Should the US Ditch Diplomacy If Ahmadinejad's Power Grab Succeeds?

The violent suppression by the Iranian regime of democratic protests by supporters of the rightful winner of the Iranian election--Moussavi--is heart-rending. We must hope that the reformers will succeed in removing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, or pressuring him to reverse course, and conduct a truly free and fair election, which, by all indications, Moussavi would win. But, as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof observed today, "at the end of the day, as I saw at Tianenmen 20 years ago, when Might and Right do battle, it's often prudent to bet on Might, at least in the short run"--at least in countries like Iran and China.

If, as is likely, Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadinejad succeed in violently suppressing the widespread protests, the US must act on the basis of our national security interests, which include a realistic assessment of what is best for our Middle East allies Israel and the Sunni Arab states including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates, and not least the need for stablizing Iraq and Afghanistan and strengthening their governments. We must attempt to bargain with the Iranian regime to see if there is a basis for new arrangements which would defuse the grave threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, terrorism and war that we and our allies currently face.

Already voices on the right who never supported direct, comprehensive and unconditional US diplomacy with Iran in the first place--Netanyahu government hawks and their neo- and paleoconservative counterparts in the US--are using Iran's internal coup as a pretext for blocking the negotiations before they start. “In Israel, which has hinted that it might launch a military strike on Iran to disable its nuclear capability, officials said Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory underscored the threat from Tehran and the need for a tough response rather than patient diplomacy. Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said in Tel Aviv that the victory [of Ahmadinejad] ‘sends a clear message to the world’ that Iran’s policies have broad internal support and will be continued. The results, he added, also ‘blow up in the faces of those’ who thought Iran was ready for ‘a genuine dialogue with the free world on stopping its nuclear program.’" (U.S. Officials to Continue to Engage Iran, N.Y. Times, 6/14/09 )

But Shalom's inference is groundless; the "victory" of Ahmadinejad shows nothing about whether Ayatollah Khameini or Ahmadinejad are interested in better relations with the US or in negotiating a new system of safeguards which would assure us that Iran was not weaponizing enriched uranium. "'It would be nice to have an environment without the kind of vitriol we see from Ahmadinejad,' a senior administration official said. 'There clearly would be differences in tone between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi, but not necessarily in policy.'” (NYT, 6/14/09)

Moreover, were the regimes in China and the Soviet Union any less repressive than in contemporary Iran? Did we not reach detente with them--under Nixon and Reagan--and advance our own security interests? Did we not negotiate arms limitation agreements with the Soviets, whom Reagan had called "the evil empire"? "'We should be clear about what we’re dealing with,' said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 'Just as we deal with Assad’s Syria and Mubarak’s Egypt, we now have to deal with Khamenei’s Iran,' he said, referring to President Bashar al-Assad and President Hosni Mubarak." (NYT, 6/14/09)

Hawks in Congress and in Israel Will Now Try to Prevent or Encumber US-Iran Talks - The Case for Negotiations with Iran

To be sure, negotiations with Iran won’t be easy, as Iran expert Gary Sick, who worked on Iranian affairs for three administrations, reminds us in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday: “But now after this internal coup and all the coverage it has received, those people in the United States and particularly in Israel who really opposed the idea of having negotiations with Iran - who favored a pressure strategy to build up more sanctions - are now going to use their clout in Congress and elsewhere to slow down or stop the process.

"So it's not that we can't talk to the Iranian government - obviously it's going to be harder to talk to an Ahmadinejad government after it's stolen the election - but the real problem is a domestic one. The administration is going to have to overcome a whole series of domestic hurdles which previously had been in abeyance.

"...The problem has been and remains preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The fact is we've tried a pressure strategy for more than ten years going all the way back to the Clinton administration. Now after more than ten years of putting pressure on Iran they have far greater capacity than they had when we started. This has to tell us something about the policy. So the real question is what will work? What can you do that will actually have an effect? And the fact is that the only thing that's remaining for us to do is to actually talk to Iran about what we want, what they want, and look for common ground. It's not going to be easy. But it hasn't been tried, and the other things we've been doing haven't worked.

