Check out the June 1st Iran-focused issue of Newsweek, which audaciously proclaims, Everything you know about Iran is wrong. (unless, of course, you’re a regular jwn reader)
In editor Farheed Zakaria’s opening “bombshell,”
“Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program.”
Zakaria then briefly outlines why the Iranians might just be ready, for rational reasons on their own terms, to cut a nuclear deal. (See also Newsweek’s short interview with the IAEA’s Mohamed El-Baredei)
Along the way, Zakaria challenges a particularly virulent form of extremism, not in Iran, but within current Israeli propaganda about Iran:
“Iranians aren’t suicidal…. In an interview last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Iranian regime as “a messianic, apocalyptic cult.” In fact, Iran has tended to behave in a shrewd, calculating manner, advancing its interests when possible, retreating when necessary….
[But] One of Netanyahu’s advisers said of Iran, “Think Amalek.” The Bible says that the Amalekites were dedicated enemies of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
Zakari gently notes that, “were the president of Iran and his advisers to have cited a religious text that gave divine sanction for the annihilation of an entire race, they would be called, well, messianic.”
They’d also be prosecuted by Alan Dershowitz, John Bolton and friends for “incitement to genocide.” They might also be called…. jihadis.
My favorite article in the Newsweek collection is sub-titled, “A Journey through the Heart of Iran” by Hooman Majd. (author of “The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.”) Many of his vignettes remind me of my own journeys inside Iran last decade — many of which are found in “The Iranians.” Majd is quite right to observe that:
Very few serving U.S. officials have met their Iranian counterparts, and almost none have ever visited Iran. Yet such expertise is more critical than ever…..
(Hmmmm…. now there’s an idea.) I especially recommend Majd’s brilliant analogy between buying slippers in the Persian bazaar to diplomacy — both are serious, practical matters — and the Iranians are presently waiting to see if Obama is serious about entering into negotiations.
Newsweek also provides several items related to the upcoming Iranian presidential elections, one focusing on the unlikely, yet compelling, candidacy of Mir Hossein Musavi and the second being a very interesting interview with former President Mohammad Khatami. (whose legacy I wrote about earlier this year)
Newsweek makes too much of a rumor that Supreme Leader Khamenei forced Khatami to withdraw from the race. Khatami’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad give further weight to my suggestion yesterday that foreign policy has become a top issue in the current contest. Khatami also expresses optimism about the Obama approach to Iran, emphasizes the necessity of no preconditions and mutual respect in the dialogue, and even offers that Iran is ready to reach an agreement on the nuclear issue that insures Iran’s rights to peaceful nuclear energy while providing “guarantees” that Iran will not build a bomb. (no kidding — read the interview.)
Yet Khatami’s sounded this note of pessimism:
“One of the biggest obstacles is the Israeli and Zionist lobby. They are a very strong lobby both financially and in the media. They can create negative publicity and psychological warfare at times when they see Israel’s interest is in jeopardy. I’m reluctant to say, I don’t know if it’s true at the time of Mr. Obama or not, that I believe in the greatness of American nation and that Washington is its capital, but to many people around the world, the real capital of the United States is Tel Aviv. Many people think that Israel decides American foreign policy not the American government.”
Before dismissing Khatami on this, readers should consider yet another Newsweek essay on Obama Administration Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emmanuel, the ironic “peacemaker.” I’ll refrain from comments, save to note that the much of the cited praise for Emmanuel comes from the usual pro-Israeli sources in Washington, including Congresswoman Jane (“let’s break up Iran”) Harmon. Read it; draw your own conclusions.
Only two items in the Newsweek Iran issue are sub-par: a rather dull “photo essay” and a quite silly list of Iran’s “top 20” heavyweights. The list reminds me of certain writers who for a quarter century have been telling us that Iran is run by a secret cabal of less than 25 people — but then never give us names. At last, the power-brokers are revealed, and the Newsweek list includes a comedian, a newspaper editor, the BBC Persian Service, and a sportscaster. (eat your heart out Charles Barkley) And the BBC? ;-} Maybe this listing was meant to be a sophisticated… joke.
For better material, see the profound video shorts on the newsweek web site, including one account of an Iranian terrorist victim (sic) — something American’s don’t usually hear about, but Iranians all-too-well understand. (Leader Khamenei last week charged the US with supporting “terrorists” in Kurdish areas of Iran — a complaint that has more than a little plausibility to it, given covert ops set in motion during the Bush years.)
