Iran's Nefarious Plans for the Gulf

By Olivier Guitta

I just wrote a piece for the Middle East Times looking at how Iran has been encircling the Gulf.
You can read it in full here.

Here is an excerpt:
Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently set off a hot controversy. The influential Sunni cleric, a regular on Al-Jazeera, stated that "Shiites are heretics and their danger comes from their attempts to invade Sunni society." Interestingly enough this is far from just a religious debate, because it actually encompasses the fear that Sunni Gulf states feel regarding Shiite Iran's expansion.

In the context of a very tensed geopolitical situation in the Gulf, Qaradawi warned: "We should protect Sunni society from the Shiite invasion…. I am only trying to preempt the threat before it gets worse. If we let Shiites penetrate Sunni societies, the outcome won't be praiseworthy. The presence of Shiites in Iraq and Lebanon is the best evidence of instability."

This declaration is clearly aimed at Iran's threat to the region. While numerous examples of Iran's strategy of penetration of Gulf societies have surfaced in the past few years, new reports are quite worrisome.

Just two weeks ago, Adel al-Assadi, the former Iranian ambassador to the UAE told Gulf News that since 1979 Iran has assembled a force of infiltrators and collaborators who are ready to destabilize the region when needed.

Assadi specifically pointed out the danger represented by elements trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are in a sleeper mode until they are activated by Tehran.

TrackBack