The Bush administration appears to be at a loss as to how to handle the standoff it is facing with Iran over its nuclear policies. Its options, in the view of some of its key policymakers, are not very encouraging, especially that Europeans are not all that convinced that the American approach would yield the desired results.
The American thinking is to impose stiff and wide-ranging financial sanctions in the hope that this would cripple the seemingly unyielding Iranian leadership despite the open letter sent to President Bush suggesting a dialogue between the two countries. Iran and the US have not had diplomatic relations for nearly 30 years.
The American scheme, according to the lead story in last Sunday's edition of The Washington Post, "is designed to curtail the financial freedom of every Iranian official, individual and entity the Bush administration considers connected not only to nuclear enrichment efforts but to terrorism, government corruption, suppression of religious or democratic freedom, and violence in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories".
It is generally recognised that these measures could also cause "significant pain for Washington's friends," one reason US officials are finding difficulty in convincing allies to come on board. Besides, the American record is not encouraging since past US sanctions against Cuba, North Korea and Iran have not been fruitful, and the anticipated Iranian reaction could hurt Iranian oil importers, especially Italy and Japan.
Negotiations needed
Joschka Fischer, Germany's former foreign minister and vice-chancellor, argued in a just-published column in Washington that such an initiative can succeed "only if the American administration assumes leadership among the Western nations and sits down at the negotiating table with Iran."
The western concern over Iran's exaggerated nuclear potential suspiciously echoes Israeli fears which were voiced loudly by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, during his much-applauded remarks before the joint session of the US Congress last week.
Fischer wrote in last Monday's Post that Iran's feared "acquisition of a nuclear bomb or even its ability to produce one would be interpreted by Israel as a fundamental threat to its existence, thereby compelling the West, and Europe in particular, to take sides." He argued that "Europe has not only historical moral obligations to Israel but also security interests that link it to the strategically vital Eastern Mediterranean."
But his analysis sounded similar to neo-conservative thinking here. "The issue at the heart of this conflict is this: Who dominates the Middle East Iran or the US?"
Is it really? More likely, the issue is exaggerated by Israel to meet its own strategic objectives. At one point it cries wolf and at the other flexes its muscles with support from sympathetic American neo-conservatives within the Bush administration and probably some like-minded European officials. There is no doubt that Israel wants to stop any other Middle Eastern country from acquiring nuclear know-how.
Israel has managed to do all this with the support of the powerful Israel lobby, which lately has been the subject of hot exchanges, but not a serious debate, as evidenced in the damning expose in Counterpunch written by two able former CIA analysts, Kathleen and Bill Christison.
The authors stress that the US relationship with Israel is unique. "There is nothing in the history of US foreign policy ... to prevent the [Israel] lobby from exerting heavy influence on policy." They add, "It is not for nothing that Israelis have informally dubbed almost every president since [Lyndon] Johnson with the notable exceptions of Jimmy Carter and the senior George Bush as the most pro-Israeli president ever."
They point out that "the scope of the lobby's infiltration of government policymaking councils has been unprecedented during the current Bush administration." This could explain the reluctance of the administration to face head-on the Palestinian-Israeli question, the root of many of the region's ills and the cause for the rise in anti-Americanism there. All this serves Israel's hegemonic interests and its exclusive link to the United States.
"When a government is unable to distinguish its own real needs from those of another state," the Christisons write prophetically, "it can no longer be said that it always acts in its own interests or that it does not frequently do grave damage to those interests."
George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com.
