[WCUSP] Article: Iran: Bomb or Bargain?

[C.J. Minster]

I received this article from Joan Drake, a WILPFer active in our DC branch.

in peace,
C.J.
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Iran*: Bomb or Bargain?
September 18, 2006
By Terry Walz, CNI Staff

A roster of speakers put together by the New America Foundation examined 
U.S. policy options toward Iran in Washington last week and mostly 
deplored the lack of leadership in the Bush administration and its 
refusal to engage in talks with the Iranians. The debate was framed 
around the question: to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear 
weapons, does the U.S. attack preventively, does it live with a nuclear 
Iran, or does it offer concessions in a "grand bargain"?

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority leader, began the conference by 
admitting, "we are desperate for new ideas on Iran." Another speaker, 
Flynt Leverett of the Brookings Institution, said that Iran was too 
important, a "rising power," for the U.S. not "to get its policy right." 
He pointed to several key strategic reasons why this was so: Iran’s role 
in determining the outcome in Iraq; and its future role in global energy 
that was equal to Saudi Arabia in importance.

In Washington, the debate on Iran is too often cast in dramatic 
unrealistic terms – each posing scenarios that are too awful to 
contemplate. On the one hand, the Neocons have been pressing for an 
outright attack on Iran – sooner rather than later – as a way to dealing 
with Iran’s declared aim to develop a nuclear weapon and its support for 
“terrorism.” On the other is the question of whether the United States 
and the Western world can tolerate a nuclear Iran. The conference 
panelists were asked to discuss the pros and cons of such argumentation.

After weighing the costs and benefits of the various options, most 
panelists condemned the military option as unrealistic and a real 
potential disaster. A preventive strike, as Christopher Preble of the 
Cato Institute pointed out, would only delay the development of a 
nuclear weapon, not eliminate it. Juan Cole, professor of history at the 
University of Michigan, pointed out how dependent the US army in Iraq 
was on oil supplied from the south through pipelines that were highly 
vulnerable to sabotage by an angry Shi'a-based militia, and that a US or 
Israeli attack could further destabilize Afghanistan, where the Karzai 
government maintains only minimal control.

Given the consensus that Iran may never relinquish the possibility of 
developing a nuclear weapon, on what terms should negotiations proceed? 
Many spoke of a “grand bargain” or package of terms that Iran would find 
too attractive to ignore. These included such options as an agreement 
with the United States to forgo a military attack, the lifting of 
sanctions, access to Western markets and investment, and a willingness 
to negotiate seriously a regional peace affecting the whole of the 
Middle East.

Israel’s position in U.S.-Iran relations is more cautious than some 
might think. Israeli leaders are aware of the dangers of attacking Iran, 
said Daniel Levy, a fellow this year at the New America Foundation, and 
would go along with any negotiation with Tehran that took into account 
Israel’s strategic needs (such as ending arms provisioning to 
Hezbollah). But any negotiation with Iran has to be in the context of a 
regional resolution of conflicts.

George Soros, the philanthropist and democratic activist, head of the 
Open Society Institute, believed neither a military attack against Iran 
nor a nuclearized Iran was acceptable, and pushed for other options, 
including a revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, that would 
offer more powers and access to non-nuclear regimes, in the next five 
years – the time, he proposed, it would take Iran to become a nuclear power.

The fear in Washington is that despite the disastrous potential of a 
military option, it is still being seriously considered by the 
Department of Defense – which has until recently had the upper hand in 
determining policy in the Bush administration. If the Bush 
administration decided in favor of an attack, David Sanger, the New York 
Times correspondent asked, would it be able to come up with the evidence 
and how would they justify it to a wary American public still reeling 
under the lack of evidence for the war on Iraq?

According to Daphna Linzer, a Washington Post correspondent who has been 
following national security matters, it remains unclear what the 
government’s position on Iran is, whether it is willing to negotiate or 
not, whether it is willing to go through with UN-imposed sanctions or 
not. This does not bode well for opting for any real concessions that 
might be part of a “grand bargain.”

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C.J. Minster
Program Chair, US Section
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
http://wilpf.blogspot.com

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