On Monday, December 6, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE National Security Adviser, arrived in Tehran on a one-day visit after years of a freezing relation between Iran’s regime and the UAE to hold talks with some high-ranking Iranian officials as the first high-ranking official of the UAE government.
During his stay, he met with the regime’s National Security Advisor Ali Shamkhani and President Ebrahim Raisi. It is worth mentioning that in 2015, due to the interferences of the Iranian government in the region, the level of relations between the two countries was reduced to the level of staff and since then they have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals.
Regarding this trip, although the news of its results has not yet been published, according to political and economic experts, the main reason for Iran’s invitation to Sheikh Tahnoon is the extremely critical and deteriorating economic situation in Iran. This situation has led to the highest unemployment rate, inflation, and skyrocketing prices in the history of Iran, and the price of the dollar has reached its highest rate against the Iranian currency.
The majority of Iranians now live below the poverty line, and as a result, Iran has witnessed protests in most cities, the last of which was the uprising by the people of Isfahan.
The situation has become so critical that the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his entourage have smelled the overthrow and have realized that if the situation continues in this way, there will not be much time left until another general uprising.
As a result, Khamenei is now forced to withdraw from some of his bullying actions in the Persian Gulf countries, and in fact, he has reached out his hand to these countries to save himself from being overthrown.
In this regard, observers note that some time ago, with the mediation of Iraq, they had several meetings with the representatives of Saudi Arabia with the aim of re-establishing diplomatic and trade relations in Baghdad, but these talks have not yet concluded due to Khamenei’s continued support for the Yemeni Houthis.
The UAE, a relatively small country compared to Iran just 50 years after its independence, with a population of less than 12 million, more than 80% of whom are foreigners, has now become such an economic power that Khamenei is forced to ask for help, which is a shame for the regime which has immense resources that no other country in the Middle East possesses.
According to the World Bank, Iran’s GDP at the current price of the US dollar fell below $ 192 billion last year, which is less than half of 2017 and less than a third of 2012. And Iran’s economic position has dropped from 31st to 51st in the world over the past three years.
During the same period, the GDP of Iran’s neighboring countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, based on the current price of the dollar last year, tripled and the UAE was more than double.
Raisi’s government is scheduled to present its budget for next year to the parliament on Sunday, December 12. A Budget that according to experts, there is no source of income for more than 50 percent of it and is facing a deficit of 50 percent.
The situation is such that even Raisi was forced to confess that if they are not able to provide compensation for this budget deficit, they will face huge problems.
It was not without reason that he met in person with the UAE National Security Adviser, while it is not customary in political practice for the President of one country to meet with the National Security Adviser of another country, and usually in addition to the meeting between the National Security Advisers, at maximum, the Vice President or the foreign Minister perform such a meeting.
But Khamenei’s mistake is that he thinks that by re-establishing relations with neighboring countries, he can open his economic situation and reduce the people’s dissatisfaction and disgust with his regime.
That’s because the source of the regime’s problems is its internal crisis, as Javad Mansouri, the first commander of the Revolutionary Guards, once said:
“The situation in our country will not get better and our problems will not be solved, because the essence of our problems is related to the interior, that is, if gold rains from the sky of Iran, but we do not have a meritocracy and the rule of law, the situation will remain as it is.”
