Arab-Iranian relations are a crossroads between the continuation of the conflict and the building of a frank dialogue that establishes regional security based on common interests and respect for sovereignty.
Afrasianet - Elhami Meligi - Every time the region ignites, the Arabs and Iran discover, too late, that fire does not ask about the identity of the land it crosses, that missiles do not distinguish between one bank and another, and that maps drawn by politics cannot abolish the rule of geography.
However, once the flames have subsided a little, both sides return to their old trenches, invoking a memory burdened with wars and adding a new wound to it, as if the neighborhood is destined to remain a postponed test, and history is destined to read from its most pages Temperature.
Regimes and alliances have changed, and the Arab-Iranian question has remained hung over the Gulf and the Levant: Why are two parties united by geography, civilization and interests unable to build a relationship managed by reason rather than fear, interests rather than myths, direct dialogue and not by missile messages and intermediaries?
The problem is not that Arabs and Iran disagree; the difference between countries is natural, and it may be healthy when it is governed by rules. The problem is that difference has turned into identity, suspicion into political doctrine, and competition into an open conflict in which external powers invest.
Each side has accumulated a closed narrative from the other, and then treated it as if it were the whole truth; the region has paid the price for conflicts that could have been contained, while the American-Zionist project reaped the fruits of a division that did not need to be invented, as much as it needed to keep it burning.
Hence the importance of the "Arab-Iranian Dialogue" series presented by Al-Mayadeen TV from Tehran at this very sensitive time. Its value lies not only in the answers provided by the participants, but also in breaking one of the most entrenched taboos: that Arabs and Iranians sit down to talk about their differences transparently, rather than talking about each other in their absence.
A history that calls for war, not for understanding
Arab-Iranian relations cannot be understood without going back to history, but the danger begins when history transforms from a means of understanding into a storehouse of ammunition. In some nationalist and sectarian discourses, events ranging from the Islamic conquest to the Ottoman-Safavid conflict are invoked, as if the peoples of the 21st century are required to resume the wars of their ancestors.
In fact, this history was not a continuous war; it was also a deep civilizational interaction in which language, philosophy, literature, jurisprudence, gnosis, and commerce were mixed. Neither did Arab culture remain within closed borders, nor was Iranian civilization formed away from Arabism and Islam.
Reducing the problem to a confrontation between Arabs and Persians, or Sunnis and Shiites, is also a deceptive simplification; the doctrine did not create conflict alone, but politics used it to mobilize the public in conflicts that were mainly related to the state, influence, and security.
The Islamic Revolution of 1979 represented a watershed moment. Its rhetoric against American hegemony and the Zionist entity inspired large segments of the Arab street, but it raised the fears of regimes that saw the "export of the revolution" as a threat to its stability, and then the Iraqi-Iranian war came to create a wall of blood and fear between the two banks; many Arabs saw Iran through that war, and Tehran saw its surroundings through the countries that supported Iraq.
Since then, as Iran's image as the number one threat has taken hold, the centrality of Palestine has declined, the wider the arms market, and the need for foreign bases and protection has strengthened.
In contrast, as pressure on Iran intensifies, expands its spheres of influence, and builds defense lines beyond its borders, new Arab fears are born, and both sides enter a cycle in which each reproduces each other's fears.
Who brought down Iraq? And who filled the void?
The occupation of Iraq in 2003 marked another turning point. It was the United States that brought down the Iraqi state and opened its doors to chaos, but Iran was the most willing to fill the vacuum.
A distinction must be made between cause and effect: Tehran did not create the occupation, but benefited from its results and expanded its presence, while the Arab regime was absent, incapacitated, or involved in the American calculations themselves.
Iran says that it has supported its allies and resistance movements in the face of the United States, the Zionist entity and terrorist organizations, while Arabs believe that this support has created forces that go beyond the state institutions or conflict with the decision of war and peace. Both narratives have some truth, but neither of them sums up the scene.
In both visions, they are part of the truth. It is not possible to deny the role of Iran and the axis of resistance in confronting the Zionist project, especially when Arab capitals were opening up to normalization and retreating from Palestine.
But this role is not granted. A party has the right to ignore the sovereignty of Arab societies or their sensitivity to weapons and national decision-making.
The claim to sovereignty also loses its credibility when it is silent about foreign bases, or requires American protection, or considers interference acceptable if it comes from Washington and rejected only if it comes from Tehran.
Beijing has not demolished the walls of fear
When Saudi Arabia and Iran, under Chinese auspices, reached the Beijing Agreement in March 2023, the region seemed to be learning from decades of attrition.
Diplomatic relations returned and language calmed down, but the agreement remained a reconciliation between two countries, and did not turn into an integrated regional structure or a reconciliation between narratives and societies. Embassies returned, psychological walls remained, and diplomacy advanced, without producing mechanisms to withstand a major confrontation.
