The risk of aligning against Iran

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir was using all the “right” words in attacking rival Iran at a global security conference in Munich, Germany, on Sunday – and found ample support for his sentiments, including from at least one unlikely source.
Calling the Shiite government of Iran the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, al-Jubeir accused Tehran of trying to further destabilise the Middle East and called on the international community to draw clear lines in the sand to contain Iran’s regional ambitions. He suggested banking, travel and trade restrictions to curtail Iran’s economic clout.
Tehran must be punished for supporting the Syrian government and financing separatists in Yemen, al-Jubeir said. Iran is “determined to upend the order in the Middle East ... [and] until and unless Iran changes its behaviour, it would be very difficult to deal with a country like this”.
It’s interesting to see how dramatically circumstances have shifted for Iran in the course of just one year. Twelve months ago it had much of the world’s admiration for ceding to a nuclear-development deal brokered by the United States. Now, thanks mainly to the dire situation in Syria, Iran is again widely regarded as a pariah, so much so that Saudi Arabia and Israel are being friendly towards one another on the issue.
At the same conference in Munich, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for dialogue between his country and Arab nations with an eye to reining in “radical” elements in the region, by which he clearly meant Iran’s hard-liners. “The real division is not between Jews and Muslims ... but between moderate people and radical people,” Lieberman declared. His Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, took aim at the same enemy, slamming Iran’s “sectarian policy” to undermine stability in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. “Turkey is very much against any kind of division, religious or sectarian,” he said.
The only problem with all this sudden Middle Eastern camaraderie is that the countries pointing their fingers at Iran would be well served by looking in a mirror. Their criticism of Tehran is almost certainly valid, but Iran is far from the only “bad guy” in a region where both state and non-state actors are playing a ruthless power game. Each side in turn lays dubious claim to the moral high ground, but foreign policy tends to be dangerously self-serving.
The new leadership in Washington brings an even riskier factor to the gamesmanship. President Donald Trump, having sent mixed signals about US backing for Israel and having already ventured clumsily into Yemen, appears to be looking for a proxy war to fight. On Iran, Trump seems ready to back its rivals all the way, and American support for anti-Iran economic sanctions might indeed foster stability in the region. Unfortunately, Trump’s constant self-contradictions make him an unpredictable player. 
President Barack Obama had resisted appeals from Saudi Arabia and other foes of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help remove him from power, much as the US brought down Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Obama’s Washington feared increasing chaos in the Middle East if Assad were toppled. The spectre of expanding Islamic State influence does not appear to worry Trump, however – he is supremely confident that the jihadist militias can be defeated. 
To confront them, though, he would have to give the US a prime role in a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Any extreme effort to contain Iran could end up further destabilising the region with horrific results. And the Saudis, meanwhile, cannot be allowed to forget that it was their own instability that permitted Iran to extend its sphere of influence and military might across the region.