When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
CLARIN

Iran Deal Could Redraw Entire Middle East Power Map

The West's accord with Iran was not just about a nuclear threat. The U.S. has bigger plans to recalibrate the region's balance of power among Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and beyond.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Marcelo Cantelmi

-Analysis-

The United States and Iran have taken a colossal step whereby two seething enemies of 35 years — recently turned into uneasy, circumstantial allies — will change the balance of power across the Middle East. The scope of the recent accord goes well beyond the rhetoric about Iran's nuclear threat, which motivated the talks, and is the result of changes in the Middle East strategic agenda. It is not about Iran changing or becoming more friendly, but about a historic coincidence of interests created by this changing agenda.

International politics are about setting priorities, as the former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked. Iran needed to break the isolation that has strangled its economy, and which grew worse during the eight-year presidency of the ultranationalist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The sanctions have crushed Iran's economy and undermined the huge wealth that could have otherwise been obtained from its oil and gas resources. In 2013, Iranian GDP shrank 5%, while unemployment rose above 30%. A U.S. Congressional study indicates that the Iranian economy is 20% smaller today than it would be without sanctions.

This is the situation that led to the election in 2013 of moderate cleric, Hassan Rouhani: The economic crisis explains the political change. The new president immediately set a new course from his predecessor and opened the doors to dialogue with the West.

The recent accord pulverizes the Iranian nuclear program. It will provide the United States and its allies a negotiating ploy to defend it before the UN Security Council and allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel, which have vigorously opposed talks for the possible scenario they open in their area of influence.

As sanctions are lifted Tehran will receive the economic impact of foreign investment, which explains the celebrations on the streets of Tehran on April 2. Iranians are deeply pragmatic when it comes to seeking agreements, and their needs to develop economically have in this case coincided with Western desire to pacify the Middle East as far as possible.

Iran will henceforth become an inevitable power in the region. It has the knowledge and power to relieve the United States of the weight of its lengthy war in Afghanistan, where the two states share an enemy in the Taliban. Iran's backyard also extends the other way, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and further afield now in Yemen. There, with the war they have launched against pro-Iranian Houthis, the Saudis are showing how inflexible they are prepared to be.

Iran's very evident political and strategic value was a key part of President Barack Obama"s calculations on the need to turn Tehran from enemy into partner. Israel's fury at the talks, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally denounced in a speech to the U.S. Congress, is not for the nuclear threat to Israel alone, but a reaction to changes happening on the ground. The United States wants, against the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, a greater balance among the regional powers — Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Iran and Egypt.

It is a risky bet, at least until the balance mechanism is in place and working, especially in a zone where a new fire breaks out just as one is being put out. If there is significant détente between Washington and Tehran, this could prompt questions about why Israel will not move toward the U.S. position favoring a Palestinian state. The future may also look much more complicated for the various Arab monarchies that have been ruled with an iron fist for decades. The United States is not about to deprive them of its support, but certainly, the conditions of its support may soon change.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

How Brazil's Evangelical Surge Threatens Survival Of Native Afro-Brazilian Faith

Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.

image of Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Agencia Publica
Géssica Amorim

Among a host of images of saints and Afro-Brazilian divinities known as orixás, Abel José, 42, an Umbanda priest, lights some candles, picks up his protective beads and adjusts the straw hat that sits atop his head. He is preparing to treat four people from neighboring villages who have come to his house in search of spiritual help and treatment for health ailments.

The meeting takes place discreetly, in a small room that has been built in the back of the garage of his house. Abel lives in the quilombo of Sítio Bredos, home to 135 families. The community, located in the municipality of Betânia of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is one of the municipality’s four remaining communities that have been certified as quilombos, the word used to refer to communities formed in the colonial era by enslaved Africans and/or their descendents.

In these villages there are almost no residents who still follow traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Abel, Seu Joaquim Firmo and Dona Maura Maria da Silva are the sole remaining followers of Umbanda in the communities in which they live. A wave of evangelical missionary activity has taken hold of Betânia’s quilombos ever since the first evangelical church belonging to the Assembleia de Deus group was built in the quilombo of Bredos around 20 years ago. Since then, other evangelical, pentecostal, and neo-pentecostal churches and congregations have established themselves in the area. Today there are now nine temples spread among the four communities, home to roughly 900 families.

The temples belong to the Assembleia de Deus, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the World Church of God's Power, the latter of which has over 6,000 temples spread across Brazil and was founded by the apostle and televangelist Valdemiro Santiago, who became infamous during the pandemic for trying to sell beans that he had blessed as a Covid-19 cure. Assembleia de Deus alone, who are the largest pentecostal denomination in the world, have built five churches in Betânia’s quilombos.


Keep reading...Show less

The latest