by Marsha B. Cohen

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as of last week, planned on hitting the “refresh” button on the Iranian threat to Israel and the world, juxtaposing the callow grimace of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s ubiquitous smile.

Israeli media on Sunday — after President [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Marsha B. Cohen

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as of last week, planned on hitting the “refresh” button on the Iranian threat to Israel and the world, juxtaposing the callow grimace of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s ubiquitous smile.

Israeli media on Sunday — after President Barack Obama’s historic 15-minute phone call with Rouhani — reported Netanyahu was furiously rewriting his UN speech, “vowing to expose ‘the truth’ in the wake of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s recent overtures to the United States.”

“Like North Korea before it, Iran will try to remove sanctions by offering cosmetic concessions, while preserving its ability to rapidly build a nuclear weapon at a time of its choosing,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement explaining the Israeli delegation’s decision to boycott Rouhani’s address last week to the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

Can Netanyahu successfully revive the Bush administration’s lumping together of Iran with North Korea into a new “axis of evil”? He’s done it before, and, according to numerous reports, he’s certainly going to try again on Tuesday. At least this was the plan prior to the phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani on Friday, about which Netanyahu has not commented on and banned his government’s ministers, staff and Israel’s ambassadors from discussing. Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Saturday night that Israel was advised in advance that the phone call would take place, but “there was no advance coordination of positions” between Israel and the US on the content of the talk, according to the Times of Israel.

Netanyahu’s own UNGA speech on Oct. 1 is expected to chronicle the failure of diplomacy to deter North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, arguing that North Korea’s case demonstrates the futility of diplomatic engagement with Iran. The Israeli daily Israel Hayom reports:

Netanyahu will try to teach the Americans a history lesson involving a not so distant affair that culminated with another big con job: North Korea. The West held talks with that country as well. Promises were made. Then, one morning, the world woke up to a deafening roar of thunder: the regime had conducted a nuclear test. The North Koreans proved that a radical regime can fool the world. Do not create a new North Korean model, Netanyahu will say.

An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the New York Times last week, “Iran must not be allowed to repeat North Korea’s ploy to get nuclear weapons””

“Just like North Korea before it,” he said, “Iran professes to seemingly peaceful intentions; it talks the talk of nonproliferation while seeking to ease sanctions and buy more time for its nuclear program.”

The official said Netanyahu’s speech would highlight the active period of diplomacy in 2005 when the North Korean government seemingly agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for economic, security and energy benefits.

A year later, North Korea tested its first nuclear device. Israeli officials warn something similar could happen if the United States were to conclude too hasty a deal with Mr. Rouhani. As Iran is doing today, the North Koreans insisted on a right to a peaceful nuclear energy program.

To make his case, Netanyahu’s talking points may well refer to some of the parallels he has drawn in the past between North Korea and Iran. Whether he focuses on the North Korea parallel or not, Netanyahu’s arguments will boil down to: 1) Diplomacy isn’t bad, but it won’t work; 2) we need more sanctions; 3) only a credible threat of force will stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons; and 4) the talks will be used by the Iranians to delay and deceive. Let’s dig a little deeper into these points.

Diplomacy won’t work:

Immediately after North Korea’s underground nuclear test on May 25, 2009, and less than a month before Iran’s contentious 2009 presidential election, Netanyahu declared that North Korea was a textbook case of what Obama could expect if he insisted on wasting time engaging in dialogue with Iran. Taking no chances about the outcome of the election, in which  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rivals included two reformist candidates, Netanyahu said the latest Israeli intelligence estimate showed that Iran was engaged in a “national nuclear project” that was more than a one-man show. In other words, even if Ahmadinejad were to lose, Iran’s nuclear weapons program would continue. Netanyahu expressed no hope that Obama (at that point in office for just over 3 months) would ever succeed in talking Iran out of its pursuit of nuclear weapons. However, he generously agreed to give the U.S. President until the end of the year to try.

Sanctions don’t work — but we need more:

Netanyahu has flip-flopped about the efficacy of sanctions in stopping Iran’s alleged quest for a nuclear weapon. In January 2012 he told The Australian that there were signs that sanctions were finally working: “For the first time, I see Iran wobble under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.” A week later, he complained to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “The sanctions employed thus far are ineffective, they have no impact on the nuclear program. We need tough sanctions against the central bank and oil industry. These things are not happening yet and that is why it has no effect on the nuclear program.”

