AJC expert: it’s Iran, stupid

The summer and fall have provided distractions aplenty.

The past few months have been hectic, with the dramatic American presidential campaigns, the precipitous worldwide economic crises, the political tumult in Israel.

Yet all the while, the Iranian clock has been steadily ticking.

While the attention of many may have been diverted by other events and developments, that of Yossi Klein Halevi has not strayed from Iran’s methodical and patient drive to develop a nuclear weapons system.

Iran remains the central focus of Halevi, and he is not hesitant in saying that what’s happening is making him very, very nervous.

Halevi is an author, journalist and researcher, whose recognized expertise on the Middle East has been published in some of the world’s most prestigious newspapers. A former writer for the Jerusalem Report, he is today working with the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, and is close to the end of a five-year book writing project.

He was in Denver last week as the guest speaker for the American Jewish Committee’s Colorado chapter’s 40th anniversary celebration Nov. 13 at the HEA.

Halevi’s conversation with the Intermountain Jewish News was wide-ranging, although the limits to that conversational range were the Iranian weapons program and its many implications. Clearly, he sees the issue as one of paramount importance — and unprecedented danger.

Although the interview began with a question about Barack Obama — specifically the reasons why Israelis seemed distrustful of the man who became America’s president-elect — Halevi deftly steered the focus to Iran.

While Israelis recognize Obama as a “friend” to Israel, he says, they share the same concerns that Halevi himself feels about the incoming president:

“How will Obama and Biden handle the most fateful foreign policy question that will be on their table soon, which is, will they do everything possible to stop a nuclear Iran, including supporting an Israeli airstrike if all other options fail?”

While Obama told AIPAC last summer that “all options are on the table” concerning Iran, he spoke less forcefully during one of his recent debates, prioritizing diplomacy as a necessary prelude to sanctions or military measures.

“The Israeli timetable is different,” Halevi says. “Our stages are, first you need to try aggressive sanctions and if those fail that then gives you the moral credibility for a military strike. Diplomacy, at this point, doesn’t figure in anyone’s vocabulary in Israel. You can speak to Barak from Labor, you can speak to

Livni in Kadima and — off the record — nobody in Israel believes that diplomacy has any chance of success.

“That’s my concern about an Obama administration,” Halevi says. “We haven’t yet heard from Obama what we heard very clearly from McCain, which is, under no circumstances will a nuclear Iran be tolerated. And McCain put it very starkly. He said that the only thing worse than a military strike against Iran is a nuclear Iran.”

Halevi is in full agreement. He is convinced that Iran is likely to cross the nuclear threshold “in 18 months, according to Israeli intelligence and even sooner according to French intelligence.”

That means, in his view, that the window for diplomatic solutions is already closed, and that the only resort remaining before military action is “very strong sanctions, and immediately,” he says.

His definition of “strong” is clear.

“Hitting the Iranian oil industry,” Halevi says. “There is something like 30% hidden unemployment in Iran today. The Iranian economy is being propped up artificially by oil revenue subsidies. If the Iranian oil industry could be severely hampered, I think that could trigger widespread unrest in Iran. That, I think, is our last best chance to avoid a military strike.”

Several months ago, there was considerable speculation in Israel and elsewhere that President Bush might opt to strike Iran during his last few weeks in office, thereby relieving his successor of the responsibility, and ensuing political fallout, of such a momentous decision.

Halevi doesn’t buy it.

“I can’t imagine Bush sabotaging Obama’s foreign policy,” he says.

“Obama has stated a commitment to a particular trajectory which begins with diplomacy and then moves to sanctions if diplomacy fails. I don’t see Bush tampering with that. It’s the political equivalent of science fiction.”

What is not science fiction, in Halevi’s view, is that there is a faction within the Iranian political leadership that not only wants to build nuclear weapons but would be willing to use them — even at a terrible cost to their own nation.

The likelihood of Israel’s nuclear weapons capability would not necessarily provide an effective deterrent against such fanatics, he says.

“Bernard Lewis said that mutually assured destruction won’t work for the Iranians, because that’s what they want,” Halevi says. “I don’t know who he means by ‘the Iranians.’ I don’t think it’s the whole regime, but is it part of the regime? Certainly.”

In Halevi’s view, based on his research, there are both rational and irrational camps in different levels of political power in Tehran.

“There’s no question in my mind that the Ahmadinejad camp is not rational; that they represent a new strain of Shiite theology, which has moved from quietism and greeting the return of the Shiite messiah through prayer and good deeds, to a new way of thinking, which is much more political and aggressive [and which mandates] that you need to defeat the enemies of G-d. You need to defeat evil, including through military means. That will bring the messiah.”

For such Islamists, Halevi says, destroying Israel, “or ‘liberating Jerusalem,’ as they put it,” might be seen as the trigger to a prophesied messianic era.

“From everything that I’ve read and heard from Ahmadinejad, I have no doubt that he is deeply implicated in this new theology.

“There are other circles that are more rational and that would not imagine launching a nuclear strike against Israel. But we don’t know the balance of power.”

The fact that such fanaticism exists in Iran, coupled with a pessimistic view that the international community will ever put effective sanctions into place, forces Halevi to think of the military option in very plausible terms.

When he says “military option,” he is referring to an Israeli military strike, since Halevi feels that an Obama administration is highly unlikely to launch a US strike under any circumstances.