******
As a footnote: on the Iran-Israel-US triangle, see Larry Derfner “cage rattling” oped in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, (not exactly a “liberal” source). Daring to challenge the shrill cries that, “The Iranians are Coming,” Derfner calls “sanity on the subject of Iran:”
“It’s considered our patriotic duty to be scared to death of Iran, and it’s our leaders’ responsibility to keep themselves and us at the end of our wits. And we’re all doing a great job…. What is this craziness?… [T]his brainwashing by popular demand will cause us to attack Iran – unless Barack Obama stops us…. Our number one strategic goal, as far as I’m concerned, is not to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but to calm the hell down.”
Elbaradei’s newsweek interview is also worth a read: “They are not fanatics”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/199149
I am one who has never been phobic about the Islamic regime in Iran, have never seen it as a messianic apocalyptic cult – always as the “shrewd and calculating” player Zakaria notes. Nevertheless one has to ask why Iran is behaving (publicly at least) in such a provocative way towards Israel?
What’s shrewd and calculating about driving Israel to the point of paranoia that it mounts an aerial attack on Iran’s nuclear development program?
Its not as if the Iranian regime has not had close, clandestine co-operative links with Zionist Israel in the past – most notably during the Iraq/Iran war?
Not being unintelligent or unsophisticated – in fact the reverse – the Iranians know extremely well what the interests of the jewish state are, and know that Israel’s interests are not and never have been in going to war with Iran.
And yet they are persisting in being ambiguous about their intentions as if they are ignorant that Israel will certainly attack their facilities if it feels sufficiently threatened. This is far, far different from Iran funding and arming Hezbollah and Hamas as a means of curtailing Israel. It goes to the issue of the way Israel percieves its very survival.
Why is Iran pursuing this high risk strategy with Israel? What does it have to gain? What is their perspective? I can’t work it out, and Zakaria did not even raise these questions.
Der Spiegel also recently conducted a much longer and hardball interview with ElBaredei, available in english translation here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-625600,00.html
Among the memorable quotes therein, here’s part of his response to being wire-tapped by the Bush Administration:
It didn’t really surprise me. What can you expect from an administration that — in a mixture of ignorance and arrogance — passed over countless diplomatic opportunities to conduct a dialogue with Tehran? The entire Middle East was turned into a complete mess.
Important set of questions BB…. (you may be familiar with Trita Parsi’s Treacherous Triangle book — which goes into the subject of Israel-Iran “relations” in great depth)
And thankfully, most Israelis don’t view Iran in apocalyptic terms — or use phrases like “obliterating” Iran. (though Iranians remember than candidate Hillary Clinton did) Still, parts of the new Israeli gov’t apparently does subscribe to terminology — and its international pr apparatus seems willing to fan such flames. (especially among “Christian jihadis” — think John Hagee – Oren’s fav. audience)
Yet many of the concerns you raise have been used by Ahmadinejad’s opponents in the Presidential contest — that his rhetoric — his “style” — has profoundly raised suspicions about Iran’s nuclear intentions, and hurt Iran’s overall “prestige” — its legitimacy in the world.
That said, I am puzzled by the west’s general unwillingness to look carefully at what A/N has said recently about Israel/Palestine possibilities…. See this transcript from the recent interview on the ABC This Week Program:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=7421719
(excerpts for consideration — while contentious perhaps, regarding what Palestinians would get to vote, this is hardly the talk of annihilation, or “map wiping” — needs testing — seriously. )
AHMADINEJAD: What we are saying is that the Palestinian people like other peoples have the right to determine their own fate. Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. We should — they should allow them to engage in elections, free elections and a free referendum to determine for themselves their own fate….
STEPHANOPOULOS: If the Palestinian people negotiate an agreement with Israel and the Palestinian people vote and support that agreement, a two state solution, will Iran support it?
AHMADINEJAD: Nobody should interfere, allow the Palestinian people to decide for themselves. Whatever they decide….
STEPHANOPOULOS: If the Palestinians sign an agreement with Israel, will Iran support it?
AHMADINEJAD: Whatever decision they take is fine with us. We are not going to determine anything. Whatever decision they take, we will support that. We think that this is the right of the Palestinian people, however we fully expect other states to do so as well.
