Iran does not miss an occasion to call the Arab Gulf countries to draft a joint security strategy. According to Tehran, this strategy is based on the fact that the region's security should be in the hands of its countries, and that any foreign military presence in the region is rejected. It also calls for entrusting the Iranian forces with filling the ensuing gap. Thus, Iran invests billions of dollars to boost its military power, both in terms of its soldiers and equipment. It also increases the land, sea, and air [military] maneuvers and tests missiles of various sizes, goals, and uses, in what depicts it as a primary and key power that is unparalleled to any other regional power. While the Gulf states announced that Iran is a regional party that has its legitimate interests in the region and stressed the need to deal with it on equal bases in order to secure everyone's interests, Tehran still refuses to offer any guarantees as to the region's security and the goals of its military and armament programs, particularly the nuclear ones. This makes any talk about its defense strategy in the region look like a call for others to join Iran and entrust it with their security and politics. Responding to the Gulf [officials'] requests for guarantees and reassurances, Tehran raises the issue of Israel's threat, in its capacity as their primary enemy, instead of fomenting a crisis with the Iranian neighbor. Iran criticizes the Gulf [officials] for stirring up fears over the Iranian expansion, at a time when Israel continues its aggression against the Arabs and the Palestinians and in other Arab places. When issues that directly pertain to the Iranian policy in the Gulf are raised, particularly the occupation of the Emirate islands and the flagrant interference in Iraq and suspicions of its interference in other countries – directly or indirectly – as well as its threats to add Arab countries [to its territories], Iran does not take any steps to eliminate these concerns. It contents itself with ordinary talk on good neighborliness and the common Israeli enemy, which further augments these concerns. The Iranian-Gulf relationship witnesses ups and downs, and involves hidden crises as well as lack of trust and increasing fears by the Gulf side over the Iranian military power and its goals in the region. In this sense, through its dialogue with the Gulf countries over a defense strategy, Iran wants them to recognize its military and political superiority and its right to be the decision maker in all the region's matters. It wants them to sign a carte blanche in this regard. But this dialogue remains pending and subjected to the experiments of power in the Gulf, whose countries refuse this concept for dialogue and consider that the foreign presence in the region is aimed at offsetting the Iranian expansion and the perturbing Iranian intentions…awaiting certain circumstances that make this dialogue equal and based on facts that possibly lead to mutual reassurances. This will almost literally be repeated in Lebanon, on the occasion of resuming the national dialogue. The most powerful side at the military level in the equation – Hezbollah in this case – is laying the foundations and bases of this dialogue. The party, which identifies with Iran and adheres to its policy, and which piles up arms and missiles and monopolizes the decision of using them, considers that any defense strategy for Lebanon does not concern its weapons. Rather, this strategy should be based on [these weapons], i.e. it becomes the primary power which other military forces follow at the military level. The other aspects of the strategy are based on the party's vision for the country, its people, and how to put them at the service of its military priority. Once again, like Iran's case in the Gulf, others' concerns and fears are abolished, considering that the enemy is Israel and that confronting the hostility of this enemy cannot be done without recognizing the party's power and priority. Others' fears over this power - which was daily used in domestic conflicts and manipulated to reshuffle domestic equations - are overlooked. [Hezbollah] imposes a fragile balance and impasse on the government's work, or threatens to hamper this work if the decision were not in the hands of the biggest power. As such, the [Lebanese] dialogue, just like its Iranian-Gulf counterpart, remains faced by ups and downs. This explains why the agreements reached during the first dialogue remained unimplemented, back then when international pressure was at its peak on Hezbollah before the July war. What the party accepted by force after the Syrian military withdrawal was cancelled by the subsequent developments with which the party regained its position as a key military power, one which others should follow and unrestrictedly endorse its program. Just like in the Gulf, it seems until now that the experience of power is still inconclusive at some point. Maybe we will have to wait for the results of the main experience of power in the Gulf.
