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David A. Andelman, member of the board of contributors of USA Today, is the author of "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today." He formerly served as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. This opinions in this article belong to the author.

(CNN)At first glance, it appears that there are only two clear paths that the US can take when dealing with the Middle East: the Sunni path of Saudi Arabia and the bulk of its Gulf allies, on the one hand; or the Shiite path represented by Iran.

There is the path of dictators -- like Egypt's autocratic Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the blinkered and aging royal family of Saudi Arabia, and the corrupt and helpless rulers of Iraq -- all Sunnis.

By contrast, there is the young and desperately eager majority of Iranians, all Shiites, seeking to drag their nation out from under the yoke of a medieval clerical oppression.

The correct, if difficult, third path for America is to straddle between Sunni and Shiite. But going on the evidence of Trump's first overseas trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel -- both firm enemies of Iran and critical of the Obama administration's perceived warmth towards Iran -- this is a path that the President seems determined to ignore.

Of course, while that new road can be paved with good intentions, we know where such paths can lead. Still, it is of vital importance that we give these youths a chance to explore it.

What incentive is there for Iran to move toward peace, toward the West and toward the US if we become known not as peacemakers but simply arms merchants to Iran's sworn Sunni enemies in Saudi Arabia?

Trump visits Saudi Arabia on first trip 06:17

It was decidedly not a gesture to the reality that this is precisely what these very Iranian people voted for two days earlier.

Yet under the leadership of the blinkered Trump administration and the Sunni dictators to which it has hitched America's wagons, these forces of potential progress in Iran are being given few choices but to look elsewhere for weapons to defend their Shiite faith and their nation against the weapons being stockpiled by their Sunni enemies.

But there is more to the new era that may mark the path of Iran. If, as now appears increasingly likely following the weekend's events in Riyadh, the Sunni-Shiite divide continues to widen, it will have unfortunate consequences for the war on terrorism that President Trump seems so intent to pursue in short-sighted alliance with questionable partners.

For while the battle against ISIS is quite clearly a battle -- as President Trump has expressed it -- between good and evil, it is also a conflict that has gone on for centuries between Sunni and Shiite.

Trump and his advisers seem to be acting on the ancient pronouncement that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They simply have been unable or unwilling to identify who could be our real and true enemies, and who our long-term friends.

Iran, apparently, no matter how vocally its people scream for change, will continue to find only deaf ears from Washington to Riyadh.

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Iran, Spanish company sign $615 million deal for oil pipes Sacramento Bee Iran on Wednesday signed a deal worth $615 million or euros 550 million with a Spanish-Iranian consortium under which the group will provide pipes used in Iran's oil industry. It was the first major deal for Iran's oil industry since President ... and more »

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To the editor: Iranians easily reelected Hassan Rouhani as president. Three-fourths of eligible voters cast their ballots, a better turnout than in our own election. (Leaving his troubles at home, Trump gets a royal welcome in Saudi Arabia, May 20)

We refer to Iran as our enemy, and yet Rouhani is considered a moderate, and in last years parliamentary elections, moderates and reformers had their strongest showing ever in Iran.

This weekend, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia, where no national elections are held. That country is governed by a royal family. Islam is the state religion, and the puritanical Wahhabi Islamic movement that dominates Saudi Arabia controls many aspects of life.

Saudi Arabia is our friend, and yet we go around the world selling and evangelizing equality, freedom of choice, free elections, self-determination and democracy. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror without seeing two faces?

Rogelio Pea, Montebello

..

To the editor: Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, while Iran just held a presidential election. The Saudis ban the Bible, while Christians and Jews have reserved seats in the Iranian parliament. Saudi money financed the Sept. 11 attacks, while no terrorist attack in the U.S. has been linked to Iran. More than half of all Iranian university students are women, and in Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive.

Can someone explain exactly why we ally with Saudi Arabia against Iran?

Chris Norby, Fullerton

..

To the editor: Trump seemed truly happy in Saudi Arabia. He was welcomed as a king and his children as royal heirs. He is comfortable among his royal hosts, away from the dissenters at home who fail to show proper respect.

And why? For one, Trump urges a greater fight against terrorism, but he fails to point out that most of the Sept. 11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. For another, he lashes out against extremism, but he ignores that Al Qaeda and Islamic State have derived much of their strength from Wahhabism, which is supported by the Saudi royals.

Trump should enjoy being royalty, but he should not bring it home with him.

Peter Langenberg, South Pasadena

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A U.S. air raid against Iranian-backed fighters in southern Syria last week represents a volatile new phase of the conflict that could trigger a wider confrontation between the United States and Iran and their allies on the ground.

Until last weeks strike, the United States and Iran had managed to steer clear of a direct confrontation in Iraq and Syria, where each has hundreds of military advisors on the ground, embedded with local forces. In Iraq, they share a common enemy in the Islamic State. In Syria, the two sides are waging different wars: U.S. aircraft and special operations forces are pushing to roll back Islamic State militants, while Iran is backing the Syrian regime against opposition forces in a multi-sided civil war.

