An American Marine patrols the surroundings of the village of Garmsir in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, April 28

Iran denounced the recently signed Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. It sees the basing of American forces in the country and across the Persian Gulf as a security threat and has even reached out to the Sunni Taliban to balance this perceived threat.

The Iranians have long voiced discomfort with the prospect of a long term American presence on its eastern border. They have attempted to use their clout within the political system of Afghanistan and the means of bribery to influence Afghan parliamentarians to vote against any security pact with the United States.

The American forces in Afghanistan, far from being a solution to the problems of the region, are seen by Tehran as likely to intensify the regional insecurity and instability. Yet Iran’s own threat perception is in part fueling insecurity in Afghanistan and instability throughout the region.

The pact appears to have already strained relations between Afghanistan and Iran with Afghan diplomats in Tehran claiming that they are being intimidated and their movements have been severely curtailed. This may be a sign of worse things to come in the future.

Iran believes that the presence of American military bases and troops and access to military facilities in several other countries in the region such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey and Qatar, is part of a deliberate strategy of encircling and containing Iran. Tehran fears that such a strategic position would enable the United States to monitor its nuclear program and launch attacks against it.

The capture of an American unmanned drone aircraft in December of last year, which was used by the United States to look for tunnels, underground facilities and other places where Iran could be producing centrifuge parts or enrichment facilities, confirm Iranian suspicions.

It has also been alleged that the United States are using their bases in Afghanistan to extend covert support to Sunni and Balochi insurgents, such as the Jundullah group, in Iran’s southeastern most Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

It is no surprise then that the Strategic Partnership Agreement is bound to enhance Iranian anxieties about the American troops in its neighbourhood, even if the pact explicitly states that America cannot use Afghanistan to launch attacks on a third country.

The mere presence of the United States in Afghanistan will pose an obstacle to the expansion of Iran’s influence in the country, particularly in its traditional sphere of influence—western Afghanistan, where Iran has spent millions of dollars over the past decade.

Iran has resorted to several means to undermine the American mission in Afghanistan, many of which are far from being positive in nature.

Iran has been accused of sending shiploads of text books into western Afghanistan with the aim of promoting the Shī’ah culture, the contents of which have been found offensive by the Sunni population. Such attempts at fueling sectarian tensions in Afghanistan make the task of managing the country much tougher for the Americans.

Similarly, it has been alleged that Iran exerts its influence over Afghanistan’s education curriculum through institutions like the Khatam-al Nabyeen Islamic University in Kabul, with the aim of promoting Iranian culture, win over the Afghan Shī’ah community and spread anti-Americanism.

Iran has also, in the past, cut off its fuel supplies to Afghanistan, which caused massive outcry in Kabul, as it believed that petrol and diesel, which was meant to be used by Afghans, was siphoned off to NATO.

However, the most intriguing development has been Iran’s measured support of the Taliban. The foreign forces in Afghanistan have often intercepted weapons, rockets and missiles that originated in Iran and were similar to the ones that were used to undermine the international counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. There have also been suspicions of Taliban fighters being trained in Iran.

The alliance with the Taliban is one of necessity as the group posed a significant security and ideological threat to Iran when it was in power in the 1990s. The two nearly went to war in 1998 following
the massacre of Iranian diplomats in Mazār-e Sharīf in northern Afghanistan. Even today, Iran would not favor a government in Kabul that is led or dominated by the Taliban.

The support for the Taliban was envisioned as a short term measure to make the Americans bleed and keep them preoccupied in Afghanistan, thereby diverting their attention from Iran.

However, as the United States look set to stay on in Afghanistan beyond 2014, albeit in reduced numbers, Iran is likely to maintain its support for the Taliban and indulge in other covert destabilizing activities, thereby prolonging the insurgency and the instability in the country.

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, 2010 (Reuters/Zohra Bensemra)

Gulf foreign minister rallied behind the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday in their island dispute with Iran and condemned the “provocative” visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of tiny Abu Musa last week.

Ahmadinejad’s was the first visit to the island by an Iranian leader since the Islamic country conquered the archipelago near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz in 1971, when the United Arab Emirates were founded.

Ahead of the Gulf Cooperation Council summit on Tuesday, Ahmadinejad said that Iran was “ready to protect its existence and sovereignty” and threatened military action if foreign powers tried to reclaim the islands.

