Arab media unhappy with Obama Iran negotiations

Washington Free Beacon:

With Washington cozying up to Tehran as nuclear negotiations approach countdown stage, Arab media in the region are lashing out at the United States for jilting its Arab allies.

Unlike Israelis, who are focused on the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime calling for their country’s elimination, citizens of Arab states are concerned about Iran’s imperial ambitions. The nuclear threat is seen as a tool to further those ambitions rather than a direct threat.

Khaled Al-Dahil, a Saudi political commentator writing in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, said the Obama administration is allowing Iran and its Shiite militias to operate freely in Iraq and Syria in order to advance the signing of a nuclear agreement. “Why does Obama consider it necessary to reach such an agreement? Because his objective is to tie the Iranians’ hands for 10-15 years in hopes that by then Iran will have a new leadership and will become a different country—perhaps a democratic country with less of a desire for nuclear weapons. This perception is superficial and faulty because it is based on dreams that are more like delusions. He is gambling with the future of the region.”

Prominent Iranian figures have in recent days fed Arab fears by referring to Tehran’s imperial ambitions. The Saudi government daily, Al-Watan, noted in an editorial that the president of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, boasted that Iran now has a presence on the shores of the Mediterranean (in Lebanon, as patron of the Hezbollah militia) and on the Bab-el-Mandab Straits linking the Red Sea and the Suez Canal with the Indian Ocean by virtue of its proxies in Yemen, the Houthis, who have taken control of that country.
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While the White House babbles on about their "successful" strategy in Yemen, the Saudis are meeting with their Arab neighbors to plan an air campaign against the Iranian backed Houthis who are overrunning Yemen.  Some are saying that the battle for Saudi Arabia has just begun.  With the Muslim world sinking further into chaos, an Iran deal looks more like a distraction than an answer to the problems in the region.

Update:  The Saudi coalition has begun air operations in Yemen.