"People who say we haven't been tough enough with our sanctions are completely missing the point. Every time we've imposed sanctions, at whatever level, however stringent, Iran has upped its program, not reduced it. We need to be aware of that and think of what we can do. We probably will have to accept Iranian enrichment in one form or another. The trick is how do you monitor that and control it and get Iran's cooperation in insuring that the low-enriched uranium they are producing is not transformed into high-enriched uranium, and into nuclear weapons. That's the objective and that's still something we can talk about with Iran. They have an interest in finding some kind of agreement with the international community and we have a strong interest in getting them to back off and basically agree to a form of surveillance or monitoring that we've not had thus far."

From today's Boston Globe ("As Iran Roils, US Still Hopes for Talks"): "Trita Parsi, the president of the US-based Iranian-American Council, which calls itself the largest organization of Iranians living in the United States, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he was not surprised that the Obama administration is expressing a willingness to talk with Iranian leaders regardless of concerns about the election. 'The decision to negotiate with Iran has never been driven by any like or dislike of any particular candidate, but rather because it lies in the interests of the United States to get Iranian assistance in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan,' Parsi said. The rationale behind Obama's statement during his presidential campaign that he would make a diplomatic effort to improve relations with Iran still exists, Parsi said. As for the election results, Parsi said that while 'there is an overwhelming perception this was not a fair election,' it may never be known whether the results were rigged."

It also lies within our collective interests to fully explore whether an improvement in relations with Iran is possible which will allay Iran's well-founded fear of a US effort to change the regime by force or subversion, which in turn is the main motive, according to Israeli intelligence, impelling Iran to seek a nuclear weapon. If such a detente is possible--which can only be ascertained once the US fully pursues direct talks with representatives of Supreme Leader Khameini--a pragmatic rapprochement with Iran may enable us to offer political and economic incentives to end its opposition to an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation, leading to changes in Iran's approach to Hezbollah and Hamas which might benefit Israel.

F. Gregory Gause III blogging at Foreign Policy:

"I know that it is way early, and we have to see how things develop, but let's assume that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the clerical elite get away with the power grab. What does Washington do? Put the outreach to Iran on hold?

"I'll start with a provocation: I think that the diplomatic outreach should continue as it started. It would be great if there were real democracy in Iran and the United States did not have to deal with the execrable incumbent president. But American interests here are not about Iranian domestic politics. They are about Iran's role in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf, the Arab-Israeli arena, and the nuclear program.

"I acknowledge that it would be much easier to come to some understanding on these issues with a different, more representative Iranian government. But it looks like we might not get that. So the United States might as well try to engage the incumbents in order to see if it can get some kind of deal on at least some of these issues that will help avoid a confrontation down the road.

"America deals with all sorts of governments whose domestic arrangements are, to put it mildly, less than compatible with American ideals. (The Saudis are Exhibit A.) I think that's how to deal with Iran."

F. Gregory Gause III is professor of political science at the University of Vermont and author of Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States.

Why Israel Can't Bomb Iranian Nuke Sites--New Study Bursts Myth of Israeli Military Option

(Originally published 5/15/09) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will undoubtedly tell President Obama that if his "diplomatic efforts and subsequent tougher sanctions fail, then the president and the world should understand and support Israel's engagement in military action...to halt or delay Iran's capability of dropping a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv; one Holocaust is enough for the Jewish people." That's how one American Jewish leader put it in yesterday's New York Times, expressing the conventional view held by many Israelis.

But an exhaustive new 114-page study by Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington concludes that "it is questionable whether Israel has the military capability to destroy Iran's nuclear program, or even to delay it for several years," according to an analysis of the study by military expert Dr. Reuven Pedatzur of Tel Aviv University published in today's Ha'aretz. The odds of success from a military point of view are not great, the study's authors conclude.

Second, Israel would only attack Iran's known nuclear sites. But it is likely that following such a strike-which would be unlikely to succeed even against the known sites-Iran would accelerate its uranium enrichment efforts in its secret sites, thus negating any possible benefits of a successful attack.

