{"id":20113,"date":"2018-10-28T05:24:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T05:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20113"},"modified":"2018-10-28T05:24:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T05:24:00","slug":"petraeus-why-the-world-must-curb-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20113","title":{"rendered":"Petraeus: Why the world must curb Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nMANAMA: If anyone understands the consequences of Iranian involvement in Middle East affairs, David Petraeus does.<\/p>\n

\nBefore becoming director of the CIA in 2011, Petraeus was a four-star general with a glittering 37-year in the US military; he has commanded US and coalition forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and as head of US Central Command he led all US military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt.<\/p>\n

\nWhich is why, if anyone is suspicious of attempts to preserve the 2015 deal that was supposed to curb Iran\u2019s nuclear program, and to dilute the effects of US sanctions on Iran \u2014 as some European countries would like to do \u2014 David Petraeus is.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Europeans focused on the strengths of the agreement and would like to continue it,\u201d he says. \u201cI would have some understanding for that, were it not for the fact that I\u2019ve been on battlefields where American, coalition and Iraqi soldiers have been killed by lethal weapons and ammunition provided by Iran, along with funding. \u201cIran is a country \u2026 that pushes until there is firm pushback. I think that you are now seeing an American administration that is willing to push back very firmly. It has, with the additional defense spending and robust economic growth, a stronger foundation from which to push back and renew partnerships with its allies in the Gulf.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPetraeus, now chairman of the KKR Global Institute, is a key speaker at the Manama Dialogue, the annual security conference in Bahrain organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. As the Nov. 4 deadline draws near for the reimposition of US sanctions on Iran\u2019s energy sector, including its crucial oil trade, Iranian influence and its threat to the region was a major focus of the conference.<\/p>\n

\nPetraeus says: \u201cIran has continued its support for lethal activities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other places. It has continued the threatening missile program developments and a variety of different activities that indicated it did not want to take advantage of the opportunity that it had to capitalize on this nuclear deal.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWill they continue their destabilizing activity? I think they will for some time, but at a certain point they\u2019ll realize that this is a different administration that is going to be unyielding in its position on these sanctions. It may then be willing to come back to the table and recognize that it cannot get away with what is clearly unacceptable activities in the region and in the eyes of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIn truth, Iran wants to \u2018Lebanonize\u2019 not just Lebanon, but Iraq, perhaps Syria, and other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPetraeus says there is ample evidence that Iran has armed, trained, funded and equipped powerful militias on the streets to give it clout on the ground. That becomes clear when some members of these militias are represented in their countries\u2019 parliaments, as has happened in Lebanon and to some degree in Iraq.<\/p>\n

\nAddressing the conference on Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir referred to the 12 demands that the US has made of Iran before normal relations can be considered, demands that were laid out by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in May.<\/p>\n

\n
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\nThe second plenary session of Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain on Saturday.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nPetraeus, of course, knows Al-Jubeir well from the minister\u2019s time as the Saudi Ambassador to the US from 2007 to 2015. \u201cI have enormous respect for the Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, as I worked with him very closely when he was the ambassador,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe was one of a less than a handful of ambassadors who could come and see me in the CIA at any time, and I would always speak with him. Always, it was a guarantee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPetraeus believes Saudi Arabia will play a major and pivotal role once the new US sanctions on Iranian oil take effect. He believes the Kingdom must bring its own additional capacity online to stabilize the market, as it has pledged to do.<\/p>\n

\nThough Iran does play a major role in creating chaos and instability in the region, Petraeus believes it has become a common denominator in the region\u2019s relationships with other countries in the world.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think Iran is the unifying force in the Gulf,\u201d he says. \u201cIt has done something no other activity or interest could do \u2014 it has brought together just about all the countries in the region, and frankly it has led to an improvement in the relationship between Gulf states and Israel.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s not a formal relationship, there\u2019s no diplomatic recognition yet, but the \u2018enemy of my enemy is my friend\u2019 \u2014 except in Syria where it\u2019s not necessarily the case, one reason why that is such a complex situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANAMA: If anyone understands the consequences of Iranian involvement in Middle East affairs, David Petraeus does. Before becoming director of the CIA in 2011, Petraeus was a four-star general with a glittering 37-year in the US military; he has commanded US and coalition forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and as head of US Central…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}