DAR AL ISLAM - IRAN: AHMADINEJAD SHOULD SETTLE DISPUTES AMONGST HIS OWN KIND, NOT IN SOUTH AMERICA

Ahmadinejad seeks Islamic unity in Saudi Arabia
By Farshid Motahari
dpa German Press Agency

Tehran- The state visits to countries like Venezuela,Nicaragua or Bolivia have not done much for Iran's President MahmoudAhmadinejad.

Critics at home charge that the disputes in which the president is embroiled - over Iran's controversial nuclear programme as well asits influence in Iraqi and Lebanese affairs - should be settled rightin the neighbourhood, and not in Latin America.

For this reason, observers consider Ahmadinejad's first officialtrip to Saudi Arabia, a key regional ally of the United States dominated by the Wahabi sect of Sunni Islam, as geopolitically very important.

Ahmadinejad has many times stressed that "the enemies of Islam"seek to sow "disunity among Muslims.

"Disunity among Shiites, Sunnis or Wahabis is indeed not what Ahmadinejad wants: to be isolated as a Shiite swimming against the stream of a Sunni majority within the Arabic world is something hecannot afford.

"More important than religion is race - Arabs and especially the Saudis consider Iran and Iranians not as their equals and therefore brand them as Ajam," a political analyst in Tehran said.

The term "Ajam" means non-Arab-speaker but is rather used for"alien."

The Saudis are furthermore a close ally of Iran's arch-enemythe US and like many other Arab states would not want to see an Iran-like Islamic model in their own country.

But the current crisis forces both countries - at least in the short-term - to forget about religious and racial differences.

In Iraq a civil war could break out between the Shiite majorityand Sunni minority which none of the two sides could eventually win.

"Such a situation would just benefit the Zionists (Israel),"Ahmadinejad says.

The pro-Iran Shiite Hezbollah group in Lebanon is increasing its influence against Sunnis but at the same time, the Palestinians prefer to settle their differences in Mecca despite financial aid funnelled by Tehran to the ruling Hamas group.

Also Iran's atomic programme has caused concern in Saudi Arabiaand other Arab Gulf states.

Although the Arabs claim that Iran should have the right to pursuecivil nuclear technology in accordance with the Non-ProliferationTreaty, none of the Arab leaders would like to see an atomic bomb in the hands of the "Ajams."

However Ahmadinejad's rhetoric that Iranian nuclear technologywould benefit the whole region might find some approval in Riyadh,according to observers.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Ahmadinejad seeks Islamic unity in Saudi Arabia By Farshid Motahari