Iran Policy Now Seen Linked To Meltdown

by James D. Besser
Washington Correspondent

With U.S. policy toward Iran almost certain to change dramatically next year no matter who is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, the worldwide financial meltdown could accelerate the shift toward engagement with Tehran, according to several analysts.

And the economic crisis will likely put tremendous new pressures on the American Jewish groups that have led the fight for a tougher response to Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

“In this new economic climate, where stock markets are collapsing all around the world, it will be much harder to get countries to step forward and support the kinds of economic sanctions that are necessary,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, a group that has made combating a nuclear Iran

a top priority.

Leaders in Germany, Austria and France, she said, may say the right things about the need to stop Iran, but many could be more reluctant than ever to limit business with Iran — business that could help their countries cope with a deteriorating economic climate.

At the same time Mizrahi warned that the economic squeeze at home is making it harder for Jewish groups to keep the focus on the dangers posed by a nuclear Iran.

“We have to look at ourselves in the mirror,” she said. “With about 20 percent less wealth than we had a few weeks ago, people are worrying about their own well-being, not about whether there will be diplomacy with Iran or not. The pro-Israel community has to step up its game plan on the Iran issue, because time is running out.”

This week the question of U.S. Iran policy took on a sharper edge with reports in the Israeli press that policymakers in Jerusalem now believe a Barack Obama administration is likely next January — and that Israel should be prepared for a dramatic shift in U.S. policy after his inauguration.

But experts here say that shift has been underway for more than a year and that it is likely to accelerate no matter who occupies the White House.

In July, William Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, was sent to meet with Iranian and European diplomats to discuss the Iranian nuclear standoff. A group of five former secretaries of state — including Republicans James Baker III, Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell — signed a letter calling for more contacts and more engagement.

“We are seeing movement at the end of the Bush administration,” said Martin Raffel, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).“I suspect that will carry over into the next administration regardless of who is elected.”
Raffel cited several reasons for the shift.

“First is the obvious fact that the strategy we have been employing up to now does not seem to have worked,” he said.

At the same time, the military option is receding as Washington copes with the mounting costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“There is a growing interest in trying to pursue any possible avenue of achieving success with Iran without having to resort to the military option,” he said. “If that means stepping up the engagement track with Iran, our leaders are prepared to take those steps.”

Fear that Washington might be edging closer to another military intervention was a factor in the recent refusal by Congress to approve a resolution backed by pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that critics said would have authorized a naval blockade — an escalation that could easily lead to war, they argued.

The worldwide economic crisis is a complication on a vast scale.

“Sanctions have had only modest results so far; Iran continues thumbing its nose at the IAEA and the international community,” Raffel said. “How will nations look at the role they can play under this new economic situation? Will there be a coming together to address the problem in a more cooperative way? Or will each nation look out only for its own economic interests?”

“The next administration will have to engage more with Iran if they want to approach our allies about tougher sanctions,” said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn. “They won’t be able to justify tougher, more costly sanctions if they don’t demonstrate increased efforts on the diplomatic track.”

Complicating matters further is the impact of the economic meltdown on the Iranian economy.

On one hand, the precipitous fall in oil prices is adding to Iran’s economic woes. Will that make it more susceptible to international economic pressure — or make its leaders more belligerent? The experts say both are possible, depending on how deep and prolonged the downturn is.

On the campaign trail, Republican supporters continue to hammer away at what they say is Obama’s naiveté on the subject, claiming he wants to “sit down and have dinner” with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

That’s a “red herring,” said Daniel Levy, director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative of the Century Foundation. “Substantively, the Bush administration has come closer to accepting the basic Obama position — which is engagement.”

The same pressures that pushed the Bush administration to soften its policy of diplomatic isolation on Iran will inevitably impact a McCain one, he said, especially as the likelihood of U.S. military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program recedes.

“There is more and more of a consensus that there will be engagement. The real question,” Levy said, “now centers on the parameters around which that engagement will take place, and how much time and effort will be invested in engagement.”

He added that it is unclear whether Obama would seek to narrowly engage with Iran over its nuclear program or move toward broader negotiations — and that the same is true for a potential McCain administration.

In a conference call with Jewish leaders on Sunday, Sen. Joe Lieberman — speaking with McCain — said that the GOP nominee “knows that America and some of America’s allies, including Israel, have enemies. And these enemies, as Sen. Obama seems to believe, cannot simply be talked to, talked into, reasoned into, behaving appropriately, civilly, peacefully. They need to, in some cases, have fear of consequences of their inhuman and often brutally murderous behavior.”

But Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a top pro-Israel leader in the Senate, said that “what Sen. Obama is saying about Iran is exactly what almost every recent secretary of state is saying: you have to sit down with Iran. It may well be at the presidential level — but that’s not where you start. We have to engage with them; the Bush administration is doing that now, a McCain administration would do that and an Obama administration would do that.”

Far from easing the pressure on Iran, Cardin said Obama’s approach would combine negotiations with “strong sanctions,” and that such meetings would not be “premature or unplanned.”

The worldwide economic crisis, he said, makes it even likelier the next president will seek to expand engagement — despite campaign trail rhetoric.

A longtime pro-Israel lobbyist said McCain has “locked himself into positions that the Bush administration is moving away from, but if he becomes president, he will find his options significantly narrowed by the fact there is less and less international support for military action or for a policy of complete isolation. There would undoubtedly be differences between the way Obama and McCain would approach engagement, but the movement toward engagement is probably something that can’t be stopped under current conditions.”

It is far from clear whether a Jewish community that has made a tough U.S. stance on Iran a top priority in recent years is ready for that kind of shift.

Polls show Jewish voters are increasingly hawkish. Last month’s American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish public opinion revealed a sharp rise in those supporting U.S. military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

A new “United Against Nuclear Iran” coalition, created under the auspices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, selected as its head a former protégé of Iran hardliner John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

No major Jewish group has official policy opposing negotiations with Iran, but several top Capitol Hill officials said this week there is a widespread perception that any move toward more active engagement would meet with resistance from Jewish groups.

Shoshana Bryen, special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), conceded that changes in policy are likely no matter who is elected, but warned that the more active approach she said Obama has signaled would be a mistake that would generate resistance from the Jewish community.

“Anybody who believes Iran will give up its quest for nuclear weapons because of negotiations is mistaken; there is no chance they will,” she said. “I think Obama may talk to Ahmadinejad, and that it would be a disaster. It would betray a lot of Iranians who don’t want to boost their jailer.”

But Bryen said that keeping up public pressure for a tough U.S. response will be increasingly difficult in an environment in which the economic crisis at home has swept foreign policy concerns off the political table.

Others, however, are adjusting to what they believe will be a policy shift no matter who is elected.

“We at The Israel Project welcome the change in tactics because we welcome the opportunity to avoid this horrible set of choices between a bad military strike or an even worse situation in which Iran is allowed to get a nuclear weapon,” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of The Israel Project. “Because of that, we have to keep our level of work at a very high level of intensity.”

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization