Putting a Face on Iran

I played basketball with my Iranian next-door neighbors lots of summer nights when I was growing up. The smallest one – Hafez – stood about 4’6”. He embarrassed us all over the court with moves that made the basketball--which was about as big around as his chest--spin, slice, and float into the hoop.

I remember hearing Hafez speak Farsi to his parents and the beautiful, large picture of Tehran above their sink.

I learned from my parents later on that Hafez’s parents had been Maoist revolutionaries. They protested against the Shah and his Western supporters, but after the revolution they found themselves in the crosshairs of a newly installed Islamic government, which had started to crack down on the non-religious leftist groups.
Reading the writing on the wall, Hafez’s parents began to plan their escape and encouraged their friends to do the same. But their friends couldn’t imagine that the revolution, which they had fought for and risked their lives for, would so quickly turn on itself. Hafez’s parents got out. But their friends were soon dead, killed by the regime. Like the family in the film Persepolis, Hafez’s parents were caught in the crossfire of revolution and fundamentalism.

Who is the Enemy?

Sometimes, when we talk tough about a country like Iran, whose nuclear program and support for terror has become an election year issue and world problem, we don’t put faces on what is described as a “security issue.” We talk coldly about “options being on the table,” but we often don’t consider who will pay the price when governments go to war or when terrorists strike. Families like Hafez’s who remain in Iran, our friends and family who live in Israel, and my own family here in the United States; we are the ones who will suffer.

That’s why it’s all the more important that the United States, with the help of its allies, develops a coherent policy towards Iran to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its support for terror.

It won’t be easy. The President of Iran is an irrational lunatic with a history of anti-Semitic tirades. We know that Iran provides support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. We can assume Iran has a nuclear program, despite the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (We know Iran is pursuing uranium enrichment on the scale and of the sort that can be easily transferred to a nuclear weapons program, and besides, U.S. intelligence estimates should probably be taken with a grain of salt: Remember the whole WMDs in Iraq thing?)

Why We Shouldn’t Attack

Many argue that, given Iran’s track record, we should attack Iran’s nuclear sites within the next few months. This is wrong.

Military action against Iran is a terrible idea under the current circumstances. We cannot rule it out, but leading with the military solution, or even with threats of action, is an enormous error of judgment.

Even the most fervent supporters of a military strike say that a strike would at best set back Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon by a few years. The strike would almost certainly convince Iranian moderates that obtaining a nuclear weapon is in Iran’s best interests – what better way to safeguard one’s country than to have the most powerful weapon known to humankind? This is the practical failure of a neoconservative approach of threats, more threats, and regime change.

Further, an attack on Iran would almost certainly result in indirect retaliation against American troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel would be thrown into an even more bloody conflict with Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which receive support from Iran. Oil prices would skyrocket even further, making the current oil shock feel like child’s play. Our allies in the Persian Gulf would likely experience significant blowback from their citizens. Some have even said that the United States might be at risk of losing an aircraft carrier stationed in the Gulf of Hormuz to asymmetrical attacks from small, difficult to destroy Iranian speedboats. Any responsible cost-benefit analysis of a military attack on Iran must include these likely Iranian reprisals.

Who Actually Wants War?

Some of the most fervent supporters of an attack on Iran feel no practical constraints on their support for military action. I’m talking about Pastor John Hagee and his organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI). This is the same man who said God John Hageesent Hitler, that Muslims had a biblical mandate to kill Christians and Jews, that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for New Orleans harboring homosexuals, and that liberal Jews were "poisoned" and "spiritually blind."

In Hagee’s world, support for war is a biblical imperative. He believes, and preaches, that a military attack on Iran would trigger a wider regional conflict, which, in turn, would trigger the end of days and the return of Jesus. He is actually hoping for the Apocalypse.

Though Hagee seems as irrational as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he has a huge amount of power in Washington. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who should know better, has delivered the keynote address two years running at the Hagee’s conference in Washington, D.C. The organization I work for, J Street, organized a ‘Don’t Go, Joe’ petition drive that collected 42,000 signatures to oppose his appearance at the conference. Lieberman ignored our efforts – and the 57% of American Jews that oppose an alliance with Hagee – and went anyway, demonstrating his true colors.

Another Bush Failure

For most of time that Bush has been in power, people like Hagee have been influencing U.S. policy in the Middle East and towards Iran. And they have some real blunders to show for it.

Bush ignored an opportunity to nip the Iranian nuclear program in the bud in 2003. Iran made a proposal, though the Swiss government, that suggested that the United States would renew relations with Iran and security guarantees in exchange for Iran ending their opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and their support for groups using violence against the US and Israel in the Palestinian Territories and Lebanon. The Bush Administration did not even respond to the proposal, thinking, perhaps, that they could get a better deal later on, or more likely, that Iran was next on the list after Iraq for regime change. No such deal has appeared since and regime change has become a much less attractive option after the failure in Iraq.

