Massachusetts Peace Action has a petition on their website, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/161/c/3952/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9263, which I ask you to consider signing. It ask's President Obama not to start a war with Iran, and to try to prevent Israel from doing so as well.
You might take a look at the petition and say 'Hold on, isn't Iran threatening Israeli and US interests, and barely masking the fact that their developing nuclear weapons?' Those certainly seem like prudent concerns. Iran doesn't hide it's animosity or distrust of the US, and the idea of Iran with nuclear weapons is unsettling, at least.
The problem is, a military strike against Iran will not help, nor is escalating a crisis to the level where Iran will strike. War would be a calamity for all parties involved, and like the Iraq and Afghan wars, there is no satisfactory outcome, no subsequent peace treaty where the US dicatates terms to a pacified nation. Instead, the only outcome is a drawn out war with death and growing animosity. So if we manage to delay the Iranian bomb, which we can only assume is less ethereal that Iraq's infamous WMD's, we cannot undo their research, and if they want a nuclear weapon, they will have one sooner or later. I don't think a war will make that 'later' date very much further along.
The real problem is distrust. For our part, we have collectively disliked Iran since the 1979 revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis. We suspect that they support terrorists, and hear them openly cite their desire to destroy Israel. From Iran's perspective, we openly threaten them, placing them in an 'axis of evil'. We were the primary support for the Shah, who their revolution deposed, and we perpetuate a grave injustice to the Palestinian people through our support of Israel.
We need to break the mistrust. It will take years, and it will be frustrating, but we need to start working on it. What if our efforts yielded a peaceful and prosperous Islamic Republic of Iran? What if no one needed to escalate a crisis there because we had a dialogue and some mutual understanding? It sounds a lot better than a war.
I agree that more effort should be made to push the agenda of a 2-state solution in the Holy Land. However, I don't know that it would lessen the threat to the region of a regime that has never backed away from its goal of destruction of the state of Israel. I think the international community needs to keep increasing the economic pressure on Iran.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your position, Bob. I would add that it is important to be transparent in our dealings with Iran, stating our position about our interests, in this case the security of Israel. In negotiating with an inflexible and/or provocative party, we need to be clear about our own position, and what we are willing to discuss. I believe a legitimate concern of Iran is their security following the US adoption of the Bush doctrine. We can state that we will not strike Iran in a preemptive fashion, or take deliberate steps to undermine the Islamic Republic. We must state that we would find the development of a nuclear weapon as provocative, and that we are willing to take non-violent steps to stop what we reasonably believe to be advances in this area. It would be helpful if we gave careful consideration to what steps Iran could take to reduce economic pressure, and share this information with Iran. It would also be helpful to discuss our position with Russia and China, and have an understanding of their respective positions and learn what the UN Security Council is prepared to do. On the other hand, we should not initiate a naval confrontation in the Straight of Hormuz or discuss our military options to undertake 'realpolitik' negotiations.
ReplyDelete