Linkage Again
News reaches us of yet another Palestinian terrorist being honored with a street naming. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismisses the threat of sanctions, calling President Obama a “cowboy.”And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs testifies that Iran is stepping up its arming of Insurgents in Afghanistan. So naturally the big news in Middle East policy is that the Obama Administration sees fit to announce that it is considering imposing a “peace plan,” upon the Israelis and Palestinians, and linking Israeli cooperation on peace with assistance against Iran and its nuclear efforts. According to Obama administration officials speaking with anonymity to the Washington Post, the idea to present an “American Plan” was the brainchild of Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, with support from other Former National Security Advisors including Sandy Berger, Colin Powell, and Frank Carlucci, at a meeting with General Jim Jones, President Obama’s National Security Advisor. Despite the media reports trumpeting the story, this is not a new idea, especially for Brzezinski, has previously proposed a similar imposition of a settlement:
“The Israeli-Palestinian issue is ripe for settlement; provided the United States pursues it, because neither of the two parties on the official level has the will and the predisposition to seek that settlement,” Brzezinksi said in a 2007 interview with the American Prospect.
While the sources quoted by the Washington Post story claim that any agreement would, “take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense,” this is far from reassuring. During his time prior to the Obama Administration General Jones served a special envoy for security matters between the Israelis and Palestinians. According to Israeli defense officials, Jones issued “scathing” reports against the IDF, including one which suggested that the Israeli’s security requirements were “overly broad”.
Nor is the desire to link treatment on Iran with Israel concessions a new idea either. It was proposed earlier by the Obama administration in May of 2009, and received staunch opposition from even Obama supporters such as Alan Dershowitz. That was back when the Obama administration was seeking, and received, assurance from the Netanyahu government that it would put a moratorium on West Bank (although not East Jerusalem) building.
There are two primary problems with linkage. The first is that the Obama Administration has reversed cause and effect. It is an ascendant Iran, closing the gap on nuclear weapons, while continuing to increase the power and influence of its Islamist proxies in the region that makes a peace process impossible. Having withdrawn from Gaza, the Israelis saw the result. Hamas seized control, and now aligned with Iran, continues to arm and entrench itself, despite the multiple operations of the IDF intended to weaken them. The same can be said for Iranian-backed Hezbollah on the northern border, whose arsenal continues to grow while their Lebanese opposition has now crumbled, starved of Western support.
The second problem is that it misunderstands the scope of the ideology of the Iranian regime. While there can be little doubt regarding the Islamic Republic’s stated intention to annihilate Israel, in the development of their nuclear program, they are preparing for something much greater. As former Revolutionary guard and CIA Spy Reza Kahlil (an alias) explains:
You have to look at the parallel projects that they’re working on, the missile delivery system and the nuclear project. Currently they cover part of Europe. Their goal is to cover all of Europe. They’re not going to announce they have a bomb unless they have overcome the glitches of putting together a nuclear bomb and a nuclear warhead. But once they do that, they will make enough bombs so that all of Europe is under their coverage. Then they will begin their most aggressive behavior in trying to control the Middle East, moving toward the goal of destroying Israel, bringing the imperialistic system of economics to a halt, creating chaos, and waiting for the Mahdi to appear. It’s all right out in the open. Just look at their Mahdi philosophy.
Unfortunately, all evidence seems to suggest that the Obama Administration has already moved away considering linkage as a tool to force Israeli concessions to putting it into action. The Times of London reported in late March that the Obama Administration had possibly diverted high-tech bombs away from Israel as a sign of their disapproval for the building announcement which kicked off this most recent American-Israeli crisis in relations. Recently the State Department denied visas to Israeli workers to travel to the United States because of they had been employed at the Israeli Dimona nuclear reactor. It is now being reported that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pulled out of a summit to discuss nuclear terrorism, because of credible warnings that Arab states intended to focus attention on Israeli’s lack of membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), instead of real terrorism issues. Clearly Netanyahu has come to realize that it is Israel and not Iran, which the Obama Administration has in their sights.
Making the Israel-Palestinian issue the central focus of a Middle East policy is a mistake, because it assumes that action on the Israeli part will automatically moderate the behavior of all other actors in the region. Ironically, in its way, the idea is condescending to the Muslim world. It presumes that the Muslim parties in the region are inherently reactive. That they have no ideology, no national strategic objectives or goals outside of responding to Israeli action. It effectively underestimates them, and this, particularly in the case of Iran, is a grave mistake. It ignores that the Islamist revolutionaries in Iran, and throughout the region, are motivated against the entire West, of which Israel is only a small part. Were there an immediate peace plan implemented today, it would not change the calculus by which the Iranians send trained terrorists to kill Americans in Iraq, and weapons to arm the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan, or by which it arms Hamas and Hezbollah, or alter the ideological and strategic objectives which cause Iran to seek ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads with which to blanket the Middle East and Europe as well.
There is a linkage between the Islamic Republic of Iran, and peace in the Middle East. But it is not the one that the Obama Administration is intent on making.
Update: Pajamas Media have updated and corrected their post regarding Israeli Workers being denied visas for working at the Dimona nuclear Plant to suggest that problems regarding visas have not been unique to the Obama Administration.