The cooperative body of Arab Gulf states, in turn, announced that a violation of the sovereignty of any of their members would be regarded as an encroachment against all GCC nations.

Before the ministerial conference, the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Latif Bin Rashid Al Zayani, had urged member states to increase military cooperation between them. Specifically, he recommended the development of a joint missile defense system to respond to Iranian ballistic missile threats.

Such a shield, said Al Zayani, could be “backed by the United States and Western allies.” The Americans are major arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors.

The Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf are American and Saudi allies but their relations with Iran are more complicated than the kingdom’s. Where Riyadh is waging a cold war with the Islamic republic across the Middle East, countries like Oman and Qatar have historically maintained amicable relations with Tehran.

Qatar has tried to position itself as a middleman in the Middle East in recent years but its feverish support of the “Arab spring,” including the uprising in Syria, has alienated the Iranians. Ahmadinejad even canceled a planned trip to Doha in November 2011.

Qatar’s sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who finances the highly influential Al Jazeera television station, told CBS News in January that “to stop the killing” in Syria, “some troops should go.” His prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, walked back on that statement on Tuesday, saying Qatar is not arming the Syrian rebels but opposition groups should be able to defend themselves if President Bashar al-Assad does not honor a ceasefire. Assad is an Iranian ally.

Relations between Iran and Qatar are complicated by their joint ownership of a natural gas field in the Gulf. Tehran has recently accused the Qataris of pilfering the field while Iranian media regularly denounce Qatar’s ruling family as illegitimate and in league with the West. The louder Iran espouses such condemnations, the more the emirs will be driven into Saudi Arabia’s warm embrace.

Istanbul, Turkey, July 8, 2007 (Hüseyin Atilla)

It has been fourteen long months since the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany set around the table with Iranian negotiators to discuss the suspension of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

Those talks, which happened in January 2011, ended almost as quickly as they began, with both sides sticking to their original positions without any room for maneuver. The P5+1 demanded that Iran suspended its nuclear program as a gesture of goodwill. Iran refused to talk altogether unless economic sanctions were halted.

The one and done discussion early last year was the clearest microcosm to date of how prolonged and at times hopeless the nuclear negotiations between the two sides have been. Yet even with the disappointment and shortfalls, the diplomatic track is the only option that foreign powers have to dissuade the Iranians from suspending their efforts, short of war.

European countries and the United States know this all too well, which is why the P5+1 powers are dragging the Iranians back to the negotiating table for another round of direct, and one hopes civil, discussion.

At first, the Iranians stonewalled the request, delaying their official response to the invitation. When they finally agreed, Tehran haggled for a few days over where the talks were to take place. Both sides have agreed on Turkey as the venue. Even the Iranians, it appears, are acknowledging that dialogue is the best way that they can garner concession from the world.

With the logistical details now finalized, the P5+1 are set to begin the difficult work of negotiating with the Iranians over the core dispute that has befuddled past attempts at diplomacy—uranium enrichment. The Iranians are likely to remain vigilant in their desire to continue enriching their own nuclear material. How the United States and their allies react to that permanent demand will determine how long the negotiations last.

Flexibility is a prerequisite. In the past, this is what was lacking. The Bush Administration was adamant about rejecting Tehran’s offer of dialogue unless they suspended their nuclear program altogether. President Barack Obama and his national security team have been a little more willing to engage the Iranians in a give and take, although last year’s failed diplomatic efforts have hardened the administration’s approach to the entire affair.

The New York Times reports that the P5+1 will ask Tehran for a number of major concessions during the opening day, including the dismantling of the nuclear facilities north of the city of Qom. The foreign powers also expect Iran to ship its quantity of 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country.

While these demands make sense from the perspective of the Security Council members, they are a nonstarter for the Iranians. They spent millions building the complex at Fordow over the past few years. It would be nothing short of a miracle if Tehran agreed to simply forgo its most well protected facility when it has just completing it after years of construction.

Standing ground on an illogical position, as far as the Iranians are concerned, is a perfect excuse to blame the Security Council as an intolerant body not serious about the diplomatic effort.

Can the Iranians risk surrendering one of their most prized investments? And if they are indeed willing to take this gamble, what will the Iranians receive in return?