This is what the ongoing war since February 28, 2026, has revealed. The US-Zionist aggression against Iran was not aimed at protecting the Arabs, but rather to break a regional power and open the way for unrivaled Zionist hegemony, but the Iranian attacks on Arab countries, whatever the pretexts related to American bases or interests, reproduced the deepest Arab concerns and led to Security Council Resolution 2817, which condemned them.
Equivocality does not help here: Iran has the right to defend itself in the face of aggression, but Arab territory is not a permissible arena for settling scores with Washington. At the same time, a country cannot allow bases on its territory to be used to attack a neighbor and then act as if it were out of war. Sovereignty is indivisible; it protects the Arab state from Iranian missiles, just as it obliges it not to turn its territory into a platform for striking Iran.
Two facts that do not cancel each other out
The war has revealed two truths that should not be obscured by propaganda discourse. The first is that the American-Zionist threat does not target Iran alone; the farthest goal is to prevent the establishment of any independent regional balance, and to keep the region fragmented and open to bases, weapons and extortion, while consolidating the Zionist entity as a dominant force above the law. Whoever summons the beast to his home will not later have the right to determine his prey.
Second, solidarity with Iran does not mean giving its policies a blank check. Tehran is required to revise tools and discourses that it sees as strategic depth, while Arab societies see them as a derogation from its sovereignty. Similarly, Arabs should review the rhetoric of the "Iranian threat" that has been amplified to the point that, for some governments and elites, it has become more dangerous than the Zionist occupation, and has contributed to creating awareness for normalization and presenting the Zionist entity as a potential partner against a regional neighbor.
Heikal and Egypt. Restore an absent balance
Nearly two decades ago, in his interviews with Al Jazeera between 2005 and 2009, Mohammad Hassanein Heikal formulated a vision that still retains its value: Iran is not an enemy, but a neighbor with whom there may be contradictions, but "non-hostile contradictions."
He warned against replacing "a real enemy with a supposed enemy," but he did not absolve Tehran's policies of mistakes and excesses; he distinguished between Iran, the state, the people, and the remaining geographical reality, and a regime and policies with which it could disagree.
In his reading of the region, he argued that Egypt and Iran are "the two main powers" and that his interest in Iran is part of his interest in Egypt.
This vision is gaining momentum today. There is no single Arab policy towards Tehran, and Iran is not a single voice; within it are currents, institutions, and calculations ranging from the logic of the state to the calculations of the revolution and security, and nationalist tendencies that sometimes appear in discourse and practice.
Hence, Egypt is not a marginal country that can be absent from an equation of this magnitude, nor is Iran a transient country with which the relationship can be maintained at the level of limited representation and seasonal contacts.
The restoration of full Egyptian-Iranian relations is not a postponed bilateral affair, but rather a necessity to restore balance to the region.
Cairo has what no other has: an Arab weight that is not governed by sectarian sensibilities, a historical position that allows it to address the Gulf and Iran together, and the doctrine of a state that understands the danger of parallel entities, without making Tehran an enemy by virtue of its identity.
Its movements during the war and negotiations have confirmed that it has channels of communication and the ability to converge positions and de-escalate.
However, circumstantial mediation, as important as it is, is not enough; restoring full diplomatic representation should be a gateway to a political, economic, and cultural partnership that allows Egypt to be A bridge between Arab concerns and the Iranian vision.
This is not to side with Tehran at the expense of the Gulf, but to protect Gulf and Arab security through dialogue, and to expand the margin of the Arab decision away from the American monopoly.
Dialogue is not a celebratory reconciliation
What is needed is not a photo conference, nor a construction statement about the Islamic brotherhood, but a permanent path of revelation: it acknowledges fears and does not ridicule them, separates facts from propaganda, and moves the relationship from crisis management to building rules that prevent them from erupting.
Its first rule is that Arab security is not built against Iran, and Iran's security is not built within the Arab countries or at the expense of their sovereignty. The second is to reject the use of doctrine as a tool of influence or mobilization, and to put the files of borders, islands, navigation and weapons outside the state on the political and legal table.
The third is to build economic and cultural interests that make the cost of the conflict higher than its gains, and to work for a regional security system that includes all the countries of the region, excludes foreign hegemony, and puts the Zionist nuclear arsenal at the heart Any serious debate about weapons of mass destruction.
Al-Mayadeen did well to open this file from the heart of Tehran, and the smell of gunpowder is still present. But the importance of the step will increase if the dialogue shifts from television episodes to a continuous space in which historians, intellectuals, politicians, and representatives of the societies of the Gulf, Egypt, Iraq, the Levant, and Iran participate.
The Arabs and Iran do not need an alliance that eliminates their differences, but rather the courage to look in the mirror and admit that each side has contributed, to one degree or another, to the construction of the wall they complain about.
Transparency is not a compromise, a review is not a defeat, and admitting a mistake does not mean giving up on the constants. The real danger is not that each side tells the other what it worries, but that it continues to remain silent until the missiles speak for it.
If the Arabs and Iranians do not write the rules of neighborliness, security and coexistence together, Washington and the Zionist entity will write them on their behalf, not with the ink of diplomacy, but with the blood of all the peoples of the region.
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