Other Israeli leaders believe that the mere threat of a nuclear attack by Iran—combined with the chronic menacing of Israel’s cities by the rocket forces of Hamas and Hezbollah—will progressively undermine the country’s ability to retain its most creative and productive citizens. Ehud Barak, the defense minister, told me that this is his great fear for Israel’s future.

“The real threat to Zionism is the dilution of quality,” he said. “Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place, such a cutting-edge place in human society, education, culture, science, quality of life, that even American Jewish young people want to come here.” This vision is threatened by Iran and its proxies, Barak said. “Our young people can consciously decide to go other places,” if they dislike living under the threat of nuclear attack. “Our best youngsters could stay out of here by choice.”

I hadn’t considered this and makes the idea of “containing” a nuclear Iran troublesome if you care about Israel. I know Rindy doesn’t like Goldberg and he pointed out to me how he was refuted in Salon, but I don’t think he is war-mongering and I think he raises important points about the potential for conflict that I hadn’t thought about before.

I also just read the New Yorker’s latest Letter from Tehran and encourage anyone interested in following the Iran debate (which we covered at the Junta a few months ago) to read. I, like many, have been hoping that some kind of Velvet Revolution would happen in Iran and would sweep away the mullah’s bent on acquiring a bomb for a more liberal government, but that seems depressingly a long way off. The story makes the interesting point that the Green Movement over-played its hand in thinking that the rest of the country shared its views–it is really a collection of urban and middle/upper-class citizens, and while they number in the millions, there are many more millions who don’t share their views. The Green Movement is also hopelessly splintered. I came away from reading this pretty disillusioned that any internal change in Iran could happen in time to forestall a potential military strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program. And I found the comments by Hossein Shariatmadari, an editor and former political advisor to Iran’s more liberal recent regimes also depressing and belligerent and I feel like the possibility of conflict with Iran is truly growing.

The majority of Gazans have no electricity for 8-10 hours per day on account of Israel having destroyed the area’s only power plant and not permitting it to be rebuilt. Something close to 100% of the water in Gaza is contaminated, because the sewage system has been destroyed, and the Israelis will not allow materials into Gaza that might fix it. The WHO has reported that “In the Gaza Strip, private enterprise is practically at a standstill as a consequence of the blockade. Almost all (98%) industrial operations have been shut down.”

The above figures are taken from this article at Foreign Policy, which lays out more of the crisis in detail.

The Israelis claim to be blocking only items that can be used as weapons, and yet they have prevented many food items from entering Gaza, such as fresh meat, canned fruit, and certain spices, which obviously have no weapons use. This chart from the Economist lays out some of the things which have been blocked.

The BBC has further details about the costs of the occupation and blockade, including revelations like this:

• the number of Gazans that the UN helps who are unable to buy basic items such as soap, stationary and safe drinking water has tripled since 2007
• Gaza unemployment is near 40%, so many people cannot buy supplies even when they are available
• The UN’s FAO says $180m of trees, fields, livestock, greenhouses and nurseries were destroyed during operation Cast Lead. The Palestinian Authority estimates 15% of agricultural land was destroyed

All of this is being done to punish the Palestinians for electing “the wrong government”. While Hamas has certainly committed acts of terrorism, it is clear that the effects of the occupation and the blockade amount to terror wielded against the Palestinians. We condemn Osama Bin Laden when he justifies attacks against Americans by saying that America is a democracy and the people have chosen their government, yet when we see the Palestinians elect a government we do not like, we find it justifiable to commit terror against them. I say “we”, because I am an American, and because America is Israel’s partner in these efforts. If we did not finance and defend these actions, we would not be culpable. Alas, we are.

For those that don’t know, a Palestinian terrorist group hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv and diverted it Entebbe, Uganda, near the capital, where the dictator Idi Amin was sympathetic to their cause. The terrorists released all non-Jewish hostages almost right away but held all the Jews and demanded the release of their terrorist brethren in Israeli jails. Faced with either having their people executed or giving in to the terrorist demands and therefore encouraging even more terrorism, the Israelis opted for a daring raid. They flew several huge planes low over hostile Arab countries to avoid radar detection, and landed in the dark near the terminal. They rolled a black Mercedes limousine–Idi Amin’s car of choice–from the belly of one of the transport planes. When the commandos rolled up on the terminal the terrorists were at first confused and thought it might be Amin before the Israeli soldiers killed all of them. 45 Ugandan soldiers guarding the hostages were also killed along with, unfortunately, 3 hostages. The successful raid led to celebration in Jewish communities around the world and it is still studied in special forces academies around the world.

I think Hollywood should consider a remake.