Third, Iran would certainly retaliate against Israeli targets with Shahab-3 missiles, as would Hezbollah and Hamas with many thousands of their own missiles and rockets, while also dispatching waves of suicide bombers into Israel. "Hezbollah now has some 40,000 rockets; Israel does not have a response to those rockets. The rocket defense systems now being developed (Iron Dome and Magic Wand) are still far from completion, and even after they become operational, it is doubtful they will prove effective against thousands of rockets launched at Israel." The Israeli strike would also sow instability throughout the Middle East and potentially also attacks against US forces and American allies in the region."

"It is time to stop waving around the scarecrow of an existential threat and refrain from making belligerent statements, which sometimes create a dangerous dynamic of escalation," concludes Pedatzur. What's worse, because they lack credibility, Israeli threats to strike Iran's nuclear facilities are actually serving only to undermine Israeli deterrence against Iran. "The time has come to adopt new ways of thinking. No more fiery declarations and empty threats, but rather a carefully weighed policy grounded in sound strategy."

Isn't it time we Jews begin thinking not only with our kishkes (our guts) but also with our kopfs (our heads)?

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Ex-Top US General Says IDF Can't Harm Iran Nuke Sites

Published by Haaretz Service, 10/26/08

Former United States top general John Abizaid said recently that Israel is incapable of seriously damaging Iran's nuclear program, Newsweek has reported. The weekly magazine quoted the former Commander of the U.S. Central Command, who oversaw operations in the Middle East, as saying he doubted whether "the Israelis have the capability to make a lasting impression on the Iranian nuclear program with their military capabilities."

According to Newsweek, Abizaid made the comments earlier this month at a Marine Corps University conference, where he also reportedly said that an Israel-Iran confrontation would be bad for the U.S. and would further destabilize the region. Abizaid's recent reported comments appear to echo remarks he has made on the issue of Iran's nuclear program, which Israel and the U.S. believe is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Last year, the retired general said that, "There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031508.html

An Israeli Pre-Emptive Strike on Iranian Nuclear Sites Would be an Act of Folly, Gidon D. Remba

Originally published Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at Tough Dove Israel blog

An Israeli Pre-Emptive Strike on Iranian Nuclear Sites Would be an Act of Folly, Gidon D. Remba

Zev Chafets’ “Israel Can Stand Up for Itself” (April 13) suffers from three faulty assumptions which vitiate its argument. First, Mr. Chafets claims that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement of the installation of 6,000 new centrifuges makes obvious “the failure of diplomacy.” Since President Bush has in fact not tried direct diplomacy with Iran at all, or offered the kinds of inducements which would give the U.S. the best prospects for insuring that Iranian nuclear enrichment would not lead to the development of nuclear weapons, diplomacy cannot be said to have failed.

Second, Mr. Chafets assumes that Israel is free to make an autonomous decision independent of the U.S. on whether to launch its own preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. It would be “a noble thing,” he remarks, if the U.S. were to back Israel’s "efforts to stop an Iranian bomb" with military force—as if the U.S. would have a choice. In fact, Iran would regard an Israeli attack on its nuclear sites as having tacit, if not overt, American approval, and would hold the U.S. responsible along with Israel. The U.S. cannot therefore permit Israel to make a unilateral decision about whether to entangle it in a second protracted, unwinnable and vastly more difficult Mideast war, even were so large a share of U.S. ground forces not already embroiled in neighboring Iraq.

Third, Mr. Chafets believes that Israel has the capacity “to act on its own to degrade and retard the Iranian nuclear program as it did in Iraq (and, more recently, Syria).” In fact, it is unlikely that either Israel or the U.S. know where all Iranian nuclear sites are located. Many American Iran experts say that such a strike would prompt Iranians to rally around the most hard-line mullahs bent on accelerating the acquisition of nuclear weapons and exacting revenge on Israel. A preemptive Israeli or American assault on Iran will retard, not advance, a change in regime towards more pragmatic Iranian leaders, leaving a nuclear-armed Shiite power under the control of its most immoderate clerical rulers.