Still, he thinks it reasonable to predict that the US would be willing to back Israel in that ultimate scenario

An Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, he acknowledges, would be difficult at best, and considerably more so without American support.

“You have to believe that an Obama administration will at least give us the backing,” he says.

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“I think it’s clear that the election of Obama means that if there’s going to be a military strike it will be Israel and not the US, but I have to believe that Obama will at least have the basic gratitude to Israel for taking this on.”

That would likely have to include US permission for Israeli aircraft to fly over Iraqi airspace, Halevi says. But even under the scenario that the US denies such permission, he is convinced that Israel might find support from other quarters.

Halevi gives some credence to speculation that Georgia might offer Israel a launching site for a raid against Iran.

“And I wouldn’t be totally surprised if we got Arab airspace other than Iraq,” he adds. “The Arabs are frantic about a nuclear Iran, maybe even more so than Israel, because we have second strike capability and they don’t.”

However the attack is conducted — regardless of whose airspace is used and who supports or doesn’t support Israel — the aftermath is guaranteed to be daunting for Israel.

“What we will get in return from Iran, and Iran’s proxies — Hezbollah, Hamas, possibly Syria — could be the most brutal attack that the Israeli home front has ever experienced — a missile war on Israeli population centers.”

It remains possible, Halevi concedes when pressed, that it won’t come to that.

He acknowledges the possibility that sanity will prevail in the end.

“The best case scenario,” Halevi says, walking his questioner through a series of possible steps, “is that Obama places a very strict timetable on the diplomatic track and does not go into open-ended negotiations. Within a matter of weeks or several months or whatever it is, the diplomatic track is resolved one way or another. From an Israeli perspective, it’s clear that it would be resolved as a failure.

“He then goes to the Europeans. There’s no way with China or Russia. He tells the Europeans that the only way we’re going to forestall war, a disastrous war in the Middle East — because the Israelis are going to do this — is if you come on board for serious sanctions.

“That means that Switzerland cancels its gas deal with the Iranians, the Austrians cancel their oil deal, the Germans stop having business fairs on Iranian-German trade and Europe really comes on board.

“Obama then moves to hitting the Iranian oil industry and, if necessary, moving to the next step after that, which would be some form of military blockade, which of course, is an act of war.

“That’s the best case scenario. We stop Iran at the abyss and Israel doesn’t have to bring a disaster on itself, I would say the worst military disaster that we will have ever experienced.”

The opposite of that scenario — the worst case — is not the Israeli-Iranian war Halevi alluded to earlier.

“The worst case scenario is that Iran goes nuclear,” Halevi says. “What that will mean in practice, even assuming that the regime is rational or that the rational faction predominates and neutralizes the irrational faction, is several things.

“First of all, Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, certainly over the Arab countries.

“The definitive end to the peace process. No Arab leader will take a chance of negotiating with Israel with Iran in ascendance. Any hope of bolstering an alternative to Hamas goes out the window and Hamas is there to stay.

“In terms of the threat to the region, the nuclear arms race intensifies within the Arab world. We’re already seeing the first signs of that, with Egypt, the Saudis, Jordan, all starting nuclear programs as a response to Iran.”

It gets worse, he says.

“We have the real possibility of a floating nuclear suitcase, going to Hezbollah or Hamas, again assuming that the regime is rational, that they’re not going to launch a suicidal strike against Israel. It would be a way of upping the ante for terrorism. Hezbollah announces that they have capabilities that you can’t imagine. ‘Don’t mess with us.’ A nuclear Hezbollah.”

Finally, Halevi outlines a consequence very seldom discussed — the psychological effect a nuclear Iran might have on everyday Israelis.

“In terms of domestic implications for Israel, I think there will be lots of young people who will think of emigrating,” Halevi points out.

“A poll taken not long ago asked Israelis whether they would consider leaving if Iran got the bomb, and 7% said definitely. Another 20% said maybe. I don’t know what I would tell my kids if they asked me, ‘Is there a future here?’”

The stark reality presented in that grim question leads Halevi to his sum conclusion, one that he thinks Israel must regard as non-negotiable: “We can’t live with that regime having that kind of power.”

Halevi feels that Israel is not yet fully focused on the looming Iranian danger, but he does feel that the issue will ultimately prove pivotal in Israel’s national elections, slated for February.

The two most viable candidates for prime minister, Kadima’s Tzipi Livni and Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, will likely brand their campaigns as anti-corruption and pro-security, respectively.

“Israelis are not thinking immediately about Iran, but they are thinking immediately about Hezbollah and especially Hamas,” Halevi opines.

“We could find ourselves in a war with Hamas any day. Our last experience with a prime minister without any security credentials was Olmert during the Second Lebanon War, and Israelis don’t want to go there again.

“Livni has no expertise in security. I think it will be a close election, but my sense is that Netanyahu will win, given where we are in terms of the Middle East.”

Halevi has one more Israeli political prediction: The challenges that will soon confront any Israeli leader are so dire that it will be virtually impossible to go it alone.

“Whoever wins will almost certainly set up a national unity government,” Halevi says. “That, I think, will be the first order of business for any Israeli prime minister. Whether the decision is made to preempt Iran militarily, or to learn to live with a nuclear Iran, no Israeli leader can make that decision on his or her own. It has to be the whole political system making that decision together.”