Pull together!

By Gamal Salama

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How does the row over Iran's nuclear programme affect Arab national security? Some say that the US is handling the crisis in a way that could severely undermine Arab security, as a US strike against Iran would obviously be in Israel's interest. Others in this region seem more concerned about Iranian nukes that don't exist than Israeli nukes that do. This is puzzling. So let me ask you this: Are we being threatened by Iran, or by the US handling of the crisis? Another question: Which countries do we believe are under threat from Iran? Is Iran trying to bully its neighbours across the Gulf, or is it trying to flex its muscles across the region?

We need to think long and hard about US intentions. The US is making choices about actions that would affect everyone in this region. US foreign policy, and its underlying intentions, has never been more relevant to the future of our countries.

At another point of time, we would have been talking about the Iranian-US crisis in a collective manner. Now, it seems, every country is thinking alone. Every so often an Arab official mentions the "challenges" facing the region without specifying the response we should offer. We've been reduced to reacting to major events in an individual manner. I am not sure what must be done about that, but let me tell you this: Arab national security is a collective manner, not the sum of the security of individual states. We're all in the same boat here.

This week's Soapbox speaker is a professor of political science at the Suez Canal University.