Gidon D. Remba

The writer, who served as Editor and Senior Foreign Press Translator in Israel’s Government Press Office under Menachem Begin and Zev Chafets during the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations, is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the new Jews for Obama e-Newsletter.

A Diplomatic Solution to the Iranian Nuclear Impasse

Originally published on the Tough Dove Israel blog, 4/6/08, excerpted from How to Talk to a Hawk, by Gidon D. Remba, Executive Director, The Jewish Alliance for Change

A new report by a group of former American diplomats and regional experts who have been meeting behind the scenes with a group of Iranian academics and policy advisers suggests that the Iranian leadership is open to direct US-Iran talks over a novel solution to the nuclear impasse: Western governments would jointly manage, operate and closely supervise all of Iran’s nuclear activities on Iranian soil. Under this proposal, “Iran would be prohibited from producing either highly enriched uranium or reprocessed plutonium,” thereby preventing it from producing the essential ingredients for constructing a nuclear weapon.

Under such tight international supervision, even a secret attempt on Iran’s part to manufacture weapons-grade nuclear materials “would carry the risk of discovery by the international management team and the staff at the facility; the high probability of getting caught will likely deter Iran from trying to do so in the first place.” Iran would be permitted to produce “only uranium enriched to low levels that could be used in nuclear power plants.” And it would have to agree to fully implement the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, “which requires member nations to make their nuclear facilities subject to snap inspections, environmental sampling, and more comprehensive reporting requirements,” as Iran has already offered to do.

While this option is not ideal—only a complete cessation of nuclear enrichment by Iran would be, an option that is decidedly not in the cards—it is the best of the realistic options which may be available to us and the one most likely to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Moreover, it is far better than the worst option, which is the one we are most likely to end up with if we continue down the paths advocated by Bush and McCain: “a purely national [nuclear enrichment] program on Iranian soil, one aimed at producing nuclear weapons” either without international safeguards or with insufficient monitoring.

As the U.S. diplomats warn, "Outsourcing US diplomacy to others has not worked and is even less likely to work in the future … The US is the only nation that can take on [the task of direct engagement with Iran on the nuclear issue] and achieve the breakthroughs that will be necessary… The reward may be a more stable and peaceful Middle East.”

"We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran"--Gen. John Abizaid, former US CENTCOM Commander

Originally published Sep. 18, 2007, Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but, failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed government in Teheran, a recently retired commander of US forces in the Middle East said Monday. John Abizaid, the retired Army general who headed Central Command for nearly four years, said he was confident that if Iran should gain nuclear arms, the United States could deter it from using them.

"Iran is not a suicide nation," he said. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon." The Iranians are aware, he said, that the United States has far superior military capability. "I believe that we have the power to deter Iran, should it become nuclear," he said, referring to the theory that Iran would not risk a catastrophic retaliatory strike by using a nuclear weapon against the United States.

"There are ways to live with a nuclear Iran," Abizaid said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. "Let's face it, we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we've lived with a nuclear China, and we're living with (other) nuclear powers as well."

He stressed that he was expressing his personal opinion and that none of his remarks were based on his previous experience with US contingency plans for potential military action against Iran. Abizaid stressed the dangers of allowing more nations to build nuclear arsenals. And he said while it is likely that Iran will make a technological breakthrough to obtain a nuclear bomb, "it's not inevitable." Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for energy resources, not to build weapons.Abizaid suggested military action to pre-empt Iran's nuclear ambitions might not be the wisest course.

"War, in the state-to-state sense, in that part of the region would be devastating for everybody, and we should avoid it - in my mind - to every extent that we can," he said. "On the other hand, we can't allow the Iranians to continue to push in ways that are injurious to our vital interests."
He suggested that many in Iran - perhaps even some in the Teheran government - are open to cooperating with the West. The thrust of his remarks was a call for patience in dealing with Iran, which President George W. Bush early in his first term labeled a member of the "axis of evil" nations, along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
He said there is a basis for hope that Iran, over time, will move away from its current anti-Western positions.

Abizaid's comments appeared to represent a more accommodating and hopeful stance toward Iran than prevails in the White House, which speaks frequently of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration says it seeks a diplomatic solution to complaints about Iran's alleged support for terrorism and its nuclear program, amid persistent rumors of preparations for a US military strike.

