Iran and Israel

10-13-09

In starting direct talks with the Iranians, Pres. Obama has taken a first step to embrace diplomacy rather than confrontation in the Middle East.

When Iran complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and announced that it was building a second uranium enrichment plant, Western governments and media expressed deep concern. This impelled the New York Times to call the area that stretches from Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan the "axis of anxiety."

That notable newspaper then reported the ensuing buildup to confrontation in tabloid language: "In a day of high drama at an economic summit meeting, American, British and French officials declassified some of their most closely held intelligence and scrambled to describe a multiyear Iranian effort, tracked by spies on the ground and satellites above, to build a secret uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain."

Running up to this, Iran has been painted as a dangerous, rogue state, akin to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where weapons of mass structure were being pursued to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and interrupt the flow of Middle East oil to Western economies.

In keeping with this anxious scenario, the Western powers have been proposing ever harsher even crippling sanctions to isolate Iran diplomatically and economically. Israel continually threatened an immediate air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

President Obama has now hopefully put this behind us and set a course to engage the Iranians diplomatically.

On October 1 the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany sat down for their first meeting with the Iranians and all the tension just fizzled. The disappointed press had to report that Iran agreed to everything asked of them in regard to uranium enrichment and then some. They agreed to on-the-ground inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency within two weeks.

Yet, it is not all that clear what American goals in Iran are. It often appears the US is following the Israeli geopolitical agenda: deny the bomb to any Islamic country by whatever means the Israelis find most effective and keep the United States engaged in the region to deny leadership to any emerging power, particularly Iran.

The Israeli fear of Iran seems strange. Iran has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Its supreme religious leader has stated they have a "no first strike" policy and that nuclear weapons are contrary to Islamic law. The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have been, and will be more, active in Iran.

At the same time, Israel has already used a preemptive strike against Iraq and everyone agrees that Israel already has around 100 nuclear weapons that it has never acknowledged. Israel has not signed the non-proliferation treaty and no outsiders have ever inspected any Israeli nuclear sites.

It may come as a surprise to many but Israel and Iran are natural allies. Both of these ancient peoples, the only regional survivors from biblical times, have more in common than they have a basis for war.

Admittedly, Israel is a small nation surrounded by mostly hostile Arabs with whom they have fought a series of wars. If the surrounding Arab states, and Iran, cared anything about the Palestinians, the professed center of concern, they would have just absorbed that relatively small number of people decades ago. The Arabs use the Palestinian issue to harass the Israelis who, too often, take the bait.

Iran also has reason to feel embattled. It is Persian in a sea of Arabs. It is Shiite among the Sunnis. It is an Islamic Republic in a Christian secular world. It also has, because of its size, location and independent cultural existence, a natural regional leadership role.

Iran has in fact dominated the area off and on for the past three or four millennia. It is not possible to deny Iran a leadership role however much we, the Israelis or the Saudi's might want to.

The Israeli fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon is paranoia. The Iranians are far too smart to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon when the US would immediately and with international approval obliterate Iran.

The American task in this "axis of instability" is, as often stated, to create stable political regimes and prosperous economies. To do this, we have to first convince the Iranians that they do not need a nuclear device to prevent a US attack.

We also have to ensure a shared leadership where the Israelis have a constructive part to play and where the Saudis can represent the Arabs and the Iranians can represent the Turks and other non-Arabs.

We also have to ensure that their leadership is not military but economic and cultural. That means that we have to find a nation-building institution other than our military.

This is our long-term diplomatic task and Obama in his mediator and conciliator role has begun it well.