Questions of the Day, Part 2

The second, equally existentially unsettling question discussed here today: What to do about Iran? A huge issue in Israel, it was taken up this morning by former Prime Minister and current Knesset Member Benjamin Netanyahu at a briefing he gave for diplomats and journalists. Netanyahu is known as a hardliner. He leads the opposition against Ehud Olmert and his own ambitions of being Prime Minister again one day are plain to see. He has friends in high places in Washington. All of that, and the number of ambassadors who answered his call this morning indicate that his thoughts on the matter are not irrelevant.

With great conviction, Netanyahu asserted that Iran was the greatest threat to security in the world today, akin to Hitler in 1938 but more dangerous because of its desire to attain and, he said, use nuclear weapons. He implied the views and statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were representative of the entire Iranian political establishment, which is questionable given the indications of discontent with him at street level and the amongst the ruling Ayatollahs. He said the Iran issue had to be addressed before an Israeli-Palestinian agreement could be reached, because a nuclear-armed Iran could undermine any deal made, which sounds somewhat like an excuse for not trying. He elided the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran with the threat of a nuclear-armed al Qaeda, using them interchangeably to make his points, speaking as if they were in the same camps.

The encouraging bit came when he said there was no reason to hurry into a military confrontation, that there were political and economic ways to pressure Tehran that could be pursued along with diplomatic initiatives. Specifically, he pointed to divestment campaigns, singling out the possibility that individual American states could divest pension funds from companies doing business in Iran, or companies doing business with companies doing business in Iran, and that he'd already lobbied Gov. Schwarzenegger and others about it. Those and additional measures should be explored, he said, so everyone can say that they tried, that they did not look the other way, as many did with Hitler before World War II.

One hopes that his hope for non-military measures is sincere, that it's not just part of his next Prime Ministerial campaign, trying to look authoritative and statesman-like when Olmert looks weak and is awaiting the release of a potentially damaging report on the conduct of the Lebanon war. Netanyahu has a long history of talking about the issue, so it's not as if he's just come round to it. But one also hops that what he's saying now, and talk of diplomacy in general from hardliners, is not just a gambit along the lines of sending Hans Blix to Iraq (speaking of trying to disprove something that can't be proven), cover for a hoped-for invasion, when those who favor bombing can say, "Hey, we tried everything, and it's their fault that it came to this."

It's worrisome to hear all the talk, again, about regime change without any real notion of what would happen the day after, without any real recongition that the failures to plan for the aftermath had disastrous consequences in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Netanyahu offered some thinly veiled criticism of Condoleeza Rice, who has sort of disputed the 1938 comparisons and is generally thought to prefer negotiation over military strike. He also said he was glad that there were some in the U.S.--i.e. Cheney and friends--who would consider tougher measures, i.e. bombing.

There are many voices in this debate right now and yet it's still impossible, for me anyway, to tell where it's going. I do know that the prospect of another war is terrifying, the thought of a war with Iran almost too much to imagine--How? With what troops? What would be the fallout?--particularly when many of the decision makers seem to be operating on a kind of geopolitical faith, a faith about "how the world works," believing they know the answers when the last few years has shown bountiful evidence to the contrary.
--Phil Zabriskie / Jerusalem