Iran wants a detente with its neighbours but not with America

Those who see Iran’s clerical regime as a fount of danger and discord have had no shortage of evidence in recent months. It has supplied Russia with hundreds of kamikaze drones to bomb civilian targets in Ukraine, and is thought to be building a factory in Russia to provide yet more. In early March the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that it had found traces of uranium at an Iranian facility that were too pure for any civilian use and almost refined enough to be made into a nuclear bomb. The government’s violent repression of widespread public protests is now in its sixth month. And this week it conducted naval exercises with China and Russia off its southern coast.

Yet recent weeks have also seen the biggest easing of tensions in years between Iran and its geopolitical rivals in the Middle East. On March 10th the government signed a deal, brokered by China, to restore diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia after a seven-year lapse. The Saudi government has invited Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, to visit the kingdom—something only one previous Iranian president has done. And Iran’s closest ally in the region, Syria, is also patching up relations with its neighbours. Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week.