Abizaid expressed confidence that the United States and the world community can manage the Iran problem. "I believe the United States, with our great military power, can contain Iran; that the United States can deliver clear messages to the Iranians that make it clear to them that while they may develop one or two nuclear weapons, they'll never be able to compete with us in our true military might and power," he said.

He described Iran's government as reckless, with ambitions to dominate the Middle East.
"We need to press the international community as hard as we possibly can, and the Iranians, to cease and desist on the development of a nuclear weapon, and we should not preclude any option that we may have to deal with it," he said. He then added his remark about finding ways to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

Abizaid made his remarks in response to questions from his audience after delivering a talk about the major strategic challenges in the Middle East and Central Asia, the region in which he commanded US forces from July 2003 until February 2007, when he was replaced by Adm. William Fallon. The US severed diplomatic relations with Iran shortly after the 1979 storming of the US Embassy in Teheran. Although both nations have made public and private attempts to improve relations, the Bush administration labeled Iran part of its "axis of evil," and Iranian leaders still refer to the United States as the Great Satan.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411429430&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Copyright 1995- 2009 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/

An Israeli Strike on Iran, a Plan that Just Doesn't Fly, by Bernard Avishai & Reza Aslan

Originally published Sunday, August 10, 2008; The Washington Post

The Bush administration seems less and less likely to launch a parting strike on Iran's nuclear installations -- but Israel isn't sounding nearly so tranquil. The talk from Jerusalem will almost certainly grow more strident as the competition to replace the country's scandal-plagued prime minister, Ehud Olmert, intensifies. Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz is running hard against the less hawkish Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to succeed Olmert as leader of the governing Kadima Party; he recently told Israel's dominant daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, that an attack on Iran was "unavoidable." And Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing opposition leader who might well beat either Livni or Mofaz in a general election, is also likely to think seriously about a preventive Israeli raid.

Meanwhile, prominent Israeli military analysts, officials and writers are insisting that Iran constitutes a mounting "existential threat." Take one of the country's most important historians, the erstwhile dove Benny Morris, who recently predicted in the New York Times that "Israel will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months" -- roughly (and not inconveniently) the period between the U.S. presidential election and the departure of the Bush administration. Morris claimed that his view that Israel's existence was on the line is shared "across the political spectrum." In Israel today, anyone who resists such talk risks becoming an appeaser amid a chorus of Churchills.

Leave aside the possibility that the threat of an Israeli attack may be designed to give leverage to U.S. and European diplomats pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear efforts. Leave aside the question of whether, if you believed that such a strike was truly imminent, you'd predict it in a major newspaper. Leave aside the fact that no Israeli strike could happen without a U.S. green light and permission to fly over Iraq. And leave aside the perennial suspicions that Israel's military elite, which sees the Jewish state as the West's foremost strategic asset in the region, also tends to see the Middle East through the prism of the "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West. Could Israeli threats be serious?

We hope not, because we don't buy the underlying premises. Here's the argument one hears almost daily in Israel: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a jihadist fanatic; he is bent on (as he put it) wiping Israel "off the map," and his insistence on denying the Holocaust shows that he may be vile enough to perpetrate another one; the Iranian regime is on the fast track to developing a nuclear weapon. So the West -- and if not the West, then Israel alone -- must treat Iran as though it were the national equivalent of a suicide bomber. It must strike now, without hesitation, before it's too late.

Moreover, the argument continues, even if a nuclear-armed Iran didn't attack Israel first, it would still spur an arms race that would turn the region into a nest of mutually assured destroyers that would include Egypt and Saudi Arabia. An Iranian bomb would also curtail Israel's freedom of action if it has to strike against the tens of thousands of missiles now in the hands of Hezbollah, Iran's fearsome proxy in southern Lebanon. So why should Israel not (we need George C. Scott here) just go for broke?

Here's why not: because Iran presents the West with a kind of real-life chess game, and the advocates of a preemptive Israeli attack only understand checkers. Intelligence experts insist that we examine both the intentions and the capabilities of an opponent. Let's do that.

