Why Israel remains unpersuadable on Iran
The United States is engaged in a colossal effort to persuade Israel that its strategic position has been so strengthened by recent developments in the Middle East that, as a consequence, Israel should a) make peace with the Palestinians and b) take a more relaxed view towards Iran and its nuclear ambitions. Israel’s problems on the Palestinian front are as much political and domestic as strategic, while on the Iranian question it remains deeply sceptical. There is also a feeling in Jerusalem that it should not pay too much attention to the US’s take on the Middle East strategic balance given that the current turn of events – in particular the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood’s post-Arab Spring ambitions for establishing its hegemony in North Africa and the Levant – have come about despite the United States and not because of it. Nevertheless, the US does have a point on Israel’s strategic position.
The main threat to Israel has always been the threat of concerted Arab military action, as almost happened in 1973. If Jordan had from the outset joined Egypt and Syria against Israel in 1973, Israel would have been unable to withstand the combined assault. The principal concern about the Arab Spring and the potential Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy, from Israel’s point of view, was that for the first time since the Camp David Accords of September 1978 it could once again envisage a situation developing over time in which it would be surrounded by united and hostile Arab states, supported (unlike in 1973) by Turkey and Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood take over in Egypt looked for a time as if it would be consolidated across North Africa, extend to Syria, and then, in due course, engulf Jordan as well.
It is that prospect that has now dissolved due to the divided nature of Arab society and the unfitness of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood for government. In North Africa, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt are all deeply divided to the extent that they are on the verge of civil war. Lebanon remains a perennially divided nation, with only Hezbollah posing a (limited) threat to Israel, while Syria is tearing itself apart in civil war. Jordan and the Gulf States (with the exception of Qatar which has supported the Muslim Brotherhood) are status-quo powers that wish above all to see a return to stability. Iraq, under its post-Saddam Shia ascendancy, is fighting to keep itself together and to help maintain Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria. None of these countries poses a serious threat to Israel, either singly or least of all as a united bloc.
Even Turkey, which under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become increasingly hostile to Israel and a strong supporter of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has been weakened by the collapse of its pro-Muslim Brotherhood foreign policy – and it could be weakened still further if the Kurdish challenge continues to develop. Erdogan is pushing for peace with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but the grab for autonomy by the Kurds of northern Syria, to go with the autonomy already secured by the Kurds of northern Iraq, has greatly complicated this push for peace. It seems unlikely that the Kurds of Turkey would now settle for less than their Iraqi and Syria cousins, but that level of autonomy is not on offer from Ankara.
Some dangers, it is true, are increasing with the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy, in particular the threat of jihadism. There has already been a strong resurgence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (see the late July prison breaks that freed 500 al-Qaeda members), and for the past two years or more the jihadist cause has had a new focus in Syria. Now the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood has fuelled the feeling among Sunni radicals that jihad is the only way. To compete, the Muslim Brotherhood is talking about forming a military wing in Syria, but whatever happens many of its supporters will migrate towards violent groups whether in Syria or the Sinai Peninsula or elsewhere. And, of course, Nato’s scheduled 2014 retreat from Afghanistan provides further opportunities for the resurgence of al-Qaeda.
Another, related, danger is the determined way in which Hamas is trying to find its way back into Iran’s good books having downgraded its previously close relationship with Iran following the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the outbreak of civil war in Syria, in which Hamas found itself on the opposite side from Iran.
But neither reinvigorated jihadism nor a Hamas realignment with Iran pose existential threats to Israel, and it will now be decades before the Arab world achieves any semblance of stability, let alone the kind of unity that can threaten Israel. The Shia-Sunni divide is enflamed to such a degree that the creation of mini-states is more likely than the kind of unity that Arab nationalism was able to forge in previous generations.
And this is all of key relevance to the assessment of the Iranian nuclear threat. It is insufficiently appreciated that Israel’s main concern about a nuclear-armed Iran has always been that this might prevent Israel from using its own nuclear weapons when defending itself against an overwhelming conventional attack. But if the threat of an overwhelming conventional attack by united Arab forces is at least a generation away, then that consideration fades – which is the point the Americans are now emphasizing behind closed doors.
That still leaves the theoretical possibility that Iran, led by an apocalyptically minded madman, could launch a nuclear first strike to destroy Israel. However, the lesson of history (many non-Israelis are arguing) is that nuclear weapons are unusable against any state that can retaliate in kind - and even the already-remote risk that Iran might willingly court the Apocalypse has, it is argued, diminished to almost nothing with the election of a more moderate president in Hassan Rowhani.
