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Go Home Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, And Israel

THE PLANK JANUARY 19, 2007

Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, And Israel

BY RICHARD JUST

Brad, you note below that Ahmadinejad's power is waning and the country's supreme leader Ali Khamenei appears to be reasserting control over foreign policy. You take this development as evidence that "Iran is much like any other country, with its own concerns and political disputes, not just single-mindedly obsessed with the destruction of Israel and the West."

But for that to be right, you would have to show that Khamenei is significantly less committed to Israel's destruction than Ahmadinejad. And that isn't true. In 1998, Khamenei called Israel a "cancerous growth." In 2000, he said "this cancerous tumor of a state should be removed from the region." Last summer, he described Israel as a "satanic and cancerous presence and an infected tumor for the entire world of Islam." He has also argued that "The Palestinian issue is not an internal Israeli matter. It involves the interests of the whole Islamic world, including Iran. All should strive to return that piece of land to Islamic hands."

As plenty of others have noted (see this TNR Online piece), Ahmadinejad isn't exactly the only member of the Iranian regime who would like to see Israel destroyed. Even a so-called moderate, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, famously said, of a nuclear attack against Israel, "It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." So maybe it's true that Khamenei is taking power back from Ahmadinejad. But that isn't really evidence that the Iranian regime is any less committed to Israel's destruction.

None of this means that I think America should bomb Iran. Nor does it mean that Israel should bomb Iran. There are plenty of good reasons to worry that either of those options would carry prohibitive risks. And, Brad, you may be right that the best way to prevent the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons is for the United States to simply talk to them. Still, I can't help but be a little disturbed by the cavalier attitude some liberals have taken towards the prospect of a nuclear Iran--a cavalier attitude that they often justify with the observation that Ahmadinejad doesn't really hold the reins of power in his own country. (To take just one example, here's Juan Cole describing the Iranian threat last year: "Ahmadinejad is really a millenarian who believes the second coming of the Mahdi is around the corner, which would be worrying if he was really in charge, but that's not the case.")

I confess to having no idea what we should do about Iran, but I will say this: If I were Israeli, I would be terrified of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. As an American Jew, I am terrified on Israel's behalf. And the apparent decline of Ahmadinejad's personal power doesn't strike me as a particularly good reason to be any less worried.

--Richard Just

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22 comments

Richard, you may not know what to do about Iran, but one thing's for sure: the shiftless left will advocate anything except action and call it a virtue.

- jm_rice

January 19, 2007 at 7:03pm

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Look, this isn't hard. Khameni controls the nukes, not Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad can bluster all he wants, but has no access to the eventual button, when and if Iran actually completes the nukes, which isn't happening all that soon. Khameni, on the other hand, will have the control if that circumstance comes to pass. If you want to worry about Ahmadinejad, be my guest, but all his anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli speeches are political theater, and I'd hope someone writing for a major politican newsweekly would be smart enough to realize that basic fact. As for jm_rice, I just think we should try finishing a war one of these days before we start yet another. It's like eating dessert before finishing your vegetables, only dessert will kill several thousand more Americans than the vegetables already have.

- jfabermit

January 19, 2007 at 7:22pm

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There is no room for complacency dealing with Iran, its nuclear ambition or its threat to the region's peace and security. At the same time, to blunder into another war, this time with a country far more powerful and complex than Iraq, would hardly advance the strategic interests of the US, Israel or the West more generally. There are, it seems to me, at least three points that we need to bear in mind when looking at what is happening in Iran. First, Iran's mullahs have made a royal hash of things, but they are not suicidal. For all his revolutionary rhetoric, even Ayatollah Khomeini was capable of recognizing Iran's national interest (and the interests of the Islamic regime for survival), which is why he allowed Iran to enter into the Algiers Agreement (releasing the hostages), never directly engaged the "Great Satan", and before his death, when it was clear that Iran was not going to win the war with Iraq, drank the "poisoned chalice" of peace with Saddam Hussein. And of course the relative moderation of Iran's foreign policy (and domestic affairs) in the first sixteen years of the leadership of Khomeini's successor as Leader, Ali Khamenei, had the full support of Khamenei. The past eighteen months under the feckless Ahmadinejad might have been an experiment

- icarusr

January 19, 2007 at 7:50pm

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"Ali Khamenei appears to be reasserting control over foreign policy." I thought Khamenei was supposed to be on life support. Has he recovered, suddenly? I agree, btw, that he is no less an enemy of Israel than Ahmadinejad. Both of them are following in the footsteps of the late Ayatollah Khomeni.

