This afternoon on MSNBC, Mark Whitaker said of Hillary's speech that some Arab states care more about Iran than they do about the peace process–that they seek American pressure to stop Iranian nukes more than pressure to resolve the Israel/Palestinian conflict. (Don't have a transcript, sorry.)
I hear this line regularly and asked a smart friend who studies the Arab states. He said that Whitaker was imbibing pro-Israel propaganda. Yes, the Arab states care about nuclear disarmament, but the chief concern is Israel.
The famed Sunni-Israeli alliance against Iran is a lot of wishful thinking. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and much of the Gulf are certainly concerned about Iran's hegemonic intentions and they do worry about what they see as Iran's inflated notions of its proper place in the region. And they do not want Iran to have a bomb. But that is not the same thing as wanting a military strike or other precipitous actions when the blowback will undermine regional stability and widen the gaps being rulers and ruled. When one considers how dependent much of the Gulf, in particular the UAE, is on Iranian trade it is crazy to believe they would be interested in aggressively taking on the Islamic Republic of Iran. And, priority number one for these states is a real peace process regardless. They would never give precedence to Iran issues at the expense of issues with Israel. If there is any linkage it is the reverse. The Egyptians and Saudis really do detest the Iranians but they aren't suicidal.
