It is high time for Europe to take over the lead role from the US in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme, as well as in attempting to broker a settlement of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.
In both cases, the US has failed to make progress towards a peaceful resolution, although both pose grave threats to international security. Quite the contrary, America’s handling has made the two situations more explosive.
The reason for failure are clear: pro-Israeli groups and lobbyists have shackled US President Barack Obama, constraining his freedom of action, and compelling him to adopt positions far removed from the aims he proclaimed at the beginning of his mandate.
A new approach is now urgently required. Europe can provide one. But for that to happen, the minimum requirement is that the big three members of the European Union — Britain, France and Germany — concert their policies and act as one.
For the moment, the Arab-Israeli conflict, simmering just off the boil, and the dispute with Iran over its nuclear ambitions have been overshadowed by the people’s struggle to unseat autocrats across the Arab world. As these various dramas have unfolded, America’s inability to shape events, one way or the other, has been widely noted.
Indeed, the upheavals have provided fresh evidence of the decline in American influence in the troubled Middle East, bringing home to European leaders the need to seize the initiative if Europe’s own interests are to be safeguarded.
American impotence was dramatically demonstrated on February 18, when the US vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution, which could have broken the dangerous log-jam in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Sponsored by 130 countries and presented by Lebanon in the name of the Palestinian National Authority, the Resolution stipulated that the colonies Israel had established in the Occupied Territories since 1967, including those in occupied east Jerusalem, were “illegal” and were “a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, durable and comprehensive peace”.
Although the wording of the Resolution echoed the official US position — indeed, according to the Palestinians, it was ‘cut-and-pasted’ from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s own public statements — Obama intervened to protect Israel from a hostile vote. All the other 14 other members of the Security Council voted for the Resolution. Arab confidence in the US was dealt a severe blow.
The abject sight of a US president bowing to domestic pressures has caused some European leaders to consider that they can no longer afford to entrust the management of the Arab-Israeli conflict to the US. As a result, there are moves afoot in European chanceries to produce a draft settlement of the conflict, which would then be presented to the UN Security Council for endorsement in a binding resolution. The calculation is that the US — alarmed at the prospect of the EU adopting an independent posture — would not dare to use its veto again.
Time running out
The European initiative, now being considered, is an eleventh-hour bid to rescue the two-state solution, which is in mortal peril because of Israel’s relentless colony expansion. Such a proposed European move would come none too soon.
Israel is more than ever in the grip of right-wing forces and fanatical colonists, and seems to be sinking deeper into intransigence. A straw in the wind was last week’s decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appoint General Yaakov Amidror, a hard-line, ultra-religious nationalist, as head of Israel’s National Security Council. Amidror is known for his total opposition to peace and to a Palestinian state.
On Iran, there is a similar feeling in European capitals that American policy has gone astray. Driven by Israel and its friends, Washington has embarked on an ever more hostile confrontation with Tehran, in spite of the evident risk of an escalation into armed conflict.
Some experts believe that Britain, France and Germany, which had been conducting negotiations with Iran, missed a crucial opportunity in March 2005 to strike a deal with Tehran.
At the time, Iran offered to limit the number of its centrifuges, used to enrich uranium, to 3,000; to allow permanent onsite inspections at its nuclear sites; and to give written assurances that it would not build nuclear weapons nor withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the E-3 rejected the Iranian offer.
They did so because they wished to deny Iran all capability to enrich uranium, even though Iran has the right to do so, for peaceful purposes, under the NPT, of which it is a signatory — unlike Israel, India and Pakistan.
In February 2006, the E-3 ceded the lead in negotiations with Iran to the US, which promptly piled on the pressure with harsher sanctions. But this did not led to a breakthrough. Although sanctions have caused Iran some serious domestic problems, they have not undermined its economy nor forced it to give up its determination to master the uranium fuel cycle. On the contrary, America’s bullying has resulted in the current precarious and highly-dangerous impasse.
Most European governments now recognise that a fresh approach to Iran is needed. As a proud nation and a major regional power, Iran wants to be treated with the respect it deserves. It will evidently not yield to intimidation and threats.
In order to be able to protect itself in an emergency, Iran may well wish to acquire the capability to build atomic weapons. But most experts believe it is highly unlikely that it will actually build one. The disadvantages of being a nuclear power far outweigh the advantages.
For one thing, if Iran were to become a nuclear power, its Arab neighbours in the Gulf would scurry for protection under the American nuclear umbrella — precisely an outcome which Iran wishes to avoid.
US officials such as Clinton have sought to mobilise the Arab states against Iran. But this is surely a wrong approach. The West should, on the contrary, encourage the Gulf States to engage in a dialogue with Iran, such as Oman and Qatar already conduct, in order to build mutual confidence. Rather than seeking to isolate Iran – in any event, a doomed enterprise – attempts should be made to draw Iran into the security architecture of the region.
Some influential experts believe it is time for Europe’s big three to regain the lead from the United States and engage in negotiations with Iran, fully discarding the language of threats. The EU should close its ears to the specious Israeli argument that Iran’s nuclear programme is a danger to the whole world. It should listen instead to the more moderate views on the subject of Turkey, Russia and India.
Iran may well be ready to conclude a ‘grand bargain’ with the West, provided its legitimate interests are addressed. The opportunity is there for Europe to seize.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