Unfortunately, both of these questions are irrelevant. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will not agree to these positions, particularly when they have the potential of souring his popular standing at home. Unless and until the P5+1 proceed in such a way that will give Iranian negotiators a reason to stay in the talks, the diplomatic track will simply be a short step toward further confrontation.

William Hague, the British foreign secretary, February 21

One cannot govern well by reacting to events.

The British Government must share this view, as it is the intention behind the National Security Council. It is supposed to put day to day crises into a larger context and shape a strategic response to them. Speaking in Washington DC several months after the NSC was created, William Hague, the foreign secretary, boasted that it had already made Britain’s Afghanistan policy strategically “coherent,” among other things.

Yet Britain’s handling of Iran suggests that this is not the case. The Iranians ought to be the West’s allies in Afghanistan but saber rattling over their nuclear program is forcing them to undermine NATO’s efforts there.

If London really wants to resolve these crises, it needs to adopt a truly strategic approach toward them, not react to them as though they were unrelated events.

It was reported last week that Iran may have tried to exacerbate anti-American riots in Afghanistan in February, after careless soldiers burned copies of the Quran.

The Tehran regime ordered its agents to “exploit the anticipated public outrage by trying to instigate violent protests in the capital, Kabul, and across the western part of the country, according to American officials,” reported The New York Times.

The typical reaction to these stories by war hawks is to see Tehran’s mischief making as a sinister bid for world mastery, not defensive measures meant to deter Western military action.

When Iranian weapons allegedly destined for the Taliban were seized in Afghanistan last March, then defense secretary Liam Fox said, “This confirms my often repeated view of the dangers that Iran poses not only through its nuclear program but its continuing policy of destabilizing its neighbors.”

Supplying weapons to help the Taliban kill [ISAF] soldiers is a clear example of the threat they pose.

In response to a question by Robert Halfon shortly before the Quran riots about Iranian activities in Afghanistan, Hague congratulated the hawkish parliamentarian for assiduously “pointing out the malign influence of Iran on its neighbors in several directions.”

The hawk talk about Tehran’s mischief making in Afghanistan adds another stroke to the war drums that have been beaten over Iran of late but it actually undermines the government’s goals vis-à-vis those countries.

It is unlikely that the latter will participate in a regional settlement to end the war if foreign powers persist in viewing them as a malign actor, worsening relations between Tehran and the West and making it harder to negotiate a solution to the nuclear impasse.

Instead of reacting to these crises separately, the British Government must adopt a joint approach on them, with sound strategic thinking underpinning it. Such an approach requires a rethink on Iran’s role in Afghanistan, recognition that its actions toward one impact the other, and various diplomatic steps to help achieve the goals stated above.

Although some of its activities may suggest otherwise, Iran’s interests in Afghanistan coincide with Western objectives, which the government must keep in mind. As former diplomat Sherard Cowper-Coles observed correctly in Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign (2012), Tehran has “no rational interest in continuing instability in [the country], or in a Taliban victory.”

Given this, why do they mischief make? “Iran currently views its interests in Afghanistan through the prism of US-Iranian enmity,” write Alireza Nader and Joya Laha in a study (PDF) for the RAND Corporation.

Iranian leaders view the US and coalition presence in Afghanistan with great anxiety, especially in light of the US military threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities. As it has reportedly been employed in Iraq, Iran’s asymmetric strategy would use proxy insurgent forces to tie down and distract the United States from focusing on Iran and its nuclear program, and provides a retaliatory capability in the event of US military action.

Unless Britain rethinks its rhetoric on Iranian interference in Afghanistan—recognizing that it is defensive, not offensive—it will force Tehran to undermine NATO efforts there even further. It can forget a regional settlement underwriting the country’s stability after 2014 if it excludes one of the biggest stakeholders.

In addition to a rethink on Iranian behavior, the government needs to take a number of diplomatic steps to restart dialogue between Tehran and London, so that an end to the war in Afghanistan and an end to the nuclear impasse can be negotiated.

First, the United Kingdom should reopen its embassy in Iran. “Without embassies, the basic function of diplomacy—keeping some kind of dialogue going even when views are diametrically opposed—is essentially suspended,” the former diplomat and minister Mark Malloch-Brown has written.

This should be followed up by Britain beginning a conversation with Tehran about how it can work with the West in Afghanistan. If it persuades the Iranians to help, not hinder the allies in ending the war, it may be easier to negotiate a solution to their nuclear program, as there will be an element of trust between the parties.

