Iran is Islamic… but it’s an enemy

If the “Operation Decisive Storm” is a military action directed against the Houthis, it is political directly against Iran. That is to say that Iran’s presence in the Arabian Peninsula, under whatever cover, is absolutely rejected in the language of common sense, history and politics as well as in the language of force. There was no justification for such presence and there will never be.

Why Iran? And why now? Since the American invasion of Iraq, and the Iranian conniving with it, a question started being raised within political and media circles in view of the events taking place in the region about Iran’s role in these events. The question was: Is Iran the enemy or Israel? The question used to be raised in conjunction with any interventions in the region. This kind of deliberation began within some media outlets which were sympathetic to, or directly linked to, the Iranian policy, especially in Lebanon.

Some went farther than that by playing the tune that there are those who wish to replace the enemy from Israel to Muslim Iran. Some writers and politicians, both nationalists and liberals, as well as clerics and orators took part in these deliberations within Syria and Lebanon more than anywhere else. Then the same debate intensified after the Syrian revolution and the rising Iranian role that is opposed to this revolution.

Iran’s allies in the Levant are the ones who raised this question. They meant it to ensure a blind eye was turned towards what Iran is doing because it is hoisting the banner of “resistance and opposition”. But what has resistance got to do with fomenting and encouraging destructive sectarianism in Iraq and Syria? Will that lead to the liberation of Palestine? And what is Iran’s interest in the eruption and feeding of sectarianism in Palestine and the Arab world?

Perhaps it is about time we admitted that the actual question raised by Iran’s allies in the Levant as to whether the Persian Islamic state or Israel is the enemy is a valid question. The question is indeed puzzling. How could it be, and according to what standard, that an Islamic state is seen as the enemy of the Arabs who happen to be the backbone of Islam, as the second rightly guided Caliph said? Because the matter has to do with Islamic states, values and interests, it is necessary to recall a Quranic verse that has to do with the subject. The verse in Surat Al-Taghabun says: “O you who have believed, indeed, among your wives and your children are enemies to you, so beware of them.”

The significance of this verse with regard to our subject is obvious. If a person could have enemies from among one’s children and spouses within the framework of relations and marriage which represent the strongest of social bonds and the closest of all associations, enmity is then possible, and is more likely, among parties that are of lower levels of associations. This is only common sense. Yet, the question remains: What is the standard according to which a spouse or a child may become an enemy according to the text of the verse?

In his book of tafsir (interpretation of the Quran), Al-Qurtubi interprets the meaning of this verse by quoting Al-Qadi Abu Bakr Al-Arabi as saying: “This [the text of the verse] explains the type of enmity. The enemy is not an enemy by nature but by action. So, when the spouse or the child acts the way an enemy acts, then they become enemies.” (Al-Qurtubi, Al-Jami’ li Ahkam Al-Qur’an, part 18, page 93).

The idea is quite clear. The enemy is either an enemy by nature and by person or an enemy by action even though as a person he or she may not be in essence an enemy. This rule applies absolutely to the cases of Iran and Israel and their individual relations with the Arabs.

On this basis, and in accordance with what is happening in the region, Iran is an enemy to the Arabs not in person but by its actions and its practices which happen to be the actions and practices of an enemy. For example, Iran is the one who brought to the Arab world the worst of what it possesses, while this world has not gone to it with anything at all.

Iran did not come (to the Arabs) with development, or with political dialogue or democracy nor with the liberation of Palestine. It came with the language of violence, with militias and with overt intervention in some of the Arab states using the principle of the coalition of minorities in order to stir up sectarian sentiments and to encourage violence and conflict in these states.

It intervened in Iraq on the side of the majority against the minority (assuming that such a designation is correct) and in Syria on the side of the minority against the majority. In both cases, Iranian intervention led to the eruption of the most vicious types of sectarian violence, killing people on the basis of their identity and the establishment of the state upon sectarian foundations never known before, neither in Iraq nor in Syria.

Is it possible in this case to ignore the fact that such policies and actions indicate that Iran deals with the Arabs with enmity that an eye cannot mistake? Is it right in light of this that the ugliness of the Israeli model is brought up only to camouflage the ugliness of the Iranian action model?

