U.S. divide and rule no more… Washington’s Gulf allies embrace Iran, by Finian Cunningham

There has been an historic rapprochement between Shia Iran and the Sunni Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia. China gets the credit, and the U.S. has egg on its face and the blow up of a strategy that had “worked” for decades. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.su:

The days of Washington and its Western minions playing divide and rule are over because they have discredited themselves irreparably.

In a sign of major geopolitical realignment, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states sent warm congratulations to Iran on its newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Saudi King Salman welcomed the news of Iran’s election winner last weekend and said he hoped that the two Persian Gulf nations would continue developing their relations “between our brotherly people”.

That olive branch from Saudi Arabia to Iran is an unprecedented diplomatic development – one that will trigger alarm in Washington whose primary goal in the Middle East has been to isolate Iran from its neighbors.

There were similar cordial official messages from Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain. Together with Saudi Arabia, these oil-rich states comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). There is much talk now of the Gulf Arab bloc normalizing relations with its Persian neighbor.

For his part, President Pezeshkian – a heart surgeon by profession – says he wants to prioritize peaceful regional relations.

For decades, since the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Gulf Arab states have viewed the Islamic Republic with deep suspicion and hostility. For one thing, there is the sectarian tension between Shia Islam as professed mainly by Iran and the Sunni Islam that dominates the Gulf Arab states.

There is also the visceral fear among the Arab monarchies that the revolutionary politics espoused by Iran might infect their masses thereby threatening the rigid autocracies and their system of hereditary rule. The fact that Iran holds elections stands in stark contrast to the Gulf kingdoms ruled by royal families. So much for President Joe Biden’s mantra about the U.S. supposedly supporting democracy over autocracy.

The United States and its Western allies, in particular, the former colonial power Britain, have exploited the tensions in the Persian Gulf to exercise a divide-and-rule policy. The British are past masters at playing the sectarian game in all their former colonies from Ireland to Myanmar and everywhere in between, including the Middle East.

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