William Hague once said that the National Security Council will not only minimize risks to the United Kingdom but “look for the positive trends in the world, since our security requires seizing opportunity as well as mitigating risk.” Yet when it comes to Iran and Afghanistan, the government has emphasized risk over opportunity.

If it wants to achieve its goals for either country, this emphasis needs to change.

Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Emomalii Rahmon of Tajikistan during a joint press conference, September 4, 2011

The head of US Central Command, General James Mattis, held talks with Tajik president Emomalii Rahmon last Saturday to enlist commitments of continued support for American and NATO operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

Rahmon told Mattis that “Tajikistan would like to see further strengthening of the development of ties with the United States in the sphere of security and the establishment of peace and stability in the region.”

On Monday, Rahmon met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad who came bearing promises of pipelines and railways during the fifth annual Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan.

Ahmedinijad came away from the talks pleased, telling reporters that Tajikistan and Iran are culturally “parts of the same body.”

Caught between the Americans, a thousand kilometer border with Afghanistan, and a cultural connection to Iran, Tajikistan is indeed stuck economically and politically between conflicting interests and allies.

Tajikistan is landlocked, mountainous, and the one of Central Asia’s poorest states. Its government is nominally a republic. In reality, Emomalii Rahmon has been ruling the one party dominant state since 1992.

A political survivor, Rahmon held onto power throughout the Tajik civil war of the 1990s and secured a third term in an election in 2006.

The country is dependent on Russia and Uzbekistan for energy. Its main sources of income are the aluminum industry, cotton growing and remittances from Tajiks working abroad.

Uzbekistan recently announced that it will be stopping the flow of gas into Tajikistan, reportedly in order to meet commitments to larger buyers such as China. Regional analysts believe there is more politics to the stoppage than practicality. Tajikistan’s gas demand annually equals about what Uzbekistan produces in a single day.

The Tajiks are looking for ways to diversify their energy sources and the Iranian promises sound tempting.

Iran and Tajikistan share a cultural and linguistic history but little else. Ideologically and politically they diverge and economically, neither can quite afford to pay for the Iranian promises.

Both countries are predominantly Muslim but Iran is a bombastic Shī’ah bastion and Tajikistan mostly Sunni of the Central Asian persuasion.

Tajikistan is politically secular, as is the norm in Central Asia. Political secularism in the region derives from the Soviet system and is also influenced by Sufism and pre-Islamic regional history. The 2006 election was boycotted by “mainline” opposition parties such as the Islamic Renaissance Party, which receives moral support from Iran and is the only legal Islamic political party in Tajikistan.

To further illustrate the ideological divide, Tajikistan has been criticized by Iranian representatives for imposing “Islamaphobic rules on the population” such as banning the hijab and preventing underage children from attending mosque.

Ideological differences are complicating factors not deal breakers but Iran’s promises remain pipedreams because of economics and security.

Rahmon and Ahmedinijad, joined by Afghan president Hamid Karzai released a statement after talks in the Tajik capital city of Dushanbe which read that the three had “reached an understanding on how to cooperate more productively to accelerate construction of a railway from Iran to Tajikistan through Afghanistan.” They also announced plans to build an “energy line” across the three countries.

Delegations from Dushanbe and Kabul are scheduled to meet in Tehran in two months to discuss the implementation of the projects, according to the same statement from President Rahmon’s office.

The reality is that Tajikistan cannot afford the projects. The technical and security challenges of building a pipeline or railway across Afghanistan are unlikely to be easily surmounted. Iran, the target of multiple international sanctions because of its nuclear program, is also unlikely to be able to fund its promises or attract many investors for the risky venture.

Tajikistan is in a tight spot. Uzbekistan, reportedly irked by Tajik hydropower projects upstream, is squeezing the state by cutting off the gas supply.

Iran is under siege and scrounging for allies. It hopes to exploit the cultural connection with Tajikistan by offering promises which the Tajik Government must realize are pipedreams.

The war in Afghanistan goes on and while the Americans plot their exit by 2014, they have made efforts to reenlist Central Asian support for the cause.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, 2009 (Reuters/Molly Reilly)

A slow but sure shift can be observed in India’s Iran policy. What is curious about this is that in many ways, India’s Israel policy seems to be the blueprint.