(as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, these A/N comments are actually quite in line with comments by Iranian leaders going back over two decades…. — yet the headline is that they’re coming here from Ahmadinejad…)
Here again, more evidence to suggest that popular conceptions of Iran in the west are quite…. ill-informed.
bb:
My feel is that Iran has not been acting especially provocatively towards Israel. My take is that from the Iranian position, Iran has been taking reasonable positions that are being deliberately stretched and distorted by Israel and friends of Israel for their own political reasons.
There is the “wiped off the map”. Which is famous by now. Iran does not consider Zionist Israel a legitimate state as it did not consider Apartheid South Africa a legitimate state. He gave examples of other regimes that no longer exist the way Israel’s Zionist regime will no longer exist according to him. His examples were the USSR, Saddam’s regime and the Shah’s regime. There was nothing genocidal in that statement and it really was not a reasonable interpretation of the speech. The actual speech was not provocative, beyond the fact that Iran and the vast majority of its citizens do not consider Israel legitimate (pretty standard for the region, even if a lot of rulers part with their subjects under Western pressure). At least from A/N’s point of view and likely from the points of view of a lot of Iranians.
On the Holocaust, A/N has only ever made two points, 1 is that it occurred in Europe and Palestinians should not pay for it and 2 the story has a privileged status, to the degree that people in the West are imprisoned for expressing doubts about the official story. He’s never asserted that a certain number of people died or didn’t die.
Most important is the nuclear program. Iran believes it has the right to the nuclear status Japan has. Japan does not have a weapon today, or a weapons program today, but if Japan’s strategic environment was to change in some unforeseen way in the future, Japan has the right to make a weapon if it perceives the need. This right of Japan is not in any way abrogated by the NPT.
The United States, following Israel, has adopted the position that Iran must not have nuclear enrichment under its domestic control. This position is very unreasonable at least by the terms of the NPT. From there the situation becomes weird.
The United States and Israel often deliberately conflate what they call a nuclear “capability”, which is legal, with a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu recently said there was a great danger of Iran “arming itself with a nuclear capability”.
Nobody closely following the issue is confused but Israel’s people could be forgiven for being fooled by their leaders into thinking enrichment is a weapon. But this is not “ambiguity” on Iran’s part. It is dishonesty on the part of US and Israeli leaders.
US and Israeli leaders often use phrases such as “we believe Iran wants a weapon or at least the capability to create one if it decides to”. That “or” is carrying a lot of weight, because one side of the disjunction is prohibited, while the other is perfectly legal.
What is happening, the source of the perceived ambiguity, is that in order to maximize pressure on Iran to renounce a legal right, US and Israeli leaders are often deliberately conflating it with a weapon. This is not Iran’s fault.
When Mullen recently said the believes Iran is trying to build a weapon maybe he meant he has information that nobody else knows about that Iran actually has a weapons program. But maybe by “weapon” he means “weapons capability”. US and Israeli policymakers, deliberately attempting to mislead, use the terms so interchangeably that it is never clear anymore what they mean. And they are never questioned closely on it.
Lastly, still about the nuclear program, Iran likely calculates that Israel cannot bomb Iran’s program without US permission and the US will not give permission.
So regardless of any hysteria Israel’s leaders whip Israel’s people into, without the US on board, this is nothing more than a bluff, possibly to scare the Europeans into adopting sanctions.
If the US was willing to allow Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear plants, the US would do it itself, the US has more planes and cruise missiles closer than Israel has, and the blowback from a US or Israeli attack on the US would be the same.
If Israel doubted the US would shoot Israeli jets out of the sky attempting to bomb Iran without permission, Israel would have already bombed Iran.
So for those reasons, the nuclear issue seems like a higher-stakes, more risky endeavor in Tel-Aviv than it does in Tehran.
Iran’s nuclear behavior, from Iran’s point of view, is not only not provocative, but a reasonable position in a dispute that would have been resolved in 2004 if the US was willing to accept Iranian domestic enrichment under an inspection regime as stringent as anybody wants. The US position has never been for a more stringent inspection regime, but for Iran not to be “nuclear capable” in the way Japan is. Iran does not consider itself any more provocative than Japan or Brazil.
Helena:
Sorry for the length.
Does anyone really think that, absent the nuclear issue, US/Israeli-Iranian relations would be any better? Instead, wouldn’t another issue be fabricated to curdle the blood of television viewers in the US and Israel?
