THIS WEEK'S TRIBUNE  THIS WEEK'S TRIBUNE Should Israel bomb Iran? Strategists debate at Jerusalem conference
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Should Israel bomb Iran? Strategists debate at Jerusalem conference |
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Written by Avraham Zuroff
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Tuesday, 27 October 2009 |
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Jerusalem – Should Israel bomb Iran before it gets to a point of no return? Are there alternative solutions to derail Iran’s nuclear program?
Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad chief, sees Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel rhetoric as positive.
“Ahmadinejad is the greatest asset for Israel,” Halevy said during a panel discussion at the recent Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem. “If he wouldn’t be there, Israel should’ve created him because he is the greatest asset in public relations for Israel.”
Canadian MP and former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler warned that putting the spotlight on Iran’s nuclear ambitions hides other looming dangers such as “their incitement to state-sponsored terrorism, state-sponsored genocide and oppression of their own people.”
The emphasis on the nuclear threat causes the world to “ignore and sanitize other issues,” Cotler said. “Iran has already committed a crime of genocide under international policy. It’s an international legal responsibility. Not one state has taken responsibility or made a recommendation to the United Nations.”
Cotler also expressed his concern regarding state-sponsored genocide and the demonizing of other cultures, which creates cultures of hate.
“The Holocaust didn’t begin in the gas chambers. It began in words,” he said.
Edward Luttwak, a US military strategist, noted that Israel pays a price in reduced popularity each time it takes military action. Nevertheless, he feels that it’s worth it. As proof, he said that Israeli military action against the Hezbollah terrorist group in 2006 has deterred them from firing a single missile. And he feels that Israel’s Cast Lead operations in Gaza have drastically reduced the firing of rockets by Hamas terrorists into Israel.
Luttwak is nevertheless concerned that Israel is losing its legitimacy in the international arena. Luttwak decried the fact that Ahmadinejad “received a hero’s welcome in New York, where there is the largest concentration of Jews in the world and he gets away with it.”
Luttwak feels that the Iranian regime must be brought down – but not because of the threat of nuclear annihilation.
“I’m not terribly impressed by the Iranian nuclear program,” Luttwak stated, noting that its nuclear ambitions, which began more than 20 years ago, are at a snail’s pace.
“I think we should bomb Iran – and not because of the threat – but because they’ve been rude and impolite,” Luttwak stated amid the audience’s laughter.
Luttwak doesn’t anticipate Iranian retaliation.
“On the contrary, bombing would undermine them. They should suffer consequences,” he remarked amid applause.
In contrast, Prof. Steven Spiegel objected to implementing a military approach against Iran. Spiegel, who is the director of the Center for Middle East Development at UCLA, said that nothing has changed in Iran’s nuclear ambitions since US President Barack Obama has come to the White House.
“What has changed is American policy,” Spiegel said, adding that bombing Iran isn’t a solution. Instead, Spiegel advocates implementing additional sanctions against the regime.
Israel Defence Forces Major-Gen. Eitan Ben Eliyahu (retired) said that a military option alone wouldn’t be effective. Ben Eliyahu is no stranger to military actions. In 1981, he flew as a fighter escort during Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor.
“The goal should be to neutralize the Iranians,” he said. “As long as you don’t attain this goal, you haven’t prevented it.”
He added that the objective is to neutralize Iran’s ability to ever attain nuclear weaponry.
Elliot Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that people didn’t realize that the present Iranian regime is faltering until this past June, when Iran was accused of rigging its presidential elections.
In light of the growing Iranian opposition towards Ahmadinejad, Abrams said, “People must bring down the regime. It would subsequently change the perception in the Islamic world.”
Abrams also said that it is possible to negotiate with the regime while not abandoning the Iranian opposition. Former US President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire. “Yet, people like Natan Sharansky in prison realized” that he would not be abandoned, Abrams said.
Merely opposing Iranian uranium enrichment programs is “just buying time,” Abrams commented. “More sanctions such as preventing gasoline supports would make them fear.”
If one does absolutely nothing, there is a real possibility that the regime will fall, Abrams said.
“That’s a long-term solution,” he stated, although he wasn’t sure whether the regime will fall in one or even five years.
Geneive Abdo, Iran analyst at the Century Foundation, was less optimistic than Abrams. Abdo, a US citizen born in Lebanon, said that changes in Iranian government policies are slow. The present Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has brought in the radicalism slowly. For the regime to fall, the Revolutionary Guards must be neutralized.
“The guards were very instrumental to rig the elections to ensure Ahmadinejad’s reelection,” she noted.
“A former member of the Revolutionary Guards who is now exiled in Washington said that he doesn’t know anyone like the guards. It is clear that their rising power, economically and politically, will go unchallenged,” Abdo said, adding that a big problem of the opposition movement is that it has no leaders.
Dr. Meir Litvak, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University, highly doubted whether Israel has the capabilities to successfully destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities distributed throughout its country in one bombing mission. And the threat of Iranian retaliation will always loom over Israeli leaders’ heads.
“Iran will remain an eternal enemy. And we won’t succeed without American support,” Litvak stated.
“Inflammatory statements against Iran aren’t beneficial to Israel,” he cautioned. “Furthermore, when we make inflammatory statements and don’t do anything, it is worse.”
Litvak said that the question isn’t what Israel could do, but what Israel should do.
“We should work with American and European companies not to do business with Iran. Israel should pursue this,” he said.
“In addition, Israel should and must maintain strategic coordination with the US, which means that it has priority over certain homes in the West Bank,” he said.
Another factor that Litvak stated is the fear among Arabs of a nuclear Iran.
“Israel should exploit this behind the scenes,” he said. To achieve cooperation with other Arab countries, Litvak stated that Israel would have to pay a price in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
What if all else fails?
“If nothing else works, we should use exclusive deterrence against Iran,” Litvak said. Should Iran close in on nuclear arms capabilities, “we should say explicitly or by anonymous sources in the press, that Iran will be eliminated, as President [Shimon] Peres has said in the past,” Litvak commented.
Cotler said that sanctions must be enforced.
“Engagement with Iran cannot be open-ended and conclusive. There must be defined timeframes and clear bench marks,” he said, adding that is not now happening with the UN or the United States. “When we focus on the nuclear threat, such engagement must not be involved without the other. Otherwise it sanitizes, marginalizes the other issues of state-sponsored terrorism and human rights violations,” he said.
Cotler said that Iran has already created crimes against humanity. “Combating, preventing such incitement is a legal obligation. States that have signed the Geneva Convention, like my country, are obliged to bring Ahmadinejad and Iran to account,” Cotler said. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 04 November 2009 )
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