The Indian Government still emphasizes the significance of Iranian oil and gas buys. This position is bolstered by Saudi Arabia’s refusal to boost output last week in anticipation of an expected drop in Iranian exports. Following a beggars can’t be choosers logic, New Delhi has refrained from joining an embargo of Iranian crude despite heavy Western pressure to do so.

Reports have surfaced of sanctions being threatened against India for its obstructionism in this regard. The nature and substance of these sanctions remains unknown. The United States State Department though, in an unusual step, rather than squelching the rumors, added fuel to the flames, stating merely that reports to this effect were “highly speculative.”

There are two implication of such a threat being held over India.

First, that the entire dynamic of Indo-American rapprochement being a Sinocentric one now stand challenged. If India believed that its primary role was to act as a demographic counterweight to China, its gradual loss of economic traction is weakening the bargaining power it had accumulated in the relationship.

Further down the road, such pressure simply confirms the allegation of the Indian left that the United States were always going to be a perfidious ally unworthy of being relied upon. The ruling Congress party will be in no mood to forgive the Americans should such pressure result in more electoral losses as is widely expected.

In the meantime, Narendra Modi, the opposition’s likely prime ministerial candidate, while being shunned by the West, is actively wooed by China.

Given these circumstances, the calculus of balancing against China shifts decisively over the long term to bandwagoning with China should America be perceived as an economic or political liability.

Coming to the two protagonists Israel and Iran—India has for a significant time now depended on the former for traditional security and on the latter for energy security. Yet in its dealings with Israel, India has often been at the forefront of condemning every Israeli action, frequently going over and above Arab expectations.

To be fair, Arab condemnations are far more rhetorical as these countries have been obsessed for some time with the Iranian threat. So assuming a rhetorical position that aligned with Arab states while maintaining a policy more like the Arabs’ Western friends in having strong economic and military ties with Israel makes perfect sense.

With Iran on the other hand, India has frequently ignored those same Arab concerns, supporting Iran both rhetorically and in terms of putting its money where its mouth is.

South Asia in the last few weeks has witnessed the assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Bangladesh that was linked to Iran and the attempted killing an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi. Arrests in the later case are now pointing very clearly to an Iranian hand.

India’s hand are tied to such an extent that the rhetorical support of Iran has become too much of a liability. If anything, this may be just the excuse India was looking for to throw the Iranians overboard—at least rhetorically.

What to expect in the near future?

India will use the attack on the Israeli diplomat to downgrade its ties with Iran—at a visible level and also ramp up its rhetoric.

This will be to muffle the visible impact of its increasing imports of Iranian oil and gas. In many ways, this will be a mirror image of India’s Israel policy—engagement masked (and in many ways aided) by public hostility.

However, should India be arm twisted into giving up its trade with Iran in the medium to long term, a decisive cooling in Indo-American relations is to be expected as everyone in India, right and left, will perceive the alliance as simply not worth the price. Should sanctions on India eventuate (and this possibility cannot be discounted) “cooling” will in all probability turn to frigidity.

There are no easy solutions to this conundrum since at its crux, it concerns two democracies, adopting diametrically opposed policies, driven by natural democratic impulses.

Just as India has overriding domestic political considerations that make the engagement of Iran a sine qua non of Indian foreign policy, there are equally democratic considerations that make the isolation of Iran a nonnegotiable of American policy. Invariably in Greek tragedies and Hollywood blockbusters, such a situation is resolved by a deus ex machina. In reality, such devices seldom exist.

The sun sets over Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 28, 2011 (Hamim Chowdhury)

A junior Saudi diplomat was shot dead in the capital of Bangladesh on Tuesday.

Although local police said there were no eyewitnesses and had no suspects yet, suspicion is likely to fall on Iran which was accused by American authorities last October of plotting to murder the Saudi ambassador to their country.

In May of last year, a Saudi diplomat was killed in Karachi. The Pakistanis believed the attack was carried out by Shī’ah groups that were angered by Riyadh’s military intervention in Bahrain.

The Shiite majority in the Persian Gulf country rose up against the Sunni monarchy there in February. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council member states sent troops into the island nation to quell the unrest.

Israeli diplomats have also been targeted in recent assassination attempts that were traced to Iran. Last month, the wife of an Israeli diplomat narrowly avoided death in a car bomb explosion in New Delhi. Bangkok, Thailand and Tbilisi, Georgia also witnessed botched terrorist plots in February. In both instances, Iranian operatives or organizations that are close to Iran were blamed.

