The last few months have numbed the senses of the Islamic Republic of Iran. JCPOA got stalled, IRGC seems like a lost cause and silence filled the Iranian Majles with the assassination of Col Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a revered Islamic guard’s cop officer. Iran has seen far worse times during the Donald Trump era, but with every passing day, Tehran is meddling in a new crisis, which indicates that the Islamic regime is on route to disaster.
Iran finds a rival in everyone
Last month saw the northern Iraq crisis miring up with Iran putting up a fight against its political ally Turkey. The news got exploded with turkey and Iran getting into a bilateral fight for securing an oil deal with the Sinjar government known for the copious reserves of oil it holds. The incident got ingrained within the middle east geopolitics because it was first of a kind. Iran always shied away from getting into a direct conflict with Turkey, because of the good trade deal that held Ankara and Tehran together.
While the clash between the two middle east superpowers was ablaze, one country tried to sneak through into the northern Iraq region securing a pipeline deal with the northern Iraq region. Sensing the hindrance brought in by both Turkey and Iran, the Iraqi cabinet went for pragmatism by approving the framework agreement for the project to install a pipeline to transfer Iraqi crude oil from Basra to Jordan’s Aqaba port on the Red Sea.
Read more: As the world watches the Russia-Ukraine war, a Turkey-Iran mini-war has already started
Jordans stepped to another level with this move that irked the clerical circle in Tehran. Knowing how a small country like Jordan could denounce Iran in open made Tehran send cautionary signals toward Amman. But Jordan was little moved by the show of strength from Iran. The country hardened its tone against Tehran which gave a sign of the aura of darker days about to happen in the middle east.
Aqaba could reshape the middle east politics
The Ukraine war saw Russia putting up its gung-ho strategy by blocking shipments in the Mediterranean by large. A lot of ships are stalled in different ports with no movement taking place. But only one port has been able to gain traffic from Israel, West bank, and even Syria. The port is Aqaba in Jordan and it has an edge over the Mediterranean ports.
More Syrians are also using Aqaba to avoid strict scrutiny and delays encountered when they import on shipping lines directly to Syria, which is under Western sanctions, reported Reuters.
Jordan for long has been asserting voice over the crimes committed by the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria. These guileless statements made more enemies than friends for the kingdom in Amman. Jordan got under the orbit of wider conflagration with Iran going against them since Tehran holds considerable sway over matters involving Syria.
Jordan further busted Iran’s plan of using the maritime route for smuggling drugs to Syria. The Mediterranean Sea port of Latakia on Syria’s western coast has long been known as a transit point for illegal weapons and technologies arriving from Iran. The Hashemite kingdom citing this threat was able to convince both Israel and Saudi to act against the rogue regime of Iran as it concerned the stability of their respective borders.
With Russia’s blockade of ships acting as a blessing for Jordan, the country has gained pertinence by making Aqaba port the connecting hub with Israel, Saudi, and a hostile Syria. The port is also hoping for a revival in business to Iraq, for which it was previously the main gateway. So it is pretty much clear that no decisive plans can halt the current run of Jordan hampering Iran’s prospects, but in all probability, the rivalry will grind on and end up changing the politics of the middle east by large.
Watch –