Let’s not forget that the problems stem from the time of the Iranian Revolution, when US/Israel’s boy, the Shah was ousted. The nuclear issue is a johnny-come-lately in the 30 year history of the poor relations. Like WMDs in Iraq, the nuclear issue is front and center because it resonates with Americans’ fears and is easy to exploit.
Here’s a report of the poll of Israeli citizens towards Iran — as reported in ha’aretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087342.html
Note especially comments by David Menashri (one of Israel’s best Iran observers, — and he’s holding a conference at the moment at Tel Aviv U – which conducted the survey)
“The findings are worrying because they reflect an exaggerated and unnecessary fear,” Prof. David Menashri, the head of the Center, said. “Iran’s leadership is religiously extremist but calculated and it understands an unconventional attack on Israel is an act of madness that will destroy Iran
More disinformation to add to the heap of “everything that you know about Iran is wrong.” Venezuela and Bolivia are supposedly supplying uranium.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/25/secret-israeli-report-ven_n_207405.html
This is blatant propaganda and fear mongering. Iran doesn’t need South American uranium. It has plenty of its own.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2009/iran-090303-irna02.htm
It’s amazing anyone believes anything Israel says. According to a report cited in the article, Venezuela doesn’t even mine uranium, though it has substantial reserves.
Like I said earlier, as in the run-up to the Iraq War, the nuclear issue is front and center only because it resonates with Americans’ fears and is easy to exploit. Absent the nuclear issue, other Iranian sins would have been fabricated.
Thanks SH, was hoping you’d reply as you seem very well informed about Iran. Still you don’t seem to be able to shed light on my essential conundrum, which is why the Iranians are provoking Israel knowing full well the nuclear issue is seen in Israel as going to the very core of Israel’s survival? (Unlike for eg the Iranian support of Hezbollah and Hamas). The Iranians probably knowing this better than anyone else, given their collaboration with Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear program after the Iranian airforce was unable to destroy Saddam’s reactor back in the early 80s.
In other words, the Iranian regime must be aware that Israel will attack its facilities if Iran doesn’t doesn’t put its peaceful intentions beyond doubt. Also that Israel will do this regardless of whether the US approves or not.
I have this nagging feeling that Iran is approaching the line – if it hasn’t already crossed it – where an Israeli attack is preferable to losing face. This to me is a very Saddam-like posture. One would think that Saddam’s sunni arab Iraq would be the last model Iran would want to choose. It is truly astonishing ro me that the Iranians have let this run so far.
btw – regarding Ahmadinejad and the ABC. Would Ahmadinejad seriously believe that the Palestinians at a referendum would vote in favour of an agreement? Especially those under Hamas military rule in gaza? I have some admiration for Ajhmadinejad’s political skills and the transcript suggested sophism to me.
bb–what else do you suggest that Iran do to prove that its nuclear program is not a weapons program?
They have already satisfied El Baradei and the US intelligence community (2008 NIE).
The onus here should be on Israel to prove that those who have closely examined Iran’s nuclear program are wrong. It’s easy for a paranoid nation to let its imagination run wild. How about demanding they show some proof for their wild ravings?
bb–Israel’s fabricating stories about Venezuela and Bolivia shipping uranium to Iran don’t help Israel’s credibility. As I said before, it’s amazing anyone believes anything Israel says anymore.
SH – further to my last:
Zakaria says:
“And if Tehran’s aim is to expand its regional influence, it doesn’t need a bomb to do so. Simply having a clear “breakout” capacity—the ability to weaponize within a few months—would allow it to operate with much greater latitude and impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia.”
Having a “breakout” capacity makes sense to me as a rational Iranian goal. But if so, if this is its goal, why has it been publicly provoking Israel for the last few years to attack it? One would think if Iran was bent on achieving a “break out” capacity it would be better policy to go about it quietly and in a circumspect way instead of publicly provoking Israel and feeding its paranoia at every opportunity. It makes no sense at all if this regime has been as rational, shrewd, calculating as I had always thought it was.
With Saddam, the deadline for Israel was to act before he acheived break out. And here we have the Iranians seeming to do everything they can to publicise when they will pass that deadline.And at the same time helping to produce conditions in Israel whereby Likud is resurrected!
And thank you for that book reference. Have found it on line here in Oz and look forward to reading it.
