The recent US overtures to Iran should not be misinterpreted by the Gulf states as ‘cozying up’ to that country, but only as a means to avoid a major war in the region, former ambassador of the US to Bahrain Adam Ereli told Gulf Times.
“Don’t misinterpret the US talks with Iran. By that I mean, America doesn’t want to go to war with Iran. We’ve suffered a lot in Iraq, we’ve suffered a lot in Afghanistan, we don’t want to go to [war with] Iran,” he said.
However, the senior former diplomat said that if Iran built a nuclear weapon, the US was on the record to say that it would use force to stop it.
“If you can stop it through negotiations, better for everybody… [But] This is not about cozying up to Iran. This is about preventing a war…. The US still has the same determination to prevent Iran from dominating the region and upsetting the balance of power,” he said.
He added that everybody loses if there was a conflict in the region. “Let’s try this [path of negotiations]. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, the only thing we’ve lost is time.”
About the situation in Syria, he said that he expected it to get ‘worse and worse.’ He also said that he did not see the US directly engaging in Syria in the near future.
“The US might give more military support to the rebels, not significant and certainly not putting American forces at risk. [But direct intervention] will not happen…not under this president [Obama].”
Ereli was posted in Bahrain between 2007 and 2011. He is now the vice chairman of a private firm, Mercury, which is involved in lobbying, public relations’ activities and giving strategic advice to governments and companies’ the world over.
About the dangers of the Bahraini monarchy getting toppled because of the ongoing crisis there, he said: “I think that the talk of the monarchy being toppled is greatly exaggerated. It does two things. It underestimates the strength of the monarchy and overestimates the strength of the opposition,” he said.
He said it was ‘deeply unfortunate’ that relations between the US and Bahrain had deteriorated in the last four years.
He said that for the US, which has NavCent base in Bahrain, it was not a proposition of either it was with the Bahraini monarchy or with the opposition groups proposition.
“The most important thing that Bahrain needs is the support of its friends. Bahrain has been a friend and ally for the US since 1940,” he said.
“The government of Bahrain feels a lot more besieged than the US thinks it is. There might be a difference of opinion there, but NavCent is important to us, but so is Bahrain’s stability,” he added.
In the end, the ambassador said that he was optimistic about the future of this region. “If you look at history… every ten years, there has been pretty serious conflict in the region, yet they kept chugging along. Judging from history, a safe prediction for the next 20 years is to say that you will get to see more of the same.”