Gerald Steinberg: Meanwhile, Back in Terheran

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The war against Hizbullah has pushed the latest developments in the
Western effort to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program from the headlines.

The two issues are clearly linked – Hizbullah is armed by and
functions as Iran’s vanguard force – even if the evidence does not
support the theory that Iran actually planned the July 12 attack on
Israel to divert international pressure. (The strike was part of a
series of such attempts by Hizbullah, which has its own motivations
and calculations, in addition to the Iranian links.) For the leaders
in Teheran, the Hizbullah war has not been much of a diversion – on
the contrary, awareness of the dangers posed by the radical Iranian
regime seeking to “wipe Israel off the map” has increased.

After dithering over dead-end negotiations the “international
community”, meaning Europe – the Americans understood the stakes
years ago – is getting more serious. Going beyond the stage of
offering bribes, the major powers are now threatening to take action
to force a halt in uranium enrichment.

In the final declaration of the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg on July
16, the leaders of the major powers, including Russia, demanded the
“suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, as
required by the IAEA and supported in the United Nations Security
Council Presidential Statement.”

A July 31 Security Council resolution (well into the Hizbullah war)
explicitly threatened sanctions for the first time, and set a
deadline of August 31.

Iran’s leaders, who played the diplomatic game successfully for 20
years in acquiring the technology for building nuclear weapons, are
not going to back down unless the risks become unbearable.

Indeed, Iran has threatened to escalate. Ali Larijani, Iran’s main
negotiator, declared: “We will expand nuclear technology at whatever
stage it may be necessary, and all of Iran’s nuclear technology,
including the centrifuge cascades, will be expanded.”

IF SANCTIONS are imposed, Iran is threatening to counter by
withholding oil from the market, and as the second-largest oil
exporter in OPEC, this could send prices skyrocketing. While US and
even a few European officials have stated that halting Iran’s nuclear
ambitions is “more important than preventing high crude oil prices,”
it is hard to imagine politicians sticking to this position.

At the same time, for leaders of the G-8 the specter of turmoil and
expanding warfare on the Arab-Israel front is more frightening than a
limited Iranian oil embargo. The realization that attacks against
Israel, led by Iran’s fanatical ideological and religious partners
armed with thousands of Iranian missiles, could touch off a
full-scale war have begun to register in Brussels, Paris and even Moscow.

A radical regime in Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and with no
knowledge of Israeli red lines, would not promote stability – and
that is to understate the concerns.

Similarly, in Iran, the Israeli response to Hizbullah’s salami
tactics (cutting off one slice at a time, and never knowing when the
red line is reached) may also have a major impact on perceptions.

Until now, there has been no cost to be paid (other than some minor
scolding and ridicule) for President Ahmadinejad’s genocidal
rhetoric. In contrast to such declarations and some premature boasts
about advanced weapons capabilities, Iranian leaders have been
careful to avoid direct military confrontations.

After the Iraqi invasion and subsequent war, which devastated Iran
and almost led to its defeat, the leaders in Teheran have acted
cautiously, preferring to use proxies to fight their battles.

However, scenarios in which Hizbullah drags Iran into a full-scale
nuclear confrontation with Israel, just as terror groups aligned with
Pakistan came close to triggering a nuclear war with India, should
make everyone more sober. Perhaps the images of Beirut and the rest
of Lebanon have caused some of the bombastic orators to imagine
Teheran under attack following a similar “miscalculation.”

FOR POLITICIANS and diplomats in democratic societies the status quo,
regardless of the dangers, is usually easier to accept than risking
political or military conflict, and the costs that would be entailed.
This is certainly the case in Europe, where many journalists and
political officials have created a religion based on avoidance of
difficult decisions regarding security and terrorism. But, as the
results of the intense efforts to ignore Hizbullah’s clearly visible
preparations for war have tragically demonstrated, such short-term
risk-avoidance leads to catastrophic war in the longer term.

The Hizbullah war has been a belated wake-up call for the
international community, and a reminder that further delay in moving
to stop the Iranian nuclear project will lead to disaster. With the
torrent of missiles and destruction in Lebanon and in Israel
reverberating around the world, such a policy shift may finally have begun.

And in Teheran, if anyone has now realized that a civil dialogue with
Israel is necessary to avoid catastrophe, they know where to find us.

The writer directs the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan
University and is the editor of www.ngo-monitor.org.

Gerald Steinberg: Meanwhile, Back in Terheran

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