Despite the fact that the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States on American soil has been received with varying degrees of skepticism, nevertheless the Islamic Republic of Iran has been known to violate the sovereignty of other nations in the past. Even though the Iranian regime — which was established by the leader of the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini — adopted a stance of noninterference in the internal affairs of countries in the region, its clandestine activities in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Gaza Strip and Yemen say otherwise.
To start with, the continued occupation of the three United Arab Emirates islands in the Arab (Persian) Gulf, which include Tunb al−Kubra (the Greater Tunb), Tunb al−Sughra (the Lesser Tunb) and Abu Musa, goes against Iran's claim that it is championing other nations' aspiration to live free and independent of any sort of foreign influence or interference. Despite the fact that the aforementioned islands were occupied during the reign of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in 1971, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not only reject relinquishing control over the islands but has been taking steps to enforce its unilateral sovereignty over them and is drastically increasing its military presence there.
Along with such obvious imperial ambitions, the country's involvement in the Bahraini uprising is also suspect. Iran's involvement in the internal affairs of Bahrain and Iraq does not exactly coincide with the Bahrainis' and Iraqis' aspirations to establish democratic institutions, but rather, to realize the Iranian regime's agenda for the entire Gulf region. In this case I found myself in agreement with the notion expressed by Jordan's King Abdullah II regarding the Shi'a Crescent. According to this notion, Iran's penetration into the Arab world begins in southern Iraq and then goes through Syria to southern Lebanon, thus forming a crescent of Shi'a influence which is expanding to absorb surrounding Shi'a enclaves. Along with establishing such a crescent, which I regard as a beachhead into the center of the Arab world, Iran has been actively involved in the agitations among Shi'a minorities in the entire region, including the Houthis Zaidi Shi'a in Yemen and the Baharma Shi'a in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, most of whom concentrate in the provinces of Qatif, al−Ahsa and Dammam.
This brings me to Iran's role in today's Arab world and particularly in regards to the Arab Spring. While Iran is directly involved in the uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, the country seems to adopt a mostly hands−off approach concerning the revolutions in Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Iran's direct involvement with its ally Syria, which happens to be in the grip of the Alawite Shi'a minority, is another instance of how the moral campus of Iran changes direction and points towards an expedient political agenda instead. News about the escalating violence on either the Syrian national TV or the Iranian al−Alam TV clearly share the same newsfeed, which is none other than the Syrian propaganda machine. I am always at a loss when I watch the Iranian television's anchormen rehashing lies and fabrications manufactured by the Assad regime, knowing full well that by doing so they are actually participating in covering up the atrocities being perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own people. Despite being somewhat aloof regarding Libya's revolution, however, describing the Libyan situation as being a "War on Libya," according to the Iranian al−Alam Satellite TV as well as Iranian officials, is intentionally misleading. Using such a headline makes it sound like Libya is being attacked by NATO air forces rather than being protected by them. This is another example of how the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran deliberately forsakes its policy of noninterference for the sake of its narrow political agenda.
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