I consider myself one of those reasonable people, even if I am definitely biased towards the Israeli side. But acknowledging that bias, I am interested in a lasting peace, mainly because I’m interested in a prosperous and safe Israel. I resent what I think is the over-critical stance of the rest of the world towards Israel, no country would be asked to live with a neighbor lobbing rockets into civilian areas, and no country is subject to the microscope of international scorn when it attempts to stop such terrorism. But whenever I heard of Israeli soldiers humiliating Palestinians are check-points or news like last week, which embarrasses the US (Israel’s greatest ally), it upsets me because I feel like Israel has to maintain the moral high ground in the conflict or all is lost. The situation is toxic enough without having right-wing religious parties bent on controlling all of Jerusalem (and, indeed the West Bank) undermining the peace process (which is what happened when the Shas-dominated interior ministry made the announcement of new construction in east Jerusalem as Biden arrived). What I fear is going to happen, and what a left-wing Jewish colleague of mine just back from Israel agreed is likely, is Intifada III. I felt a bit sick this morning reading about new clashes in Jerusalem over this latest development. There is never a good time for violence, but with the challenges already out there–an Iran hell-bent on a nuclear program, a still volatile Iraq, the war in Afghanistan at a major turning point–we don’t need the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to erupt into horrible violence again.

It’s time for the US to use some of its considerable leverage over Israel to stifle the extremist voices that are threatening a possible peace. That peace, which arrives and recedes over time, is tragically well known: a Palestinian state roughly along the 67 borders, with land transfers to reflect “facts on the ground”, and a shared Jerusalem (with probably some UN administration for the holy sites). I firmly believe that Palestinian state should be demilitarized, with a NATO presence on its borders to mitigate the risk of weapons being smuggled into the new Palestinian state. In short, I don’t trust that the Palestinians, or the surrounding states, will ever fully accept Israel. But the creation of a Palestinian state will take the wind out of the sails of Israel’s enemies who use the Palestinians as pawns against Israel. Thomas Friedman, who I generally find tiresome and repetitive these days but who is still good on the Middle East, thinks that only a right wing government, like Netanyahu’s current administration, can deliver a lasting peace. I’m not so sure. I think Ehud Barak, with his military credentials, could have pulled it off, and it was Arafat that tragically walked away from peace at the end of Clinton’s administration. It’s time to make the leap and see if the Palestinians are serious about peace. Israel has to show that it is the smart democracy with a long-term vision for it’s people that I truly believe it is. I hope that its own extremist haven’t capitalized on the years of Palestinian violence and intransigence and taken over fully.

• Iran is the dominant power in the Middle East. This was a historical fact for a long time before Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became a check on Iran’s power—and now the US has removed that check. While Israel and Saudi Arabia are America’s allies in the region, Iran could take both of them, as it had indeed already defeated Israel in Lebanon. Even the US could not really take over Iran. We could bomb them into submission and take Tehran, but we would not be able to hold the country against the guerrilla threat they represent.
• Iran has the power to make the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan untenable, and indeed they have already done this to some degree. They have become experts at proxy warfare, and at this point they are able to determine the level of violence that US forces have to deal with in certain parts of both countries.
• All of this, it is important to note, does not require that Iran possess nuclear weapons. Indeed we (America) are quite powerless to stop them acquiring nukes if they are determined to have them. Sanctions won’t work; military attacks won’t work. Iran has the power to drive oil prices through the roof, by mining the Strait of Hormuz or launching missiles at tankers, which would make life in America very painful.
• Given all this, the best option is for America to reach some kind of settlement with Iran. This would involve giving Iran a formal role in maintaining the security of Iraq, which would likely end up partitioned. We would share responsibility for security of the Strait of Hormuz, because both countries have an interest in keeping the oil flowing. Trade and talk would increase as sanctions were lifted and diplomatic ties restored, and Iran would agree to stop arming Hezbollah and Hamas. America would stop talk of regime change and guarantee Iran’s security, in order to foster closer ties and stop the Iranians inching closer to Russia and China. In short, the US would balance its strategic alliances in the region.

There was some controversy in my words, because Jarrod came in right off the bat to challenge my first point, saying that Iran, in the wake of last year’s elections and subsequent protests, had never been weaker. And while it seems the mullahs aren’t going anywhere yet, I would concede that they might feel a bit restricted right now. Jarrod came back later in the evening, twice, on the point on nuclear weapons: the concern is not that Iran will use them, but that they will give them to others who will. “If a white light flashes over Israel, then that’s it, and Iran can say they had nothing to do with it.” Alex contended this forcefully, saying the uranium traces (or something) after an explosion would definitively prove where the bomb was made. So it seems Iran wouldn’t be able to get away with it, although that provides little comfort to Israel, since they are too small to absorb a nuclear explosion and still viably exist.

A lot was made of Ahmedinejad’s words towards Israel; although I argued that he didn’t have the final say in Iran, Noah said convincingly that he obviously spoke for the leadership. But Alex reminded us all that the fact is that there is no evidence Iran is pursuing nukes—citing the most recent intelligence reports. Noah claimed otherwise, mentioning the articles we have been seeing on our front pages for so long. But we also read a lot about Iraq’s weapons programs in the newspapers, I said, which turned out to be bluster.

We debated whether we could know the character of the Iranian people. Is there a “red/blue” divide, similar to America’s, with rural people more supportive of Ahmedinejad’s populism and jingoism, and urban “elites” more inclined towards cosmopolitanism and internationalism? Some argued in general support of this idea, although my conclusion was that we generally know very little of the Iranian people, despite the seeming ease of false labels.