According to an issue brief on “The Global Nonproliferation Regime” published by the Council on Foreign Relations this past June:

Although three states (India, Israel, and Pakistan) are known or believed to have acquired nuclear weapons during the Cold War, for five decades following the development of nuclear technology, only nine states have developed—and since 1945 none has used—nuclear weapons. However, arguably not a single known or suspected case of proliferation since the early 1990s—Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, or Syria— was deterred or reversed by the multilateral institutions [i.e. sanctions] created for this purpose.

The question then becomes, if sanctions haven’t historically deterred states from seeking nuclear weapons, why invest so much time and energy imposing and demanding more of them on Iran?

The credible military threat:

In February 2013, a week after North Korea carried out its third nuclear test (UN resolutions notwithstanding), Netanyahu warned the Jewish Agency’s International Board of Governors that sanctions, no matter how crippling, could not stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. “Have sanctions, tough sanctions, stopped North Korea? No. And the fact that they produced a nuclear explosion reverberates everywhere in the Middle East, and especially in Iran.” Without a “robust, credible military threat,” backing up economic sanctions, Iran could not be deterred from seeking nuclear weapons, he argued.

Yet Netanyahu’s repeated calls for sanctions against Iran to “be coupled with a robust, credible military threat” fail to point out a single example where the threat — or actual use — of military force with or without sanctions has successfully deterred any state, including North Korea, from developing nuclear weapons. That’s because there are none.

“Operation Opera,” in which Israeli planes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in Osirak, is often cited by hawks as a precedent for a similar attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Numerous security studies experts and counter-proliferation specialists agree that the operation was not nearly as successful as the Israelis claimed in preventing Saddam Hussein’s access to weapons of mass destruction. In fact, it may have accelerated, rather than stymied, Hussein’s quest for nuclear weaponry. (As a related side note, it’s doubtful Netanyahu will claim credit in his UN speech for Israel’s alleged counter-proliferation efforts in Syria, or invoke them as a model for dealing with Iran, but one never knows.)

Talks a tactic to “delay and deceive”:

Speaking during a visit to Prague in May 2012, Netanyahu stated that he had seen “no evidence whatsoever” that Iran was serious about halting its nuclear weapons program:

“It looks as though they (Iran) see these talks as another opportunity to deceive and delay, just like North Korean did for years,” Netanyahu said. “They may try to go from meeting to meeting with empty promises. They may agree to something in principle but not implement it. They may even agree to implement something that does not materially derail their nuclear weapons program,” he said.

But no credible US or Western intelligence estimate has provided evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, or that it is pursuing a nuclear weapon. According to the US intelligence community’s annual worldwide threat assessment, the US believes Iran has the technical capability to make nuclear weapons, but does not know if Iran will decide to do so. However, the assessment also states that the US would know in time if Iran attempted to break out to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb (implying that Iran has not made the decision yet). It goes on to note that Tehran “has developed technical expertise in a number of areas—including uranium enrichment, nuclear reactors, and ballistic missiles—from which it could draw if it decided to build missile-deliverable  nuclear weapons,” making “the central issue its political will to do so.”

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was widely quoted last week by numerous media sources including the New York Times in such a way as to imply the U.S. also saw significant similarities between the Iranian and North Korean cases. Only the South Korean News Agency Yonhap quoted enough of Rhodes’ statement to convey his entire message. In fact, Rhodes actually said that the two cases require different strategies: “the international community needs to take different approaches toward North Korea and Iran with regard to their nuclear programs.”

Ultimately though, the bottom line remains: however fervently and persuasively Netanyahu argues that Iranian nuclear weapons capability has been achieved or is imminent, he has yet to offer any solution that will effectively address the problem. Reframing the Iranian nuclear issue in such a way that allows a pragmatist like Rouhani to make substantial and effective nuclear, economic and political reforms in Iran offers the best — and perhaps the only — chance at achieving greater Middle East stability and security. That, unfortunately, will not be among Netanyahu’s recommendations on Tuesday.

Classifying political leaders as either “hawks” or “doves” obscures an uncomfortable truth: that the real debate between political rivals is rarely whether to go to war but rather with whom.

