Containing Iran:
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson presses Arab nations to counter Tehran.
DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the Trump administration’s case for isolating and containing Iran in the Middle East and beyond to two Gulf Arab nations on Sunday, pushing for Saudi Arabia and Iraq to unite to counter growing Iranian assertiveness. He also called for a quick resolution to the crisis between Qatar and its Arab neighbors, which he said was unintentionally bolstering Iran.
In Saudi Arabia and later Qatar, Tillerson denounced Iran’s “malign behavior” and urged nations of the region and elsewhere, notably Europe, to join the administration to halt any business they do with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also demanded that Iranian and Iran-backed Shiite militia in Iraq return to their homes, integrate into the Iraqi army or leave the country.
“Those fighters need to go home,” Tillerson said. “Any foreign fighters need to go home.”
In Riyadh for the inaugural meeting of the Saudi Arabia-Iraq Coordination Council — a vehicle that U.S. officials believe can wean Iraq from Iran — Tillerson told Saudi King Salman and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that the nascent partnership between their countries held great promise for Iraq’s reconstruction after devastating battles to wrest territory from the Islamic State and its independence from foreign influence.
“We believe this will in some ways counter some of the unproductive influences of Iran inside of Iraq,” he said at a news conference after the council meeting.
Tillerson said countries outside of the region could also play a role, primarily by shunning the Revolutionary Guard, which play a major role in Iran’s economy and were added to a U.S. terrorism blacklist this month. Companies and countries that do business with the guards “really do so at great risk,” he said.
“We are hoping that European companies, countries and others around the world will join the U.S. as we put in place a sanctions structure to prohibit certain activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that foment instability in the region and create destruction in the region,” Tillerson said.
His participation in the meeting comes as U.S. officials step up encouragement of a new axis that unites Saudi Arabia and Iraq as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.