- jacksondyer

January 19, 2007 at 8:00pm

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Yeah, let's tell Iran, "We're busy in Iraq, we don't have time to deal with you, now. Wait."

Just let events take their own course...and hope the Iranians self-destruct. Uh huh.

Like I said, anything but act.

- jm_rice

January 19, 2007 at 11:47pm

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"Like I said, anything but act." Which has gotten us exactly where, lately?

- turnipauto

January 20, 2007 at 3:08am

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...procrastination is not a strategy. But neither do we want "do something, even if it's wrong!" There is every reasons to be deeply concerned about Iran. There is no justification for doing the wrong thing as a result of this concern which, in my view, would look more like panic than policy. Icarusr has an excellent proposal on record. Facts support the thesis that Iran is the best current candidate for containment. It has many of the problems of the Soviet Union, with the additional "x-factor" of a powerful American force next door in what may develop into a reasonably pro-Western Shite dominated democracy, a world first. We can afford to be smart on this if we choose to.

- Robert Powell

January 20, 2007 at 10:02am

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"Icarusr has an excellent proposal on record. Facts support the thesis that Iran is the best current candidate for containment. It has many of the problems of the Soviet Union, with the additional "x-factor" of a powerful American force next door in what may develop into a reasonably pro-Western Shite dominated democracy, a world first. We can afford to be smart on this if we choose to." The argument would make sense with any normal regime, tyrannical or not. The Soviet Union had shown again and again that their aim was to prevail and win the war against capitalism. Iran's Mullahs and other Islamic movements have not shown a similar desire to prevail. They have instead shown a desire to destroy the enemy, no matter the cost. We are dealing with religious fanatics who would rather go down in flames and take the enemy with them if they don't get their way. The kind of deterrence policies that worked during the cold war may not work now. A Nuclear weapon is the perfect suicide bomb. The best we can hope for is a secular regime in Iran, or at least a less radical form of Islamic government.

- jacksondyer

January 20, 2007 at 11:29am

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We can afford to be smart on this if we choose to.

Well said.

Actually, we are doing something. Afghanistan and Iraq have only expended our ground forces. Our air and sea forces remain untapped. The 5th Fleet is making moves, and the new head of CENTCOM is an admiral. This is the kind of "diplomacy" that makes the Iranians sit up and listen.

I think right now, by these moves, we are quietly saying, "Try something." This should be of some comfort to the Israelis.

As for containment, it relies on deterrence. And deterrence relies on survival instinct and rational thinking. Is Ahmadinejad the only nut-case in power? I understand the Mullahs are actually thugs in robes -- much like "national liberation" guerrillas are thugs in khakis -- who use religion as a cudgel. (I've even heard that the real power in Iran lies in the bazaar. Puritan revolutions have also been shopkeeper revolutions.) May be wishful thinking, but if it's true, if they aren't suicidal, then containment might work.

- jm_rice

January 20, 2007 at 12:02pm

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Jm_rice: the bazaaris in Tehran are hardly "shopkeepers". They are the ones who have pushed the price of the average apartment in Northern Tehran to well over

- icarusr

January 20, 2007 at 1:17pm

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amen to that, especially since Iran is still years away from getting the bomb. Their demographic situation is pretty terrible as well, with the majority of people born after the revolution, I doubt they will be pacified for long with stories about just how bad it was under the Shah. Time is more on our side then theirs. Patience and containment. Oh, and by the way, why the hell as a country we have not been doing everything within our power to lessen our dependence on foreign oil? Brazil is energy selfsufficient (Brazil!). So jm_rice, there is another way to act. 8 years wasted under Bush, imagine what Gore could have accomplished, especially after 9/11.

- blackton

January 20, 2007 at 2:22pm

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Jm_rice: the bazaaris in Tehran are hardly "shopkeepers".

And no, the Islamic regime is made up of a lot of thugs

Stop quibbling. In your long-winded way, you're agreeing.