Tehran has denied involvement in any of the incidents. It has accused Israel in turn of murdering scientists who worked on its uranium enrichment program which many Western nations believe is designed to attain a nuclear weapons capacity.

The targeting of Saudi diplomats may reflect the cold war that Iran has waged with the oil kingdom. Both nations seek hegemony in the region and fear that the other is conniving to destabilize it.

The Saudis have alleged Iranian involvement in the stirring of Shī’ah dissent in Bahrain and their own country. Their client government in Lebanon was undermined when Hezbollah, a militant Islamist organization that is allied to Iran, pulled out of a coalition agreement last year. Like Israel, Saudi Arabia is worried that Iran may build an atomic weapon and has warned that it would kick off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The Iranians see Saudi Arabia actively supporting the opposition in Syria, possibly with weapons, which is their only Arab ally.

The two also vie for influence in Iraq where there have been no American troops since the end of last year to maintain the peace between the Shī’ah and Sunni populations.

Iran, a majority Shiite country and governed by a Shiite theocracy, fosters close relations with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shī’ah Muslim who lived in Iran for nearly two decades while Saddam Hussein ruled his country. The Saudis, on the other hand, have been supportive of Iraq’s Sunni who are the majority and mostly live in the south and western parts of the country, close to the border with Syria.

President Barack Obama points to a member of the audience at a town hall style meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, May 14, 2009

President Barack Obama on Tuesday criticized the “casualness” with which the Republicans seeking to replace him in November talk “talk about war.”

“What’s said on the campaign trail, those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities,” the president said. “They’re not commander in chief.”

Among the four Republicans seeking that job, three insist that the United States should consider military action to delay or destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment program which many Western nations suspect is designed to attain a nuclear weapons capacity.

President Obama cautioned against warmongering hover, urging his conservative challengers to “explain clearly to the American people what the costs and benefits of war would be.”

He also defended his administration’s efforts to stop Iran from reaching an atomic weapons capacity when he said that the decision whether to launch air strikes could be some time away.

“This notion that somehow we have a choice to make in the next week or two weeks or month or two months is not borne out by the facts,” according to the president.

The American strategy has so far consisted of economic sanctions which are designed to dissuade the Iranians from pressing ahead with their nuclear program. Three Republican presidential hopefuls are skeptical of the sanctions regime however.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been the most outspoken among the contenders in his support for covert and military action against Iran’s nuclear effort, alleged in response to the president’s comments that the Middle Eastern country’s leaders were “deepening their commitment to nuclear weapons while we talk.”

Both Gingrich and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who is considered likeliest to secure the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in August, have vowed that if they are elected, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, perhaps the most neoconservative candidate between the three, has warned of the threat that is posed by Iran for years. He believes that the country is ruled by religious fanatics and, like Gingrich, has endorsed the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Despite President Obama’s insistence that the decision whether to attack Iran or not is far from imminent, Israel reportedly doesn’t feel the same way.

According to the American defense secretary, Leon Panetta, the Jewish state fears that Iran will enter a “zone of immunity” as early as this spring at which point Israel nor the United States could disable enough of its nuclear sites anymore to prevent it from building an atomic weapon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Washington to confer with Obama on Monday, said that “Israel will always reserve the right to defend itself” in a speech to a pro-Israel lobby group on Tuesday, adding, “The Jewish state will not allow those who seek Israel’s destruction the means to achieve that goal. A nuclear armed Iran must be stopped.”

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden talk with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel as they depart the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 6, 2010

Their personal and professional relationship is defined by pundits in both Israel and the United States as “frosty,” but that could become a whole lot worse on Monday when President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit down together for a formal meeting at the White House.

The one issue that has put a stain on the relationship the most, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will most likely receive very little attention. Instead, Iran’s nuclear ambitions are at the top of the agenda.

The president and prime minister, as witnessed in their earlier conversations, hardly have a close friendship with one another. The two men’s personalities, at least at the surface, are inherently different.

