“We can replace U.S. as guarantor of regional security”

Iran has proposed a regional cooperation council that
would focus on military and security cooperation.

A former senior Iranian official told a Gulf conference that Teheran and its new ally, Iraq, could help their Gulf Arab neighbors in regional security.Hussein Mousavian, a former director of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, said the proposed panel could replace the U.S. military presence that protected Gulf Cooperation Council states.

“If there was a regional cooperation system rather than the GCC, then this situation of regional cold war between the Iran and GCC would have never happened,” Mousavian told the Manama Dialogue on Dec. 8.

Addressing the audience that contained GCC military and security commander, Mousavian, one of two Iranian delegates, said Baghdad and Teheran have become major actors in Gulf security. He said an alliance with Gulf Arab states would reduce suspicion toward the Teheran regime and its nuclear program.

“It’s time we focus on rise of terrorism and extreme ideologies under the banner of Al Qaida in the region including Syria, which is all spilling to neighbors,” Mousavian said. “This will result in different Sunni factions and fuel the sectarianism in the Gulf.”

Mousavian, now a researcher at Princeton University, said the Western nuclear agreement with Iran could pave the way to ease GCC tension with Teheran. He said the goal of the region was to reduce or eliminate the military presence of the United States and other world powers in the Gulf.

The Middle East continues to be in a state of turmoil as global powers dominate this vulnerable region,” Mousavian said. “The situation has further exasperated with tensions between the United States and Iran for over three decades now because of which neither the West, Iran nor the Arab world has succeeded in achieving their goals.”