Case in point: a man interred in Israel on Monday, former Prime Minister and terrorist/resistance fighter Yitzhak [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Classifying political leaders as either “hawks” or “doves” obscures an uncomfortable truth: that the real debate between political rivals is rarely whether to go to war but rather with whom.

Case in point: a man interred in Israel on Monday, former Prime Minister and terrorist/resistance fighter Yitzhak Shamir.

Writing in the Sheldon Adelson-owned free daily Israel Today, Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe (“Boogie”) Yaalon praised Shamir for his unswerving commitment to the “iron wall” concept of Israeli security, first laid out by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky: “He acted on his principles, not according to polls or trends.” That resoluteness is viewed from a very different angle in the Financial Times: “The kind of unflinching resolution behind Shamir’s campaign of bombings and assassinations, first as leader of the Stern Gang and later as a Mossad agent, often appeared to have defined his core character.”

One of the code names Shamir chose in the Stern Gang  (a militant group also known as Lehi)  was “Michael,” in tribute to Michael Collins of the Irish Republican Army, who Shamir esteemed as a role model in resisting British occupation. Shamir had no qualms about being labeled a terrorist. On the contrary.  “First and foremost, terror is for us a part of the political war appropriate for the circumstances of today, and its task is a major one,” Shamir wrote in an article titled “Terror” in the Lehi journal Hazit in August 1943. “It demonstrates in the clearest language, heard throughout the world including by our unfortunate brethren outside the gates of this country, our war against the occupier.”

Shamir’s career as Foreign Minister (1979-1983) and his first term at helm of the Israeli government in (1983-84)  encompassed the unfolding of the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and  the creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon as a response to the Israeli invasion and occupation in 1982.  The revelation of Israeli weapon sales to Iran that were exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings and the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 occurred during his second term as Prime Minister (1986-92). Yet neither the accolades nor the accusations published in the days since his death mention any of these events.

Nonetheless, Iran was very much at the forefront and part of the backstory of Israeli foreign policy at the time. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz  cautioned President Reagan’s National Security adviser Robert McFarlane that “Israel’s agenda regarding Iran ‘is not the same as ours’ and that relying on Israeli intelligence concerning Iran ‘could seriously skew our own perception.’”

Elected to Israel’s parliament on the right-wing Herut party ticket in 1973, Shamir became Speaker of the Knesset in 1977 when Menachem Begin became Prime Minister, after elections  toppled the governing Labor-led coalition that had ruled the country since 1948.  Shamir was designated Israel’s Foreign Minister in 1979 when Moshe Dayan resigned from the post, eight months after the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran.

According to investigative journalist Robert Parry, who covered Iran for the Associated Press during the 1980s, Shamir confirmed in a 1993 interview that there was indeed a “Saturday Night Surprise”–as detailed by Gary Sick in a New York Times op ed and  in his book by that title–that delayed the release of the 54 American hostages held at the US Embassy in Tehran for 444 days (Nov. 4, 1979-Jan. 21, 1981)  because of a deal struck by the Iranian government with the Reagan presidential campaign. Furthermore, Shamir candidly hinted–before retreating–that the Israeli government  had approached Republican operatives and offered to help engineer President Jimmy Carter’s defeat:

To prevent a Palestinian state and buy time for Israel to further “change the facts on the ground” by moving more Jewish settlers onto the West Bank, Begin felt Carter’s reelection had to be prevented. The Likud also believed that Reagan would give Israel a freer hand to deal with problems on its northern border with Lebanon. The Likud-Republican collaboration reportedly led to Israel becoming a go-between for the Reagan campaign’s secret contacts with Iran, helping to prevent Carter from resolving the U.S.-Iranian hostage crisis and dooming his reelection hopes.

[nb: Parry's use of the party name Likud is anachronistic here, since Begin and Shamir's Herut party did not become part of the Likud bloc until 1988. mbc]

Like the Revisionist’s mentor Jabotinsky, Shamir did not believe that Arab states would ever willingly accept a Jewish state in their midst. The Islamic Revolution in 1979 may have changed Iran’s ruling regime, but it did not alter Israel’s needed non-Arab allies in the region–especially Iran–according to Israel’s long held “doctrine of the periphery.” Foremost among the Arab leaders worrying Israel was Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who invaded Iran in Sept. 1980, launching a war that would last for eight years.