The president of Iran is not the regime. Ahmadinejad has almost no control over Iran's nuclear program; that power rests in the hands of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei alone commands Iran's military and dictates its foreign policy. Through intermediaries such as Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Khamenei has adopted a much softer tone than Ahmadinejad on nuclear negotiations with the West. As Rahim-Mashaei recently put it, according to Iranian news agencies, "Iran wants no war with any country, and today Iran is a friend of the United States and even Israel."

The Iranian regime is not a suicide bomber. The idea that one fine morning Iran will incinerate Tel Aviv is madness; Morris's description of the mullahs' "fundamentalist, self-sacrificial mindset," echoed by others, is a caricature. The Iranian regime knows full well that Israel has an arsenal widely thought to include as many as 200 nuclear warheads as well as missiles, submarines, strategic bombers and enough apocalyptic psyches to retaliate. Do Israelis seriously believe that Iranians hate them (on behalf of the Palestinians, who would be poisoned by the fallout) more than they love their children -- or, for that matter, the historic cities of Tehran, Qom and Esfahan?

The regime wants to survive. The mullahs, let us remember, have managed to remain in power for three decades, despite international isolation, a devastating eight-year war with Iraq and the loathing of the vast majority of the country's citizens. In times of economic frustration, they rely on anti-Israeli and anti-American gambits to distract attention from domestic hardship; we should view their nuclear program in this context. This is a country that sits atop the world's third-largest proven reserves of oil, according to the CIA, yet imports about 40 percent of its gasoline -- simply because it doesn't have the resources or the know-how to update its refineries to pump more. We have greater reason to assume that, in time, the mullahs will bow to internal pressure and open their country to global intellectual capital than to think that they will engage in an ecstasy of suicidal mass murder.

The Iranian nuclear program is daring but not crazy. Consider the view from Tehran. The United States overthrew Iran's government in 1953 to obtain Iranian oil, and the country is now surrounded by U.S. troops -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. This surely argues for prudence from Tehran. Besides, the regime has probably learned a valuable lesson from another member of the "axis of evil": Nuclear North Korea was never attacked; it was offered hundreds of millions of dollars to give up its bombs. Nuclear diplomacy, the mullahs have probably concluded, enhances the international prestige of what would otherwise be a Third World country.

An Iranian bomb need not precipitate a regional nuclear arms race. Israel's bomb -- developed by the Middle Eastern power most hated and feared by its neighbors -- hasn't.
Even if Tehran were determined to get the bomb, there's no guarantee that it could pull it off. Iran's nuclear program is far more modest than its leaders like to admit. As Undersecretary of State William Burns testified before Congress last month, "It is apparent that Iran has not yet perfected [uranium] enrichment, and as a direct result of U.N. sanctions, Iran's ability to procure technology or items of significance to its missile programs . . . is being impaired."

An Iranian bomb will not "degrade Israel's deterrence." Tens of thousands of conventional missiles in southern Lebanon, Syria, Gaza -- and Iran -- have already done that. Hezbollah knows that it can bombard Israel and survive, as it did during its summer 2006 war with Israel. If an Iranian bomb would provide cover for Hezbollah, Hamas and their state sponsors to launch these missiles at some indefinite point in the future, but a preemptive Israeli attack on Iran would make Iran's proxies launch them now (as Hezbollah did two years ago), how exactly does the logic of regaining Israeli "deterrence" work?

None of these points mean that Ahmadinejad will stop blustering; he is a two-bit politician playing to his base. Nor does it mean that the Western powers should stop planning a long-term strategy of containing Iran. But Western powers should now focus not only on their power to deter but on their power to attract; we should push for new collective-security agreements that would benefit everyone in the region. Israeli threats to attack Iran produce only paranoia and solidarity inside Iran. And after 40 years of Israeli occupation in Palestine, Israel's threats also have the handy effect of changing the subject.

mailto:bavishai@gmail.com,%20aslanmedia@mac.com
Bernard Avishai is the author, most recently, of "The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last." Reza Aslan is the author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam" and the forthcoming "How to Win a Cosmic War."