President Obama plays the part of the rational, bureaucratic and at times robotic statesmen, constantly attuned to which way the wind is blowing in international forums including the European Union and the United Nations.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, seems to care little about what other people think of him and ignores the attitudes of the international community in order to do what he thinks is the right for Israel’s national security. Whether it is his refusal to give up East Jerusalem to the Palestinians or his near obsessive catering to his right wing allies, it at times seems as if Netanyahu likes to think of himself as a modern day David Ben-Gurion—someone who will spare no price to defend the people of Israel, even if those decisions require inflaming other parties.

Ironically, both leaders hold many of the same goals and aspirations. Both wish to see Israel secure. Both are committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms. Both are deeply concerned that Iran may come close to the building of the ultimate deterrent, a nuclear weapon.

Yet the two are far apart as to how to realize those goals, with Netanyahu far more forceful in his threats toward Iran.

In other words, it has often been the means rather than the ends that have divided the Obama and Netanyahu administrations since the two first met in 2009. Those disagreements will again come to the fore on Monday when the question of Iran looms over both of their heads.

Newspaper and magazine articles over the past week have been full of speculation and rumor about what Netanyahu will ask of the president and whether the American will be prepared to accept his proposals.

The Atlantic magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have all run stories about what exactly the Israeli prime minister intends to bring up when the topic of Iran is finally broached. There is a near consensus that Netanyahu will press Obama on his willingness to use military force if Iran continues to conceal its nuclear program from international inspectors. The president understands how destabilizing a nuclear Iran can be but is clearly leery of launching another Middle East conflict to prevent this from happening.

These two positions have long been discussed between American and Israeli policy makers. Whichever view prevails on Monday may just set the course as to whether the Iranians can expect a preemptive military strike or a deepening of the sanctions regime.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran addresses parliament in Tehran, February 1

Iranians head to the polls for parliamentary elections on Friday. Because reformist candidates are shut out of the process, a repetition of the unrest that followed 2009′s disputed presidential vote isn’t likely. Rather the election will consolidate conservatives’ grip on power in Tehran even if there are divisions within their ranks.

Parliament is split between factions that are loyal to Iran’s supreme religious leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and members who support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran does not have a disciplined party system. “Parties emerge and dissipate easily,” according to Farnaz Amini who is a PhD candidate at Claremont Graduate University and a contributing analyst for the geostrategic consultancy Wikistrat. “It is common for a series of smaller parties to combine and present a coalition,” she explains.

One such new coalition is the United Front, a group of traditionalists that emerged in response to a call by Khamenei for the principalist parties to join forces. It is led by the “old clerical guard” from Qom, says Amini, “which seeks to maintain clerical rule.”

Their main opposition is the Steadfast Front of the Islamic Revolution or the Islamic Resistance Front which is comprised of followers of Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a powerful reactionary cleric who is an advisor of President Ahmadinejad’s. Although the relationship between the two men has thawed a bit since a rift emerged between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, this faction supports the president but insists that he distances himself from the “deviant current” that is believed to have attempted to undermine the role of the clergy in government.

The clerical class still controls most of the state and bureaucracy but the power and influence of the Revolutionary Guards has grown since Ahmadinejad was first elected president in 2005.

As conservatives and traditionalists compete for supremacy within the religious establishment, the guards may well emerge as the most powerful faction in Iran unless Khamenei is able to force a consensus.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in 2010 that Iran was sliding into a military dictatorship. The Revolutionary Guards Corps, she said, was gaining influence “across all areas of Iranian security policy and certainly nuclear policy is at the core of it.”

The supreme leader has so far managed the schisms, despite opposition from the Qom clergy, through alliances with ultraconservatives but the elite is fractured over economic policy and the very structure of the Islamic republic.

Inflation is rampant and one out of five Iranians is estimated to be unemployed. Oil exports account for 85 percent of central government revenue but European nations and Japan plan to boycott Iranian crude in protest to its uranium enrichment program. Iran will still be able to sell to China and India but in combination with other trade sanctions, the oil embargo represents a real danger to the Iranian economy.

Friday’s elections will probably not have a significant impact on foreign policy because this is largely outside of the legislature’s purview. Nonetheless, if the president’s allies stage a surprise victory, it could embolden Ahmadinejad to assert himself more independently of the supreme leader and his conservative adherents.

Turnout is expected to be low in the cities which could be a blow to the regime’s legitimacy but the Steadfast Front has an advantage in the countryside says Amini. “Ahmadinejad more than any other president has reached out to the rural areas of Iran and has many supporters in the small cities, towns and villages.”