In his first press conference after his election, on 18 June, the president-elect said: “In order to reduce and resolve the problem of sanctions step by step, we will take two measures. First to step along the parth of more transparency...Secondly, we will increase mutual trust between Iran and other countries.”
In his first televised speech after being elected president, on 29 June, Rowhani eschewed almost all the usual confrontational language associated with Ahmadinejad such as “resistance”, “confrontation”, or “the enemy”. And he said that “moderation in foreign policy is neither submission nor hostility, neither passiveness not confrontation”. He asserted: “Moderation is active and constructive interaction with the world.”
Iran has also gone out of its way to correct a local misquotation of remarks made by Rowhani on Quds Day (Jerusalem Day) on 2 August. He was initially quoted by local media outlets as saying that “Israel is an old saw on the body of Islam which should be eliminated”, but this was later corrected to the more anodyne: “After all, in our region, there's been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved [city of] al-Quds” - which is not quite the same thing.
But none of this is cutting any ice with Israel. The Israelis don’t believe the moderation, and they don’t believe that even a moderate Iran should be allowed nuclear weapons, which is what they believe remains its ambition. For Israel, even the miniscule risk of national destruction is too big a risk to take. There is nothing in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s make-up or track record that suggests he will be the Israeli leader to take this risk.
Netanyahu’s view of Iran under Rowhani was authentically reflected in the 6 August editorial in The Jerusalem Post argued that Rowhani’s moderate stance is just a tactical ploy. The paper wrote:
“Rowhani’s election should, instead, be seen as a tactical ploy that does not reflect a deeper process of real moderation. Replacing the flamboyantly anti-West Ahmadinejad with a man with a past that includes the successful, if short-lived, clinching of a freeze on the Iranian nuclear programme is smart from a foreign policy perspective. It plays on the West’s natural tendency (weakness?) to prefer compromise over conflict and to believe that at heart all humans want, like Westerners, to live in peace…The Iranians rightly believe that showing a face of moderation will buy them time while they consider to move closer to nuclear weapons capability. But the Iranians must also be made to understand that as they move closer to nuclear breakout, Israel moves closer to the point where it sees military intervention as the only option that remains ‘on the table’.”
On the same day, a commentary in the Haaretz newspaper argued that Netanyahu’s decision to return to the negotiating table with the Palestinians is “no more than an attempt to pave the way for military action against Iran”. The commentary added: “This time Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is serious [about attacking Iran]. It is true that in the past we have heard his promises over and over again, and nothing ever came of them. But this time he means it. Don’t label him a ‘coward’. He is determined.”
Two weeks ago, Netanyahu himself told CBS: “Israel will have to consider how to stop Iran. The leaders in Tehran are mistaken if they think that we will allow them to reach a nuclear bomb. I am determined to do whatever is necessary to protect my country against a regime that repeatedly threatens our very existence.”
Then, on 4 August, speaking at a government meeting about Rowhani’s swearing in as Iran’s new president, Netanyahu said: “Iran’s president might have been replaced but the regime has remained as it was. One of Iran’s intentions is to develop nuclear capability and weapons with the purpose of destroying Israel. This is a risk for both Israel and the whole world and we are committed to preventing this from happening.”
Moreover, senior sources in Jerusalem assert that a) Israel does not trust the US to act and b) Israel would be able to launch a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities without US backing. Sunday’s inauguration of the moderate Rowhani as Iran’s new president has not changed this. JdeC.
NOTE: The Iranian Kurdish group, the Free Life Party in Kurdistan (PJAK), which is currently observing a ceasefire in Iran, has said that it “is ready to send its fighters to Syria’s Kurdistan to fight alongside the people”. The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (DYP) in Syria is currently aligned with the pro-Iranian Assad regime in its fight against Sunni insurgents. On the other side of the coin, in Syria fatwas are being broadcast from Sunni mosques that “permit Kurdish blood to be spilled”.
The PJAK has announced: “The assaults and killing of the Kurds in Syria require a collective stand by the other parts of Kurdistan to champion their brethren there. The Kurdish youths in the Region of Kurdistan [in Iraq] should shoulder their responsibilities towards their Kurdish brethren in Syria.”
The PJAK statement added: “Our army is a national revolutionary army; it is ready to respond to its patriotic duty wherever it is required. We have a moral duty towards our Kurdish brethren in other parts of Kurdistan and we are prepared to carry out this moral duty with enthusiasm and honour.”
Separately, a Kurdish National Congress is scheduled to be held in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan from 24-26 August. Some 500 delegates representing Kurds living in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran are expected to attend. One of the agenda items is that the Kurds should seek to attain the status of an observer state at the United Nations as the Palestinians have done.