But as the Islamic States grip on territory weakens, the United States and Iran are increasingly at odds as their local partners vie for control of key terrain along the Syria-Iraq border.

In the May 18 air strike, U.S. F-16s hit a convoy of Iranian-armed Shiite fighters who failed to heed warnings to stay away from a base at al Tanf, close to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders, which is used by American and British special forces to train local militias fighting the Islamic State. The air strike marked the first time U.S. forces had targeted Irans proxies in Syria. A few days later, the Iranian proxies returned to the area, and U.S. warplanes buzzed them in a clear warning to keep away, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

U.S. military officers played down the incidents, saying the airstrike was merely a matter of safeguarding American special operations forces in the countrys southeast.

This doesnt signal any change in strategy, said a senior U.S. military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. strategy, under both President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama, has concentrated on defeating Islamic State forces on the battlefield and depriving them of territory in Iraq and Syria. With the exception of missile strikes against Syria last month in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons, the Trump administration so far has chosen not to enter into a military confrontation with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, or its patrons Iran and Russia

Having pushed Islamic State back in much of northeastern Syria, U.S. commanders are determined to oust the militants from their last urban bastion in Raqqa. A U.S.-armed and trained force of Kurdish and Arab fighters has begun to encircle Raqqa, and once the city falls, American officers hope to hunt down ISIS in eastern Deir Ezzor province and the Euphrates River Valley, where the group still exists in force.

But Iran has grown alarmed over the growing presence of U.S. special operations forces in southern Syria, and the progress of Syrian Kurdish and Arab troops on the battlefield. Iran is keen to secure a corridor linking Tehran and Baghdad to Syria and Lebanon, and Tehran state-run media have claimed the U.S. forces are in the border area to block any supply routes for Iran.

In response, Tehran has deployed thousands of Afghan and Iraqi Shiite fighters, and in recent weeks has sent 3,000 Lebanese Hezbollah troops to the southeastern region between al Tanf and Deir Ezzor, according to reports from Fars news agency, affiliated with Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Hezbollah troops were sent to the al-Tanf area to prepare the Syrian army and its allies for thwarting the U.S. plots in the region and establish security at the Palmyra-Baghdad road, Fars wrote, just hours before the U.S. air raid. They could also serve as a blocking force to keep U.S.-backed fighters from moving north out of al Tanf.

The escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran in Syria coincided with tougher rhetoric from President Trump directed at Iran. In a speech this week in Saudi Arabia, Trump labeled Iran as a source of destruction and chaos, and called on countries in the region to form a united front against Tehran.

Although Trump has promised to adopt an aggressive stance with Tehran, the White House is still conducting a review of its policy toward Iran and the administration has yet to articulate U.S. goals along the Syria-Iraq border.

Its not clear to me yet if the administration has a detailed strategy [on] how to manage its presence and its allies presence in eastern Syria, said Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and now a fellow at the Middle East Institute.

If the administration is not careful, its going to be a slippery slope. It seems like theres a potential for more conflict.

The Trump administration has given the U.S. military the authority to base about 1,000 troops mostly special operations forces in Syria, spread out among several small outposts in the Kurdish north, a Marine Corps fire base close to Raqqa, and at al Tanf in the south. These small outposts are separated by hundreds of miles of territory where ISIS is steadily losing control, and which regime forces and their Iranian allies see as fertile ground to reestablish the Syrian governments control.

The U.S.-led coalition is keeping a wary eye on the militias. One U.S. defense official told FP they are watching the militias inch their way eastward toward Deir Ezzor, where the Syrian government maintains a significant and isolated military outpost. The base has long been cut off from other areas of regime control and can only be resupplied by airdrops, but it was recently reinforced by about 1,000 Syrian soldiers, giving the regime in Damascus some fighting power in the area.

American military leaders have long said they expect ISIS to retreat into the Euphrates River Valley that connects Raqqa to the Iraqi border, and U.S. and coalition aircraft have been striking ISIS targets in the valley for months. U.S. warplanes carried out more air strikes in the area this week.

Some of the Iranian-backed militia fighters remain in place near al Tanf, despite the U.S. air strike and last weekends warning. If they resume their advance, coalition forces will defend themselves, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters on Tuesday.

Another military official added that we have a good understanding they will want to continue moving east toward Deir Ezzor, and the fighters are being closely tracked.

When the fight moves to the Euphrates valley in Deir Ezzor, the risks of an unintended conflict will grow. With U.S-backed Free Syrian Army forces moving from the south, Kurdish and Arab Syrian Democratic Forces advancing from the north and west, pro-regime militias trying to push into the area and both American and Russian aircraft buzzing overhead, some worry that the crowded battlefield could lead to unwanted incidents.

