Is peace between Iran and Israel inevitable?

The recent momentum toward peace in the Middle East has been breathtaking. Multiple US-brokered deals between Israel, UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, known as the Abraham Accords, are creating a new reality in one of the world’s most combustible neighborhoods that, with US leadership, promises a more prosperous and secure future for Arabs and Jews alike.

An impetus behind this historic normalization of relations between the Jewish state and its Muslim neighbors is practical. They face a common threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has been labeled by the State Department as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism for nearly four decades.

Driven by a revolutionary theology, the Islamic Republic’s regime has been metastasizing across the region since its founding in 1979. From funding and arming anti-Israel terrorists, to blowing up Saudi oil facilities, to pirating commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, Iran is the Middle East’s preeminent menace. Not only is it out of step with the Abraham Accords, Iran is the neighborhood’s chief purveyor of discord.

The regime in Tehran, however, does not represent the Iranian people. A glaring example of this chasm was on display after a US drone strike killed Iran’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani. Despite the mullahs’ efforts to turn this murderer into a martyr, Iranians ripped down the propaganda posters glorifying him. They also rejected the regime’s attempts to stir up hate against the United States and Israel. Videos from Iran showed average citizens going out of their way to avoid stepping on the US and Israeli flags printed on the ground outside of shopping malls, schools, and mosques – even on the day of Soleimani’s funeral.

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Victoria Coates is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy and former deputy national security advisor for Middle Eastern and North African Affairs.