Turning Back From the Point of No Return

Implications of the Threat to Bomb Iran

Goldberg also argues that “An Iran with nuclear weapons would also attempt to persuade Arab countries to avoid making peace with Israel, and it would spark a regional nuclear-arms race.”  The assertion that an Iranian bomb could spark a nuclear arms race is accompanied with accolades for the Israeli bomb, replete with references to the Holocaust: “[T] most crucial component of Israeli national-security doctrine, a tenet that dates back to the 1960s, when Israel developed its own nuclear capability as a response to the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, is that no regional adversary should be allowed to achieve nuclear parity with the reborn and still-besieged Jewish state….  Israel’s nuclear arsenal symbolizes national rebirth, and something else as well: that Jews emerged from World War II having learned at least one lesson, about the price of powerlessness…. In his new book, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain With the Bomb, Avner Cohen … argues that the umbrella created by Israel’s nuclear monopoly has allowed the Jewish state to recover from the wounds of the Holocaust.”

The inherent assumption is that Israel’s acquisition of the bomb was not destabilizing and doesn’t threaten to spark a nuclear arms race – only Iran’s acquisition of the bomb would be. As the case of Iraq clearly demonstrates, this is a fallacy. And if Iran actually did make a decision to try to manufacture a nuclear weapon, any argument that Israel’s possession of nukes would not be a factor in the equation would strain credulity. The real threat that would come from Iran if it acquired a nuclear weapon would not be that of a second Holocaust, but that of providing an effective deterrent against Israeli military action. This was the determination of former Israeli generals and diplomats who participated in a wargame in which it was assumed that Iran was nuclear-armed. In such a case, “Iran would blunt Israel’s military autonomy”. Eitan Ben-Eliahu, a retired air force commander who played the role of the Israeli defense minister in the wargame, said that “Iranian deterrence proved dizzyingly effective”. The threat from Iran wasn’t one of nuclear annihilation. Participants determined that a nuclear-armed Iran “emboldened Hezbollah”, and the possibility was raised that Iran could provide Hezbollah with a “dirty bomb”. But some of the participants “predicted Tehran would also exercise restraint” and reporting on the wargame offered no indication participants found that Hezbollah would, under such circumstances, actually use it against Israel, or that its possession of such a weapon would be anything other than a deterrent to Israeli aggression against Lebanon (Israel bombed and invaded Lebanon in 1982, waging utter destruction upon the country, and again in 2006). On the contrary, “Those playing Iran and Hezbollah went as far as to question the very premise that Tehran would let the Lebanese guerillas goad Israel into a potentially catastrophic fight, or give the nuclear know-how that would worry even sympathizers like Syria. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, a retired Israeli intelligence chief acting as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, insisted Iran would regard its bomb as a means of ‘self-defense and strategic balance’ – an allusion to Israel’s own, assumed atomic arsenal.”[17]

As Trita Parsi wrote in Salon, in response to Goldberg’s article, “Even an Iran that doesn’t have nuclear weapons but that can build them would damage Israel’s ability to deter militant Palestinian and Lebanese organizations. It would damage the image of Israel as the sole nuclear-armed state in the region and undercut the myth of its invincibility. Gone would be the days when Israel’s military supremacy would enable it to dictate the parameters of peace and pursue unilateral peace plans. This could force Israel to accept territorial compromises with its neighbors in order to deprive Iran of points of hostility that it could use against the Jewish state. Israel simply would not be able to afford a nuclear rivalry with Iran and continued territorial disputes with the Arabs at the same time.” In other words, if Iran had the bomb, Israel would be forced to comply with international law and numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions and end its occupation of the Palestinian territories.[18]

Contrary to Goldberg’s claim that Iran does not want peace or stability in the Middle East, “Iran offered in 2003 to accept peace with Israel and cut off material assistance to Palestinian armed groups and to pressure them to halt terrorist attacks within Israel’s 1967 borders, according to the secret Iranian proposal to the United States”, investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter has noted. The proposal recognized the stated U.S. aim of preventing the proliferation of WMD, among others, and suggested a dialogue based on mutual respect and recognition of the other’s goals. To further the mutual goal of non-proliferation, Iran proposed the establishment of a working group on disarmament to create a “road map, which combines the mutual aims of, on the one side, full transparency by international commitments and guarantees to abstain from WMD with, on the other side, full access to western technology” – basic tenets of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Iran proposed a second working group to further mutual aims, including the U.S. goal for a “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, [Islamic] Jihad etc.) from Iranian territory, [and] pressure on these organizations to stop violent action against civilians within borders of 1967”, “action on Hizbollah to become a more political organization within Lebanon”, and “acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration ([the] Saudi initiative, [calling for a] two-states-approach [to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict])”.[19]

Iran has repeatedly called for the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East, a goal it reiterated at the NPT Nuclear Review Conference earlier this year. The obstacle to this goal, President Ahmadinejad said, is that “While the Zionist regime has stockpiled hundreds of nuclear warheads … it enjoys the unconditional support of the United States government and its allies and receives, as well, the necessary assistance to develop its nuclear weapons program”. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to Iran’s calls to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone by asserting that “the conditions for such a zone do not exist”, with the ostensible reason being that there has been no progress in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.[20] Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher excused the U.S. from pursuing its obligations on the basis that it would be hard to imagine negotiating “any kind of free zone in the absence of a comprehensive peace plan that is running on a parallel track.”[21]

The obvious non-sequitur aside, there is a reason that no progress has been made on the Israel-Palestine issue. The U.S. has a long and clear record, rhetoric aside, of blocking any implementation of a two-state solution by financially, militarily, and diplomatically supporting Israeli policies contrary to that goal. This situation has continued under the Obama administration, despite pretenses to the contrary. Much was said last year in the media about the administration “readying for a possible confrontation” with Israel because of Netanyahu’s “refusal to support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.” Obama intended to ask Netanyahu to fulfill his commitments, including by “accepting the principle of a Palestinian state” and “freezing settlement activity” (Haaretz).[22] “The Obama Administration has signaled a tougher approach towards Israel ahead of fresh talks on the Middle East peace process by insisting it must endorse the creation of an independent Palestinian state” (London Times).[23] Israel responded by announcing that it would not agree to any U.S. demands to freeze all settlement activity.[24] The U.S. then re-approved billions in loan guarantees to Israel, despite a provision that the amount may be reduced if the President determines Israel’s activities “are inconsistent with the objectives and understandings reached between the United States and State of Israel regarding implementation of the loan guarantee program.”[25] The White House responded to suggestions that it might exert economic pressure on Israel to end its illegal settlement activities by stating explicitly that it would not consider scaling back U.S. financial support.[26] The Obama administration also refused to endorse the findings and recommendations of the report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict – often referred to as the “Goldstone Report” after the mission’s head, Justice Richard Goldstone. The U.N. mission found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during Israel’s assault on Gaza, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, which lasted from December 27, 2008 until January 18, 2009. The U.S. refusal to support the report’s recommendations effectively quashed any effort to bring the report to the Security Council or International Court of Justice. As Human Rights Watch observed, “The failure of the United States and European Union governments to endorse the report of the Gaza fact-finding mission sends a message that serious laws-of-war violations will be treated with kid gloves when committed by an ally”.[27] The overall message from the Obama administration was understood perfectly well by the Netanyahu government, which carried on as usual, while the U.S. continued to refrain from pressuring Israel in any meaningful way to cease its illegal settlement activities.[28]