| Iran’s involvement in Iraq has been the catalyst of public anti-Shi’a and anti-Iranian sentiment.
In December 2004, King Abdullah of Jordan warned about the danger of an Iranian-driven
“Shi’a crescent” emerging across the Middle East.19 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak echoed
these sentiments in an interview with the Dubai-based, Saudi owned news channel alArabiyya, stating that “most of the Shi’as are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are
living in.” 20
The Arab “moderate” states’ responses to Iran’s growing soft power adopted a more religious
frame following the Lebanon War of 2006. Officials and religious leaders expressed concerns
privately21 about Sunnis converting to Shi’ism, and media in Jordan and Egypt warned of Shi’a
proselytizing in these staunchly Sunni countries.22 This strategy and perception was given
religious credibility when al-Azhar criticized the number of the pro-Shi’a books in Egypt and
warned of the threat of conversion to Shi’ism.23 Finally, the editor of a pro-regime (Egyptian)
periodical, Ruz al-Yusuf, even warned the (secular) elite that they needed to awaken to the
Shi’a threat.24
But these fears, expressed as warnings, should not be taken literally. The concern about the Shi’a
threat projected from Iran, as it was expressed at the time, was not necessarily that everyone
would soon be Shi’a. Rather, the concern was there would be much wider political conversion to
what are now considered Shi’a causes—resistance against Israel and support of Hezbollah and
Hamas.25 Understood by incumbent regimes in a zero-sum context, the increasing support for
Iranian foreign policies presents one of the biggest domestic challenges for Arab regimes aligned
with the US. |
