Somebody Indeed Should Tell

At a Pew Forum discussion on Iran and the Middle East last December, Vali Nasr, the Iran expert (and adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan), talked about the rise of Iran, and the marginalization of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nasr argued, convincingly, that most Arab states have a deeper interest in containing Iran than they do in containing Israel. “Once upon a time we used to think—and some people still do—that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the key to solving all the problems of the region: terrorism, al-Qaeda, Iran, and Iraq,” he said. “I think the Persian Gulf is the key to solving the Arab-Israeli issue. All the powers that matter—Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even the good news of the region: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc.—are all in the gulf. And all the conflicts that matter to us—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran—are in the gulf and then to the east.”