For eight years, Bush refused that kind of diplomacy. He kept the United States out of direct negotiations with Iran, and outsourced the tough bargaining to the European Union. Iran, naturally, called our bluff. They knew that no serious talks could take place without the only country with the operational capacity to carry out a military attack. So they stalled and waited for us to get involved directly. In the meantime, they added more capacity to their enrichment capabilities. Centrifuges whirred.

Besides the policy damage of the past few years, the public debate over what to do about Iran has suffered greatly. Similar to the Iraq war build-up, The Bush Administration and its twin siblings, the apocalyptic Christian Zionists and neoconservatives poisoned the American’ public’s views of Iran with over-heated rhetoric and half-truths.

Supporters of a military strike on Iran saw the public relations benefit of placing the blame and responsibility for Iran’s nuclear program squarely on the shoulders of the country’s chief propagandist, Iranian President Ahmadinejad. If Ahmadinejad were, in fact, responsible for Iranian policy decision, we would be right to refuse to negotiate with him — his vile rhetoric about Israel and holocaust denial prevent him from being worth talking to.

However, Ahmadinejad does not, in fact, have the final say on Iranian foreign policy. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei does. Khamenei is considered by diplomats to be more rational and responsive to international pressure than Ahmadinejad. He’s certainly not pro-Western leader, and cannot easily be convinced to halt Iran’s nuclear program. But a carrots and sticks approach – incentives coupled with the threat of sanctions – is more likely to work with Khamenei.

Our diplomats know this, but advocates for war with Iran tend to obscure this fact to serve their rhetorical ambitions. Since they want war, it is to their advantage to portray Iranian leadership as both irrational and bent on nuclear confrontation with Israel and the West.

The same is true on the Iranian side. Anti-U.S. propaganda plays very well in Iran. It is easier for Khamenei to maintain his control over the economically distressed Iranian people when the rowdy Ahmadinejad picks fights with Israel and the international community.

Towards a Solution

Finally, after eight years of failure, the Bush administration appears willing to try the diplomatic route. Who knows whether Bush is trying a new approach because of the rising clout of the pragmatic Condoleeza Rice, the dwindling influence of Vice President Dick Cheney, or whether the man just wants to preserve some small shred of positive legacy in the Middle East.

Whatever the reason, in a dramatic about-face that was barely covered in the press, Bush placed a diplomat in Tehran and put a high-ranking official at the table in the talks with the Europeans. These are welcome signs of a new approach.

If Bush wants his legacy on Iran to be viewed positively in the long view of history, here are the next steps we should take.

The U.S. should attempt real diplomatic engagement with Iran, which would include direct high-level negotiations with Iran to address all issues of mutual concern. This would include the nuclear issue, ending Iranian opposition to the Arab-Israeli peace process and its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad, all of which use violence against the US and Israel in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. In exchange, we could offer security guarantees and a normalization of relations. On the nuclear issue, we would need verifiable guarantees regarding Iran ending its pursuit of nuclear capability.

If the diplomatic effort were to fail, the US could then pursue a policy of containment coupled with strong, multilateral sanctions. We would be in a much better position to get the international community on board with sanctions and other containment measures against Iran if we demonstrate a commitment to ending the conflict diplomatically.

Smart containment efforts would be designed to bring Iran back to the negotiating table and reduce Iranian leverage in the region. We could:

1. Reach out to Syria and give them options other than Iranian collusion, possibly through peace with Israel.
2. Support Lebanese efforts towards political reconciliation and make it harder for Iran to install a Lebanese government supportive of Iranian regional ambitions.
3. Support Saudi and Egyptian efforts to bring Hamas into a power-sharing agreement with Fatah in the Palestinian territories.

Success in any of these areas would make returning to the negotiating table all the more enticing for Iran.

Why haven’t you heard this more? Because this election season, those on the Right would rather use Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a political punching bag than actually talk about what would make American, Israel, and the region safer. And over-heated campaign rhetoric does nothing but undermine our diplomats in the field.

In Congress, we’ve seen a dangerous resolution introduced in Congress (HR Con.Res 362) that calls for, among other sanction measures, a naval blockade of Iran. Thankfully, cooler heads did prevail in this instance. The resolution, though initially thought to pass quickly through Congress, met with resistance. J Street was proud to be a part of a broad effort to stop this bill and we continue to work on convincing Congress to focus on diplomatic solutions and to leave the military option as a last result.

If we’re going to see the right policy on Iran, we’ll have to demand real leadership from our leaders. It’s critical that we all demand what’s best for Israel, the United States, and the entire Middle East: a U.S. policy towards Iran that leads with smart, tough, and direct diplomatic engagement coupled with targeted sanctions and smart containment, and that leaves the military option as the last resort. The families of all our nations are counting on it.

Isaac Luria is the Online Director for J Street, the political voice of the new pro-peace, pro-Israel movement. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of J Street.