The supposedly explosive report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detailing that Iran is resuming their reputed nuclear weapons program has had a less than radioactive fallout. After Israeli officials threatened unilateral action against Iran’s nuclear sites for a few days, their hitherto heated rhetoric cooled. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak eventually downplayed the saber-rattling, cautioning that war “is not a picnic,” and that choosing the military option was “delusional”. And well he should think so, for Barak himself has claimed that “Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel” and that–in the event of its construction–an Iranian nuke would fall “[n]ot on us and not on any other neighbor.” So why has Barak been among those pushing for a belligerent course and striking up the ‘bomb-bomb Iran’ chorus? In truth all the histrionics and alarms regarding a potential Iranian bomb merely amount to subterfuge and political kabuki.
Aside from the knowledge that Israel will not face the prospect of Armageddon started by self-destructive mullahs, Israeli airstrikes are not forthcoming since, in the estimation of ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, an ” attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years .” Further, a leading Israeli investment firm, Clal Finance , concluded that “any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would exact an economic price too high for the world to accept… the damage to global trade would be too great.” Again, why such a bluff? Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, explains that “as WikiLeaks documents show, US officials tend to view the Israeli threats as a pressure tactic to get the US and Europe to adopt tougher measures against Iran, and to refrain from any compromise with Tehran over the nuclear issue”. The Russian Foreign Ministry also similarly sees the IAEA report and subsequent maneuvering as motivated by “‘destructive logic’ aimed at the ‘intentional demolition of the political-diplomatic process.’”
The drive for more and crippling sanctions is only part of the real reason behind the contrived hysteria. Last May when Israel conducted war games assuming that Iran had nuclear weapons the assessment was that “Iranian deterrence proved dizzyingly effective” and “would blunt Israel’s military autonomy.” That policy, as former National Security Council staffers Flynt Leverett and his wife Hillary Mann describe, is one where “Israeli elites want to preserve a regional balance of power strongly tilted in Israel’s favor and what an Israeli general described as ‘freedom of action’–the freedom to use force unilaterally, anytime, for whatever purpose Israel wants.” A nuclear Iran would mean that Israel would have to deal with its neighbors on a more equal footing and would no longer be able to rely upon its qualitative military edge to maintain the highly unpopular status quo in the Middle East-especially the terror-provoking occupation of the Palestinians.
A slightly compromised ‘military autonomy’ in this case would not adversely affect Israel’s security, especially if it resulted in a just peace with the Palestinians whereupon relations with all the other Arab states would be completely normalized as per the Saudi-proposed 2002 Beirut Declaration which Tehran also accepted. The very need for unilateral latitude and predominant Israeli influence in the Middle East would vanish along with the antagonism. This regional reconciliation was a possibility foreseen by the war games study: “Some of the participants–including those playing Israel, the Palestinians and Syria–saw an opportunity for renewed Middle East peacemaking that might head off Iran’s ascendancy.” Were Iran to gain admittance to the nuclear club-or stopping short and attaining ‘breakout capability’-it is peace that would threaten to break out instead of war to the dismay of ideologues who have their hearts set on regime change in Iran.
For those who are still concerned about the issue because they’re against nuclear proliferation, Iran assures that they would much prefer having ‘breakout capability’ rather than maintaining a costly, troublesome arsenal. Iranian ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Soltanieh “suggested the Islamic Republic could never compete in terms of the numbers of warheads possessed by the nuclear-armed major powers” and therefore would never willingly commit this “strategic mistake”. Unabating sanctions and incessant threats for regime change, however, would compel Iran to adopt this folly. It’s past time to abandon these counter-productive measures by working with Russia and China, who also have no desire to see a nuclear-armed Iran, on a more pragmatic approach. Perhaps, in the course of this process, America could broach a rapprochement with Iran because, as veteran New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer counsels, it’s time to get over the hostage crisis and return to a sounder policy.