The conversation broke into pieces several times during the evening, which was great. There were 10 people there, so it was inevitable that mini-convos would break out here and there. Of course I couldn’t follow everything that happened at once.

My most contentious point may have been the partitioning of Iraq. Some participants, Noah most vocally, said this would be crazy, that after spending so much blood and treasure we should “lose” Iraq. My point was that it was inevitable without American troops on the ground: should we stay forever? “Well, we’re still in Germany, we’re still in Korea,” Noah said. This is true of course, but it worries me. I don’t foresee a day when American soldiers are not being attacked in Iraq, or Afghanistan. I don’t think Korea and Germany are good models (in fact, I don’t think we should have troops in those countries, anyway). I argued that Iran already had some de facto control over southern Iraq, and that they would take it over when we left, anyway. But Noah seemed to think that we could leave a strong Iraqi government behind. This I doubt, and so it seemed we would not reach any agreement here.

Mark said something which put everything in perspective. Over the last 15-20 years (and I would argue, even longer), when the US has seen a geopolitical problem in the world, it has resolved to do something about it. We have gone into countries, or engaged with countries, in a way which we determined would solve the problem. We’ve taken decisive action. But most of the time, there have been unforeseen consequences that have either made the original problem worse, or created wholly new problems to deal with. Perhaps, in the future, we should endeavor to do less, to be more passive, and to let things play out before we act.

***

What are your thoughts? If you were there, fill in my account with points I missed. If you weren’t, what would you have added?

I don’t want to paraphrase all the author’s arguments, but a couple of points. Firstly, I find it a strange balancing act for the US to be sending senior foreign policy officials to the Gulf nations, who are also fearful of a nuclear Iran. On the one hand, we are trying to tell these “allies”, where we have military bases and from which we currently receive vital oil supplies, that we will protect them. Iran loves to incite these countries’ restive Shiite populations and Iran, similar to Japan before in the first part of the 20th century, sees itself as a liberator of Muslims in the region from western imperialism. But in the US there is a strong movement to move away from oil, to decouple ourselves from these regimes, so I would imagine leadership in those countries are complaining about mixed messages. I, for one, am tired of propping up these feckless Gulf states where the locals do no work and import south Asians to do everything while they live off their labor and oil while quietly financing terrorist activity.

It’s also hard to argue with Iran’s logic for acquiring nuclear arms. Surrounded on both sides by US forces (Iraq and Afghanistan) and mindful that non-nuclear Iraq was invaded and nuclear North Korea still hasn’t been, the Mullahs see the bomb as part of a guarantee of their continued rule. Their rhetoric and recent actions seem to almost invite a military strike against them, which they are betting will united a fractious country behind them.

I go back and forth thinking about this, and allowing Iran to go nuclear is a terrible scenario. The authors of the FP essay do a good job of laying out all the awful things that could result from Iran getting the bomb. But at the moment I think continued efforts at engagement, targeted sanctions, and assurances for our allies in the region (none more than Israel, who should receive an explicit guarantee of the US’s support in the form of being put formally under the US nuclear umbrella) should be the way to go. There is a feisty opposition movement in Iran that needs time to grow—Iranians, a huge portion of whom are young, are sick of the Mullahs and will hopefully in the near term change their own government.

What is to become of the standoff between America and Iran? According to Friedman, sanctions cannot be effective against Iran, as the only meaningful one would be on gasoline (Iran imports 35% of its gasoline – I’d love to know why they need to do this when they have so much oil – can they not refine it?), and China and Russia will not play along with that particular sanction. Military strikes carry too much risk: they require good intelligence and massive bombardment with undoubtedly high casualties, with no guarantee that nuclear facilities will be destroyed. Plus, should such attacks occur, Iran is certain to launch counterattacks on Israel via Hezbollah, and on American forces in Iraq via its proxies there. Worst of all, Iran has the power to drive global oil prices through the roof by mining the Strait of Hormuz and launching missiles at any ships in that vital passage. For all of these reasons, STRATFOR does not find US or Israeli military strikes on Iran likely.

With diplomatic and military options ruled out, can America prevent Iran from developing nukes? Friedman argues that this is not as important as checking Iranian power in the region. We need Iran’s help, much as we needed the help of some other unsavory characters in the past:

Roosevelt and Nixon both faced impossible strategic situations unless they were prepared to redefine the strategic equation dramatically and accept the need for alliance with countries that had previously been regarded as strategic and moral threats. American history is filled with opportunistic alliances designed to solve impossible strategic dilemmas. The Stalin and Mao cases represent stunning alliances with prior enemies designed to block a third power seen as more dangerous.

It is said that Ahmadinejad is crazy. It was also said that Mao and Stalin were crazy, in both cases with much justification. Ahmadinejad has said many strange things and issued numerous threats. But when Roosevelt ignored what Stalin said and Nixon ignored what Mao said, they each discovered that Stalin’s and Mao’s actions were far more rational and predictable than their rhetoric. Similarly, what the Iranians say and what they do are quite different.

Could the Roosevelt-Stalin and Nixon-Mao alliances provide a model for an Obama-Ahmadinejad/Khomeini Khamenei [oops, confused my mullahs there] rapprochement? Friedman’s whole article is worth a read.