The Iranian supported militias often operate in close proximity to U.S. troops, especially in Iraq. An FP reporter, visiting a U.S. military base south of Mosul earlier this year, saw a chart in the operations center with the flags of the major armed Shiite militias operating in the vicinity, so U.S. forces could identify what groups are operating close by, often just on the perimeter of their base.

Last September, U.S and coalition jets inadvertently struck a small outpost in the east of Syria, killing over 60 Assad regime soldiers in an incident that angered Moscow and highlighted how confused the battlefield there can be.

With American troops on the ground, and advisors moving around with small local units, there remains the danger of Iranian retaliation. During the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Tehran provided Shiite militias with deadly roadside bombs and rockets that claimed hundreds of American lives.

Already, Iranian-backed Iraqi militia groups have increased their anti-U.S. propaganda in Iraq, accusing Washington of aiding the Islamic State and pressuring the Baghdad government to expel American troops advising the Iraqi security forces inMosul and across the country, Ahmad Majidyar, director of the IranObserved Project at the Middle East Institute, wrote recently.

Any response from Iran would be asymmetrical, Majidyar said, and could come in places like Iraq.

Photo Credit: JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images

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Are the US and Iran on a Collision Course in Syria? - Foreign Policy (blog)

Hanover Misagh Parsa, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth College, outlined the roots of a deep discord between the Iranian people and their Islamist government and pointed to possible outcomes during a talk Tuesday afternoon at the Haldeman Center.

The discussion came within days of a convincing victory from Hassan Rouhani, a moderate reformer, in the countrys presidential election and also coincides with the publication of Parsas latest book, Democracy in Iran: Why It Failed and How It Might Succeed.

Parsa opened with a video that might give democratizers cause for hope: footage of swarms of Iranians celebrating Rouhani in the streets, dancing to thumping music forbidden by Islamic clerics with some women waving their head scarves in the air.

But he almost immediately tempered that optimism, noting that the countrys supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,clerics and the military hold most of the power. To achieve democratic rule, Parsa said, another revolution will have to finish what began with the 1979 ouster of the autocratic shah.

Its highly unlikely for Iran to democratize through reform, Parsa said, given that reformers have to work within the existing structures of power. And so instead its likely that Iran will need to go through another revolutionary transformation.

The Islamic regime has been at odds with the people since the beginning, according to Parsa. The first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, promised democratic reforms early on, giving no hint to the Iranian public that he intended to establish a religious government.

The people did not ask for an Islamic theocracy, Parsa said. ... That was not part of the deal.

Instead they gave them something no one was interested in, he said, referring to the social and cultural restrictions imposed by Islamic leaders: restrictions on the dress and behavior of women, for instance, and bans on drinking and music.

Parsa ticked off year after year since 1979 in which massive protests against the regime were followed by brutal repression, including thousands of executions an indication, he said, that the divide between a religious government and a more secular populace is only growing deeper.

The numbers of conservative clergy in the countrys parliament, for example, have fallen at a shocking rate, he said decreasing from 60.7 percent of all members in 1980 to 5.5 percent in 2016.

Gene Garthwaite, a professor emeritus of history who gave remarks afterward, bolstered that point, saying religion in Iran has become way overemphasized for Westerners as Iranians grow increasingly cynical about it.

During a recent trip to the Middle East, Garthwaite found that mosques in Istanbul were full of worshippers, he said, whereas in Iran, theyre all empty. Thats one of the biggest shocks.

Parsa said the regime had failed to deliver on its promises to the people in other ways especially economically. Khomeini initially pledged to reduce inequality and help the poor, but after seizing power he and his allies took the assets of the royal family and their associates.

In the years since, corruption and cronyism have become even more widespread than they were under the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Parsa said.

In the shahs day, public universities commanded more respect, he said, Now you can go and buy degrees at any state Iranian university.

During a question-and-answer session, audience member Bruce Garland asked whether it might take more bloodshed to dislodge the current regime than it did for the shah, who fled along with his associates to the West Whereas the (Revolutionary) Guard has nowhere to go, he said, and therefore the fight would be much more bloody, much more intractable.

Parsa said Iranians were aware that the regime was capable of extreme violence and wanted to avoid that happening.

Iranians know that these people are very ruthless and they are willing to kill thousands again, he said.

But at the same time, Parsa added, the Iranian government feels deeply threatened by popular protests.

Earlier during the event, he noted that Khamenei had lamented that massive protests against fraud in the 2009 election had brought the Islamic Republicto the edge of the cliff.

Other high-ranking officials said those demonstrations had posed a greater challenge to the regime than the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

Daniel Benjamin, director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, asked what events were most likely to trigger another revolution in Iran.

Earlier, Garthwaite had noted that a succession crisis could develop when Khamenei leaves power.

Although Parsa didnt offer a specific example of a revolutionary trigger, he said the impetus shouldnt come from Washington.

Every time theres an external conflict, Iranians tend to unite, he said. That is what should not happen. Let the contradictions heighten.

Tuesdays event was co-sponsored by the Dickey Center and the Department of Sociology.

Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.

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