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Foreign Policy |
Where rivals are entrenched in their rigid ideological and political stance, a fresh perspective is needed. I am no different than many others who are worried by the local and international implications of the ongoing Israeli - Palestinian conflict. However, I do try to make a difference through modest contributions to the continuous efforts towards achieving peace in the region.
Click here to view my Middle East Blog
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| David Martin Abrahams |
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Iran and the West: A positive "domino effect"
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By David Martin Abrahams
Feb 16, 2010
The continuous crisis between the US-led coalition and Iran exposes the ambiguous attitude of the international community towards Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. In the meantime, both sides are being seen in a negative light. The Iranian regime and particularly Ahmedinejad enthusiastically play the role of the "neighbourhood bully" by taking a simplistic, yet effective back-and-forth strategy. Nevertheless, if Iran will continue using this strategy carelessly, it might be denunciated as a "neighborhood lunatic" and will suffer from diplomatic isolation and tougher sanctions. Much worse, it might be tagged as a "lost couse", similar to North Korea and Myanmar, and not like a stubborn rival that knows how to play in the international arena, such as Syria and Libya. The US and president Obama have not succeeded yet in consolidating an effective coalition that will impose harsh economic sanctions. So to speak, Obama is perceived as a basketball coach who, despite his efforts, fails to stop his players from dragging their feet and trying to win the game.
As I have written earlier about Iran and the West (click here), I believe a head-on confrontation is an ineffective option. However, open talks between the rivals are nowhere in sight, and in the meantime the tension is on the rise. Hence the key to this problem should be sought after somewhere else.
One of the main themes of the Iranian regime is the constant struggle against Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. Clearly Iran uses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an instrumental way to achieve its own political aims, but one cannot deny the popular effect of this policy. The equation is simple: as long as the conflict stays open, it fuels anti-Israeli and anti-Western politics in Iran.
This leads to one clear conclusion: in order to dismantle the Iranian aggressive anti-Israeli politics, and to weaken its motivation to acquire nuclear weapons, Israel must take much greater effort in order to solve the conflict through a two-state solution. I am no daydreamer, nor a naïve optimist. But only by making substantial progress in this direction, can Israel pull the carpet from under the Iranian propaganda. Even the Palestinians acknowledge the distorted situation in which Iran "volunteers" to advocate the Palestinian interest; Palestinian officials have expressed this opinion several times to me in the last few years, one even used a known Persian idiom, saying that "the bowl should not be warmer than the soup".
In the days of the Cold War, President Eisenhower presented "the domino theory" as a raison d'être of his anti-communist foreign policy. In our era, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict draws unproportional international attention. A positive change might lead to a positive "domino effect" that will dismantle anti-Israeli policies in the Middle East, and Iran might be one of the first domino stones to fall.
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