Iran considers the Arabs to be its enemies politically in Iraq and the Levant and doctrinally across the length and breadth of the Arab world. It does so because the overwhelming majority of the Arabs happen to be Sunnis. This is evident from three interlinked characteristics of the regional role of Iran. The first characteristic is that it is the first Islamic state in history to specify its doctrinal identity (Twelver Shi’ism) using written and binding constitutional texts. In that sense, Iran is like Israel, which – like Iran – considers the religious dimension a central element in determining its identity. Just as Iran considers the Shia doctrine to be the fundamental pillar of its ideological identity, so does Israel consider itself a Jewish state and insists upon recognising this sectarian identity as a condition for any peaceful settlement with the Palestinians and the Arabs.

Second, Iran is the first Islamic state to institutionalise sectarianism in the constitution rendering it a mandatory framework for the political process internally within Iran as well as at the level of the region. On the inside, the legislative process is subject to two governing articles in the constitution: article 12, which states that “Iran’s official religion is Islam and the Jaafari Twelver doctrine…” and that “this article is immutable for ever.”

The political and legal implications of this article are complemented by article 72 that prevents the Shura Council from “legislating laws that contravene the rules and provisions of the state’s official doctrine or the constitution.” Then, the doctrinal frameworks and specifications of the political process are complemented with article 115 that stipulates that those permitted to run for the post of President of the Republic should “believe and have conviction in the principles of the Islamic Republic and the state’s official doctrine”. In other words, according to this article, an Iranian not affiliated to the Twelver doctrine and who does not believe in the authority of the jurist cannot run for the post of President of the Republic.

Of course Iran has the right to determine its own identity and to outline the parameters of its own political process in this way. But this right is limited to its geographic and constitutional borders and Iran does not abide by this. To the contrary, it has worked and is working for the exportation of its sectarian formula to its Arab neighbours.

Here comes the third characteristic, namely that Iran is the first state in the region that introduced sectarian militias as a political mechanism beyond its own borders and as a lever for its regional role, adopting it officially, directly and openly, in terms of training, funding and arming. In fact all Iran’s allies in the Arab world belong to the doctrine pointed out in the aforementioned article 12. What is truly noteworthy is that all the militias adopted by Iran are exclusively Arab Shias and in Arab countries. Iran does not accept the idea of the presence of militias on its own territories, nor does it approve of the affiliation of its own citizens to these militias.

Why does Iran adhere to this policy? Perhaps the answer is to be found in what was said last year by Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufaili, the first secretary-general of Hizbullah, speaking on LBC satellite channel: “The Arab Shias are the fuel of Iran’s imperial ambitions. No matter what, the distinction of Iran’s role by virtue of these characteristics and Iran’s insistence on exporting its sectarian formula and on imposing the terrorist militias constitute an act of aggression that is void of any legal legitimacy or consideration for the interests of the neighbourhood.”

Yet, there is an important lesson to be derived from the standard set by Abu Bakr Al-Arabi and the application of this to the Iranian and Israeli cases. The fact that Israel is an enemy state in person and not just by action has formed a solid psychological and political fence barring it from penetrating into the Arab cultural and political fabric. Israel is still and will always be rejected by the Arab popular conscience. On the other hand, the fact that Iran is an Islamic state has made it easy for it to intervene in the Arab countries and to propagate destructive notions and policies as we have been seeing in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

As a matter of record, this role started years before the Arab Springs started and has continued and escalated after the Springs. Iran did not come to the Arab world through the door of neighbourly and Islamic belonging or even competition and the right to a legitimate regional role. It came through other doors that destroy the notion of neighbours, that cast doubt on the significance of an Islamic belonging and that give priority to blood and demolition over construction and competition.

The truth of the matter, in all clarity, is that Iran did not come to the Arab world but forced itself into it from the back, in secret and in the open, with promises at times, with lies and threats at other times and with violence, assassinations, murder, sectarianism and militias at other times.

There can be no more hostile actions than these, actions that threaten the stability of states and the social and political cohesion of societies. Since Iran is the one who initiated these actions and policies, putting a limit to it and to its destructive actions begins within Tehran but does not end there.

Iran’s animosity does not exempt the Arab states from their responsibility for allowing such practices to spill into their societies. The first and most mandatory action these states should undertake is staying away from going along with Iran in playing the sectarian card. They should, instead, pull away and completely neutralise this card. Our current predicament is that Iran has a sectarian project while the Arab states do not have a project that is able to expose the Iranian project and raze it to the ground. From this angle, it would seem that Iran’s animosity is obvious. The Arab inaction and failure is no less obvious. And this does indeed require further elucidation on another occasion.

Translated from Al-Hayat, 5 April 2015.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.