Notwithstanding Ayatollah Khomeini’s vitriol against “the Zionist entity,” Shamir never wavered in his conviction that it was Iraq, not Iran, that endangered Israel. As Trita Parsi points out in his book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the U.S.:

From Tel Aviv’s perspective, Iraq was the single greatest threat to Israel’s security, while Iran–in spite of its ideology, its harsh rhetoric, and its vocal support of the Palestinian issue–was seen as a nonthreat. For all practical purposes, Iran continued to be a partner in balancing the Iraqi threat.

“Operation Opera,” Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility on June 7, 1981, took place while Shamir was Foreign Minister. Shamir wrote a three page letter to world leaders justifying Israel’s preemptive strike before nuclear fuel had been loaded into it. Ari Ben Menashe, who claims to have spent two years as Shamir’s “roving troubleshooter” with the title of “special intelligence consultant,” told Parsi that representatives of the Khomeini regime met with Israeli officials about a month before the Osirak strike. The Iranians gave the Israelis details of an unsuccessful Iranian attack on the site on Sept. 30, 1980, according to Ben Menashe, as well as permission for Israeli planes to land at an Iranian airfield in Tabriz in an emergency.

Shamir was also Foreign Minister during the Israeli invasion that launched the “First Lebanon War” According to several sources, Shamir was neither particularly surprised nor troubled by the Phalangist massacre that took place in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps outside Beirut.  Author and journalist Ze’ev Schiff, co-author of Israel’s Lebanon War, attributed the catastrophic consequences of the Lebanon war not so much to the incursion itself but rather to Israel’s decision to remain in Lebanon as its occupier, recalling that in southern Lebanon at the outset of the war: “I was talking to an old man, a Shiite, who was very happy about what Israel had done. He grabbed my arm and said, ‘Don’t forget to leave.’ But we did. There is just no such thing as an enlightened occupation.”

The creation of Hezbollah as a Shiite paramilitary group to resist the Israeli occupation was one of the consequences of the Israeli decision not to leave. “Hezbollah’s original cadres were organized and trained by a 1,500-member contingent of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who arrived in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in the summer of 1982, with the permission of the Syrian government,” according to Adam Shatz . “For Iran, whose efforts to spread the Islamic revolution to the Arab world had been stymied by its war with Iraq, Hezbollah provided a means of gaining a foothold in Middle East politics.”

Shamir believed that Israel ought to prepare for the possibility that more moderate elements in the Iranian regime might gain control of the Islamic Republic once the aging and ailing Khomeini was gone from the scene. The late David Kimche, a retired founder deputy head of the Mossad who Shamir appointed as Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1979,  told Parsi in an interview:

There were the ultraextremists and there were, let’s say, the moderate extremists…They were all fanatics, but there were the ones who were absolutely dangerous, and there was another group…who would be willing to come to terms with the West…They were still against Israel, but there were much less extremist than that first group.

Kimche would emerge as a key figure in the Iran-Contra affair which exposed Israel’s sale of US weapons to Iran during the Iraq-Iran war (albeit with weapons that Israel would claim were outdated, defective and overpriced).  The weapons sales, about which  Shamir denied having any knowledge (he alternated serving as Prime Minister with now-President Shimon Peres in a power-sharing arrangement during the mid-late 1980s) were motivated in part by Israel’s hope that if Iraq and Iran were fighting one another, neither would attack Israel. But it was also based on the expectation that Khomeini would eventually be replaced by more pragmatic Iranian leadership.

Shamir was a tough-minded pragmatist who did not let the label “terrorist” inhibit him. He knew from personal experience that the line between a terrorist and a resistance fighter against occupation and terrorist was very much in the eye of the beholder. In August 1987, when Iranian Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani suggested in an NBC news interview that Western hostages held by extremist groups in Lebanon might be freed in a trade involving Shia Muslim prisoners held in Israel and Kuwait, the U.S. State Department immediately rejected the Iranian suggestion. “No deals,” State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley responded. “The United States will not make concessions to terrorists nor will we ask others to do so. Making concessions only encourages additional acts of terrorism.” Shamir, however,  was willing to consider the proposal. “I must study the statement of Mr. Rafsanjani,” Shamir said. “I don’t know what was his intention and about which Shia prisoners he is talking. So after we will see what is the issue, we’ll decide what could be, and if will be, any reaction from us.”