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Worried about a possible thaw between Washington and Iran, Sharon warns that the Islamic regime poses an urgent threat to Israel.
Jan 28, 2002 | Last Sunday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with the leaders of AIPAC, Washington's pro-Israel lobby. Sharon told his visitors that Israel would not interfere with American decisions on Iran, but that it was important to turn the attention of the Bush administration toward Iran. Sharon said that recent developments, including Israel's capture of a ship loaded with Iranian arms apparently destined for the Palestinian Authority, had made "dealing with the Iranian threat ... more urgent." AIPAC doesn't need much encouragement to act against Iran, though. It played a key role in the passage of the controversial 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which unilaterally imposes penalties on foreign companies that do more than $40 million in energy-related business with Iran, and successfully lobbied Congress last summer to extend the act by five more years, despite the administration's original reluctance.
Israeli leaders have recently begun an aggressive public campaign -- mostly aimed at Washington -- against Iran and the threat it poses to Israel. The military chief of staff, Gen. Shaul Mofaz, came to Washington this month to raise the issue with top administration officials. Shimon Peres, the foreign minister, ordered his ministry to prepare and distribute a "black book" that would expose Tehran's threats and deeds against Israel to the world community. Peres overruled his office professionals, who had recommended a quiet diplomatic campaign rather than an open one.
Israeli officials cite two reasons for their new anti-Iran campaign. One is the Jan. 3 capture of the Karine A, a ship loaded with Iranian arms en route to Gaza. The ship incident revealed a freshly created link between the ayatollahs of Tehran and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, with the help of Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian militia in Lebanon. "This dangerous triangle creates a new strategic threat to the whole region," Sharon told the AIPAC leaders. When Israel and the Palestinians are battling each other in a prolonged violent conflict, Iran's supply of long-range rockets and mortars to the Palestinian side is seen as a direct intervention, threatening Israeli population centers with heavy weapons.
The other red flag was a speech made last month by Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's former president and an important figure in the regime. Speaking on "Jerusalem day," Rafsanjani said: "The day is approaching in which the Islamic world will possess atomic weapons ... a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counterstrike will only cause partial damage to the Islamic world." In Jerusalem, these words were interpreted as a direct threat to destroy Israel with nuclear arms. Coming from an openly hostile country that is striving to obtain nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, Rafsanjani's remarks convinced Israeli leaders that the Iranians are indeed determined to carry out their ideological commitment to eliminate the Jewish state and wipe it out of the Middle East map. Before the speech, Israelis saw the Iranian bomb mainly in a strategic context, as the end of Israel's nuclear monopoly in the region. "Now we take the option of a nuclear attack more seriously," an intelligence official told me.
The main targets of the Israeli diplomatic and propaganda effort are Western capitals, and most importantly Washington. Israel fears a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, and is trying to influence the Bush administration to put Tehran on the target list for the next stage of its anti-terror campaign. "The governments in the United States and Europe know from their own sources that Iran pushes terror, but I fear that their actual policy of appeasing the ayatollahs and ignoring their actions will continue," says Cabinet Minister Ephraim Sneh, who has been warning about Iran for years. Sneh hopes that the ship incident, with its Iranian linkage, would prevent American and British warming up to Tehran.
Israeli officials don't expect America to launch a full-scale war against Iran, and doubt the usefulness of such a move. In a recent meeting of security officials in Tel Aviv, one intelligence agency speculated that the United States might hit Iranian targets, such as nuclear facilities, in preemptive pinpoint strikes. (It's doubtful that such an operation would be feasible, since there is no identifiable center of nuclear development in Iran.) But Sharon opposes any use of American forces to fight Israel's wars, believing that it would be against the country's best interests.
Israel's preferred option is stronger American pressure on Tehran to change its behavior and stop its support for terrorist groups and its nuclear program. And even if Tehran does not change its behavior, according to this strategy, Israel would benefit from a state of heightened tension between the U.S. and Iran: Israel and the United States would be bound together against a common enemy, and possible military action would be more politically palatable.
Nine years ago, Israel applauded the Clinton administration policy of "dual containment" of both Iraq and Iran. When George W. Bush took office last year, review of the policy was long overdue, and Saddam Hussein's Iraq was seen as the clearer danger. Policymakers in Washington are still debating how to treat Iran. The oil business and other industrial interests are pushing to end the sanctions and grab a share of the Iranian economy, thus strengthening Tehran as a stabilizing force against Baghdad. Others, pointing out that Iran is a complex nation in a state of flux, argue that détente would strengthen the hand of the reformers and weaken the hard-line mullahs. The main obstacles, as far as Washington is concerned, are mostly Israel-related: Iran's support for terrorist groups in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, its opposition to the Middle East peace process and its nuclear ambitions.
"We and the Americans have different priorities," Israeli Cabinet Minister Nathan Sharansky told me last week. "For us, Iran comes first and then Iraq. The Americans see Iraq, then a long pause, and only then Iran." General Mofaz asked his interlocutors in Washington, like National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, to "consider the Iranian threat" before any decisions are taken on future relations with Tehran. Israeli intelligence officials estimate that Iran has not been targeted for "Phase 2" of the American war on terrorism, but the efforts to ease tensions and improve Washington-Tehran ties have been futile so far.
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