- jm_rice

January 20, 2007 at 3:15pm

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if i were a country with the most powerful army in the middle east, the support of the world's sole remaining superpower, and the region's only nuclear arsenal, i'd be pretty terrified by iran's hypothetical nuclear weapons too. i hear a lot of ridiculous bluster about how we can't act rationally with regard to iran because the regime is "suicidal"--the sort of talk often heard about saddam hussein, and used to justify our irrational approach to iraq; you know, "the smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud." it seems to me that there are very few good examples of "suicidal" states or regimes, and if there are, i'd like to hear them.

- schiffrin

January 20, 2007 at 5:13pm

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"...it seems to me that there are very few good examples of "suicidal" states or regimes, and if there are, i'd like to hear them...." One example is all you would need. Are you saying there aren't any?

- jacksondyer

January 20, 2007 at 11:15pm

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While Iran has certainly used suicide bombers as a tactical weapon, I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that the leaders, or the parts of society that they represent, are suicidal. Rather the reverse. They have demonstrated a pretty conservative, rational, and cautious approach to foreign policy, rhetoric aside. The most irrational feature of the current Iranian regime is their economic policy. Leaving aside "what Gore might have accomplished" (shudder!) blackton is right on energy policy. Containment of Iran and working to bring down oil prices are our best strategic options. Which, incidentally, describes two of the best arguments for our Iraq policy.

- Robert Powell

January 21, 2007 at 6:55am

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"They have demonstrated a pretty conservative, rational, and cautious approach to foreign policy, rhetoric aside." Rhetoric aside, and leaving aside their decision to ignore UN resolutions and sanctions one could say that their approach is rational. The acid test will come when they begin to experience severe setbacks in their drive to dominate the gulf States.

- jacksondyer

January 21, 2007 at 11:39am

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Um . . . somehow I don't think you really want to advance ignoring the UN as a key distinction for sorting out the bad guys from the angels. And perhaps the U.S. doesn't emerge so well in a comparsion of blustering rhetoric flanking absent or inept action either. And as for experiencing "severe setbacks in the drive to dominate the Gulf" -- well, poke me in the eye with a sharp stick!

- ironyroad

January 21, 2007 at 1:37pm

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In my view it is entirely rational for the Iranians to ignore the UN on their nuclear program. Maybe I'm not completely rational either, but I'd do the same thing in their place. I think the real test is going to come when the oil prices drop again (as they inevitably will), and the Iranian economy that's already a basketcase tanks. To me it looks like a race between the nuclear program, and the rise of a really serious and widespread opposition movement inside Iran which will threaten the current leadership.

- Robert Powell

January 21, 2007 at 2:41pm

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"Um . . . somehow I don't think you really want to advance ignoring the UN as a key distinction for sorting out the bad guys from the angels." It is a test if you do in spite of the fact that you will get hurt by it. The US is in a position to ignore UN resolutions without suffering major damage. Whether such behavior is justified or not at issue right now.

- jacksondyer

January 21, 2007 at 4:16pm

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"In my view it is entirely rational for the Iranians to ignore the UN on their nuclear program." And your reasoning?

- jacksondyer

January 21, 2007 at 4:17pm

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...with people so eager to turn somebody, anybody, into the next Nazi Germany or Soviet Union? Are we so incapable of living on this planet without some evil other that we have to create mortal threats out of states like Iran who can't even threaten their direct neighbors never mind Israel or the US? Step away from the cliff, folks....please. I'm not saying Iran isn't a problem we need to deal with but the fact that folks in the US - probably even more so than folks in Israel - are more than ready to launch military strikes (including nuclear) against Iran is just, well, insane.

- shamey73

January 21, 2007 at 4:28pm

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The Iranian leadership has more popular support for developing nuclear energy than for perhaps any other of their policies. This is a factor in itself, related to issues of national pride ("are we worse than Indians?"), and to the recognition that the less dependent Iran is on oil for domestic power generation, the more they can sell for hard currency. Perhaps more importantly, Iran is surrounded by hostile forces-traditional enemy Russia, inscrutable China, India and Pakistan, and of course two powerful US-led armies on both sides, every one of these forces a nuclear power. Iran has a perfectly logical, objectively valid, need for nuclear deterrence. This need is amplified by US threats.

- Robert Powell

January 22, 2007 at 2:56am

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