Iran is fairly well contained.
Iran is extremely weak. It doesn’t have very much juice to really pursue any imperial ambitions, and it is not that difficult to contain their imperial ambitions as long as the United States has a gun to its head. The strongest cards that Iran has are Russia and China who want to see Iran continue to function that their economic interests there may be protected. China gets a lot of its oil and natural gas from Iran, and Russia sends a lot of it through Iranian pipelines to various countries around Iran. Iran is also a big consumer of both country’s weapons.
Due to ‘Axis of Evil’ propaganda, we’ve seriously inflated the cards that Iran is holding. Everyone is interested in containing Iran, but Iran is not a serious threat. The most serious threat of any Muslim country is Pakistan, which has nukes, shelters Al Qaeda, and AQ Khan.