Rare media attention paid to Arab fears of Iran
8 July 2010
In a rare instance of media attention paid to Arab – and not Israeli - fears of a nuclear Iran, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph both covered yesterday’s spat between the UAE and Iran over comments made by the emirate’s ambassador to the US. Yousef al-Otaiba voiced the widespread anxiety in the region over Iran’s drive towards nuclear weapons and essentially endorsed military action to prevent this outcome.
‘UAE ambassador backs strike on Iran's nuclear sites’ by Middle East editor at The Guardian, Ian Black, discussed the incident in detail, quoting al-Otaiba and dismissing the subsequent UAE denial as ‘unconvincing’. Black noted that ‘[t]he row also underlines wider nervousness in the Gulf about Iran’ but overall, the emphasis of the article fell on the relationship between UAE and Iran.
The Daily Telegraph’s Richard Spencer led with the fact that the ambassador had said that Iran ‘threatened the peace process and the balance of power’ in the Middle East –something not addressed by The Guardian. He also quoted the ambassador more extensively, giving a fuller picture of the strength of feeling his words conveyed:
‘I think out of every country in the region, the UAE is most vulnerable to Iran," he said. "Our military, who has existed for the past 40 years, wake up, dream, breathe, eat, sleep the Iranian threat.
‘It's the only conventional military threat our military plans for, trains for, equips for. That's it, there's no other threat, there's no country in the region that is a threat to the UAE, it's only Iran. So yes, it's very much in our interest that Iran does not gain nuclear technology.’
He identified al-Otaiba’s comments as ‘the most hostile denunciation of Iran to be heard in the Gulf region and reflect growing dissatisfaction in the region with the West's failure to curtail Iran's nuclear programme.’
The BBC News website, The Independent, The Times and the Financial Times have not reported the story.