Hi All,
John Churchilly's latest piece on the upcoming war with Iran makes for
interesting reading.
Regards,
Bob.
October 06, 2007
Iran and Israel - understanding the
dynamics
<http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2007/10/iran-and-israel.html>
"The real threat that Iran poses to Israel is that Iran and the US may start
to get along, thus undermining Israel's strategic value to the US and
creating an obstacle to Israel's regional ambitions. Promoting emnity
between the US and Iran also gives the pro-Israeli lobby a reason to exist,
even though it is contrary to broader US interests."
By now you're quite familar with the standard trope in which Iran, the
crazed fundamentalist regime, is supposedly seeking nuclear weapons in order
to pose an 'existential' threat to Israel.
This is a convenient way to frame the issue, because among other things is
perpetuates the mythology of Israel as the underdog victim, facing down a
sea of irrationally hostile neighbors. That's why the Israeli propagandists
make a particular effort at locating and magnifying any statements from
Iranian officials that they can characterize as being threatening to Israel
- for example the alleged statement by Ahmadinejad (the New
Hitler<http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/index_np.html>,
we are told) about "wiping out" Israel - now thoroughly
debunked<http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/caught-red-handed/>but
still often repeated.
The mythology of Israel as the always-victim was never true of course, as even
Israeli historians now acknowledge - nor is it an accurate representation of
the Israel-Iran dynamics either.
<http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300120575>
"The real threat to Israel: US-Iran engagement"
What is the real nature of the threat that Iran poses to Israel? Is it that
Iran is going to drop a nuke on Israel? No. According to Trita Parsi, author
of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United
States<http://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300120575>,
Israel has often gotten along and cooperated with Iran when it suited their
interests. In fact, when AIPAC was pushing for US sanctions laws on Iran
that prohibited American companies from doing business with Iran, Israel was
busy doing business with Iran through Turkey.
The danger that Iran poses to Israel is not that Iran may one day decide to
nuke Israel - the Iranians are
not about to get into a sucidal nuclear exchange with anyone - no matter how
hard the Israelis try to portray Iranians as crazed fundamentalists. Rather,
the real danger posed by Iran to Israel is that Iran and the US may start to
get along, leaving Israel out in the cold, threatening Israel's strategic value
to the US, and posing an obstacle to Israel's domination of the Middle East. A
secure, economically-stable Iran - which has the benefit of nuclear energy to
power its economy in the future and is perceived as being technologically
advanced - plus Iran's strategic position and relatively well-educated
population of 75 million potential consumers of US goods, added to many other
factors - all would pose too much of a temptation to the US to start to warm up
to Iran - especially now that the Cold War is over and Israel's strategic
utility to the US is severely diminished (assuming Israel was ever a strategic
asset during the Cold War in the first place.)
As Trita has
written<http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-irandemocracy/israel_2974.jsp>
"It wasn't Iran that turned the Israeli-Iranian cold war warm" it was Israel .
. . The Israeli reversal on Iran was partially motivated by the fear that its
strategic importance would diminish significantly in the post-cold war middle
east if the then president (1989-97) Hashemi Rafsanjani's outreach to the Bush
Sr administration was successful."
And so <http://williambowles.info/iran/iran_israel_strategy.html>,
Israeli politicians began painting the regime in Tehran as fanatical and
irrational. Clearly, they maintained, finding an accommodation with such
"mad mullahs" was a non-starter. Instead, they called on the US to classify
Iran, along with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as a rogue state that needed to be
"contained".
The Iran-Bashing Industry
Israel's characterization of Iran as an irrational threat that has to be
contained rather than engaged has had the added benefit of providing a raison
d'etre for the hardline pro-Israeli lobby in the US. By 1993, with the end of
the Cold War and the start of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process under
Rabin, AIPAC had lost its purpose and was in a tailspin due to a series of
scandals. It had essentially broken off from the Labor government in Israel
over the peace process, and had alienated Bush I administration too.
AIPAC's swing to the hardline Right had also alienated a good chunk of the
Jewish community in the US and had raised quite a bit of ire & controversy all
around by its attempts to Impose its hawkish views on the Washington Jewish
Week; disclosure by the Village Voice in Aug 92 that a unit of AIPAC had
investigated and harassed dovish Jewish peace groups; leaked memos of how AIPAC
intended to discredit figures such as Jerome Segal of the Jewish Peace Lobby,
Jim Zogby and Jesse Jackson; Rabin explicitly telling AIPAC to back off;
Shamir's conflict with Bush over loan guarantees, etc - all made worse by a
series of other scandals and in-fighting which led to the resignations of top
AIPAC officials Thomas Dine, David Steiner, and Harvey Friedman.
In fact in June 1993, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin explicitly
stated that AIPAC was a right-wing lobby that represented neither his
government nor the views of the American Jewish public but then came the issue
of Iran's award of a lucrative oil contract to Conoco as an opening gesture to
the US. It was a Godsend to AIPAC, which rallied hard behind sanctions
legislation along with Senator Alfonse D'Amato. With the election of Netanyahu
and Indyk's "Dual Containment" policy in ascendance, AIPAC was back in business
as never before, and they went to town over Iran, pushing harder and harder on
primary then secondary sanctions legislation. Now they've gone completely
overboard and are overtly embracing the likes of Rev Hagee who explicitly calls
for an apocalyptic war on Iran.
In short, with the end of the Cold War and the renewal of the
Palestinian-Israeli peace process, AIPAC needed a reason to exist & a "threat"
to rally around - and they found Iran. As Walt & Mearsheimer have
written<http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374177724/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0338796-7996150?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191689739&sr=1-1>
:
In addition to this tendency for those with more extreme views to back and
dominate key organizations in the lobby, there is another reason that many
pro-Israeli groups have moved rightward: to keep contributions flowing in.
As Waxman notes, "Many American Jewish organizations now need Israel to
legitimate their own existence. Although these organizations may have been
established for the purpose of enhancing and strengthening Israel, today
Israel is vital for their continued viability." *Portraying Israel as
beleaguered and vulnerable, and issuing dire warnings about continued or
growing anti-Semitism helps maintain a high level of concern among political
supporters and thus helps ensure these organizations' continued existence.*
And what is the natural conclusion of this sort of policy of "no engagement
with Iran" ?
Although it makes good strategic sense for the United States and Iran to
pursue a grand bargain, and although there is plenty of suport for that
policy inside and outside of America, it is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Israel and the lobby will almost certainly try to thwart any efforts to
seriously engage Iran before they get started, as they have consistently
done since 1993...*If the United States does launch an attack, it wll be
doing so in part on Israel's behalf, and the lobby will bear significant
responsibility for having pushed this dangerous policy. And it would not be
in America's national interest*.
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