The typical and predictable Gulf dialogue 21, February 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, The Gulf.Tags: Gulf States, Iran, Iran and the Gulf States, Iran threats, Kuwait parliament
add a comment
Overall, there seem to be but two types of comments that come from Arab Gulf leaders about Iran. Either Iran is being castigated for spreading fear, threatening its smaller neighbours and generally acting like a regional bully or Iran is portrayed as a country with justifiable rights to enrichment which has a close and interlinked history with its neighbouring states.
After a visit of Qatar’s Crown Prince to Iran last month, he came out with a statement of the latter. He highlighted Iran and Qatar’s common interests and stated that Iran was “a strategic force in the region”. Stating the obvious it may be, but it is still interesting.
A perfect example of the opposite comes, rather unsurprisingly, from the loud-mouth Kuwaiti Parliament. A conservative Parliamentarian castigated Iran’s Parliament speaker Ali Larinjani for implicitly threatening the Gulf countries in a statement saying that US bases in Arab countries must not be used for an attack on Iran.
The Gulf blog 