It seems narcissistic to believe that Iran is “provoking” Israel by refusing to suspend enrichment. Iran has good reasons to refuse to suspend enrichment that have nothing to do with Israel.
Israel cannot bomb Iran without US assistance though. Unidentified fighter jets flying over US controlled airspace are shot down.
If they are not, Iran begins a full-scale asymmetric war with the US in which Iran expects at least to damage the US enough that it is preferable for the US to allow Iran to continue enriching.
We’re talking about bombing facilities that are under IAEA supervision. There is no possible way to construe Iran’s nuclear program as any kind of imminent danger to anyone. Israel would be wrong in any attack and would in the end be punished for such attack, possibly in a much more severe way than Israelis expect.
It is commonly understood that the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which most Americans now regret, was a good thing for Israel even if it was a bad thing for the US.
Dragging the US into a war with Iran would likely push US patience over the limit. That’s probably what Bush told Olmert. Obama speaking to Netanyahu is worse for Israel in every dimension.
Israel may consider announcing that if Iran withdraws from the NPT it will attack, (maybe people will believe it, maybe not) but Israel is going to have to learn to tolerate Iran having domestic uranium enrichment and being nuclear capable. There really is nothing Israel can do to stop that.
Oh, and Saddam didn’t provoke the US either. Iraq submitted a report saying it did not have any WMDs. The US claimed it had proof Iraq was lying. The US invaded. It turned out the US was lying. There was no instance in the immediate run-up to the invasion that Hussein pretended to have weapons or withheld cooperation with inspectors. The inspectors needed a few more months to certify that all of the US leads were bogus and the US, for its own reasons, (with Israeli encouragement) invaded and occupied Iraq before the certification could be made.
The lie that Saddam provoked the invasion is even more egregious than the idea that Iran is provoking Israel. But it is a lie that I often see ignored maybe because Westerners do not want to face the implications of Iraq being more honest in the pre-war period than the US. Even though that was obviously the case. Clearly.
It really could be that by realizing how much leverage Iran has over Iraq and the direction of the US’ fate in Iraq, Iran has lost its fear of the United States and thereby of Israel and is now acting unafraid of Israel in a way Israel’s supporters find unexpected.
Iran does not “know” Israel is on the verge of attacking. Iran “knows” Israel is on the verge of backing down. So there is no reason for that retreat not to be as humiliating for Israel as possible.
But on the other hand, Iran is willing to respond to Israeli threats with Iranian counterthreats, but Iran has not been spontaneously threatening Israel. All of the serious announcements about Iran’s program are being made by the IAEA, not Iran.
What Israel calls provocative is actually pretty smart strategy from the Iranian perspective. To understand this, you have to realize that the Iranians take US and Israel hostility as a given that cannot be changed by anything the Iranian regime does.
As a result, the nuclear program is not a real negative, since the US is sure to continue the sanctions regime anyway (it has been in place for 30 years already and predates the nuclear rational for its imposition.) But the program’s benefits include electricity and national prestige. Score a net benefit to the nuclear program from the Iranian perspective.
Likewise, support of Hamas and Hezbollah costs them almost nothing but benefits them a lot. Again, the basic assumption is that relations with Washington and Tel Aviv would be in the toilet, even if they did not support Hamas and Hezbollah. On the plus side, Iranian support of groups opposed to Israel gains them widespread popular support in the Muslim world generally and in the Arab world particularly. Moreover, it exposes the hypocrisy of US-allied Arab regimes and diminishes their already slim popular legitimacy. As a result, US-allied dictators are less likely to go along with US moves to undermine or attack Iran for fear of backlash from their own people, particularly those in the oil-producing Shia regions of the Persian Gulf.
Regardless of whether you like it or not, the Iranian strategy makes perfect sense from their perspective.
The only thing that will change Iran’s basic assumptions is a fundamental change in US policy. As Flynt Leverett Hillary Mann note, “To fix our Iran policy, the president would have to commit not to use force to change the borders or the form of government of the Islamic Republic.” Read: end the US’ hostile intentions towards Iran, regime change.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/opinion/24leverett.html
But such a change is almost unimaginable, because it would require the US to end its obsession with controlling Iran’s vast energy resources. And it would require a paranoid Israel government to stop needing a perpetual, looming existential threat.
“Israel…would in the end be punished for such attack…”
On what do you base this given that to date Israel has never once been punished for its numerous acts of aggression and more or less constant violations of international norms of behavior?