The firing of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is reverberating across the Middle East, with Iran fearing his replacement will fight to end the 2015 nuclear deal, Gulf Arab states concerned about Iran welcoming it for the same reason, Palestinians worrying about an emboldened nationalist Israeli government, and an ongoing diplomatic dispute between Qatar and four Arab nations.
How Tillerson's proposed successor, CIA director Mike Pompeo, will handle these challenges remains to be seen. But Pompeo is a major opponent of the nuclear accord, while Tillerson had been pursuing a delicate strategy with European allies and others to try to improve or augment the deal.
In Iran, some are already expressing concerns.
Iran's daily Javan newspaper, believed to be close to the hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps, said replacing Tillerson with Pompeo signals the end of the nuclear deal.
"For quitting the deal, his dumping was necessary," Javan said.
That conclusion was echoed by Ali Khorram, a former Iranian envoy to the United Nations, in the pro-reform daily newspaper Arman.
"Pompeo is very interested in waging a war similar to the Iraq war by citing international regulations," Khorram wrote. "European powers will play a role in balancing his desire."
However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi played down the shake-up's potential impact on the nuclear deal.
"These changes and developments and firings in the Trump government are not new," he said on Wednesday.
"We have witnessed similar developments and this is their internal issue. What is important for the Islamic republic is America's policy in global affairs and their interaction with us, and we will adopt our own positions."
Qassemi said the United States could not be trusted.
"In actions and by experience it's been seen that the policies and approach of America cannot be trusted very much. This country is not very dependable," he said.
Bahram Ghasemi, another Foreign Ministry official, also played down the effects of Tillerson's firing, calling it part of the "frequent and multiple" changes in Trump's administration.
"What matters to the Islamic Republic of Iran are the policies and approaches of the United States in regard to international issues and toward Iran," he said. "We closely monitor their approaches and macro-policies and will take appropriate stances accordingly in the future."
Tillerson's firing was welcome news for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which view Iran as a regional menace. They have also pushed Washington to take a harder line on Qatar, which they and other Arab nations have boycotted since last year, accusing it of supporting extremist groups and cozying up to Iran. Tillerson, a former oilman, had sought to mediate the crisis among the U.S. allies but failed to make headway.
In the UAE on Wednesday, the English-language Khaleej Times borrowed from the U.S. president's show-biz days for its headline, blaring "You're fired!" Saudi Arabia's English-language Arab News had the same headline.
Another English-language newspaper, the state-aligned The National of Abu Dhabi, carried an editorial saying Tillerson's firing would "surprise few," pointing to his disagreement with Trump over Qatar.
The UAE, along with Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, cut off land, sea and air routes to Qatar in June 2017. Qatar, which has backed Islamist opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, has denied supporting extremists. It shares a massive offshore natural gas field with Tehran.
"While Mr. Tillerson shortsightedly urged Saudi Arabia and allies in the quartet to end their boycott of Qatar, Mr. Trump named Doha 'a funder of terrorism at a very high level,'" The National's editorial page said.
Faisal J. Abbas, the editor-in-chief of the Arab News, similarly said Tillerson's mishandling of the Middle East "turned the region into his political graveyard." Abbas wrote that Tillerson's handling of the Qatar dispute proved he was "'full of gas' more than anything else."
"Is there reason to believe Doha had influence over Tillerson? Was he really biased toward Qatar?" Abbas wrote in a front-page editorial. "Or was he surrounded by so many State Department officials still stuck in the Obama era that they undermined his ability to act? None of this matters now."
Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent UAE professor of political science, posted on Twitter that Tillerson was "the worst foreign minister in the history of America." He also implied that Gulf Arab unhappiness with Tillerson led to his ousting.
"History will remember that a Gulf state had a role in expelling the foreign minister of a superpower, and that's just the tip of the iceberg," he wrote.
Kuwait, which has sought to broker an end to the Qatar crisis, offered no immediate comment, though a local newspaper described Tillerson's departure as striking "like an earthquake."
For Israel, the Pompeo announcement appears to be good news for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been an outspoken opponent of the Iranian nuclear deal and who sees Iran's involvement in neighboring Lebanon and Syria as a major threat.
Netanyahu has also welcomed the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem – a move for which Tillerson showed little enthusiasm.
"In my meetings with Pompeo I was very impressed with his experience and abilities. I believe that also in his position as secretary of state we will work very well together," Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday.
