gracchusdixit

Little more than 48 hours ago, Donald Trump announced that he is unilaterally pulling the plug on American participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, a seven-nation agreement negotiated by the Obama administration to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  This, despite the fact that Iran has, by all accounts, been abiding by its terms.  Which, of course, didn’t matter to Trump, whose reflexive reaction to everything touched by Barack Obama is jealous, irrational, and sometimes sputtering rage.  

In this, Trump was egged on by the current prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently trotted out a Powerpoint presentation, in which he claimed that Iran’s adherence to the JCPOA is “based on lies”.  Although this presentation was a mishmash of obsolete facts and outright fabrications, Trump, for whom it was concocted, appears to have swallowed every word.  In fact, he quoted some of its fabrications in his speech announcing the pull-out.

All of this exposes the stupidity and utter fecklessness of American political, diplomatic, and military policy in the Middle East.  After almost a century of poking our nose into a part of the world we clearly do not understand, we have little to show for it, beyond two of the longest wars in our history, the waste of three trillion dollars, and the ruination of millions of lives.  Trump’s decision marks a new low point in this lamentable record.

The fundamental reason for this folly is that, from day one, the United States has never had even the foggiest idea of what it was doing in the Middle East.  Viewing the region through the astigmatic lens of our historical ignorance and narrow prejudices, we have consistently chosen the wrong friends, picked the wrong enemies, and made the wrong decisions.  

The worst of those decisions is the demonization of Iran, which began in 1979, when, in the tumult of the Iranian Revolution, American diplomatic personnel were seized and held hostage for 444 days.  One can (and should) deplore that event, but still be able to recognize that American skullduggery played a major role in sparking the Iranian revolution in the first place.  In 1953, the CIA, abetted by the British Secret Service, toppled Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, replacing him with Reza “Shah” Pahlavi.  For the next two decades, this puppet “Shah” did our bidding, until the Iranian people decided they had had enough and kicked him out.  If the Iranians are suspicious of us today, they have good reason.

They also have good reason to think that they are entitled to play a significant role in deciding the political fortunes of the Middle East.  Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Persian Empire held sway from the Black Sea to the Red Sea.  Its successor empires—the Parthians, the Sassanids, the Safavids—were preeminent powers. Iran is not only one of the most populous nations in the region, it has a rich and sophisticated culture, and its people are skillful and well-educated.  For the United States to ignore this history and dismiss the Iranians for asserting their traditional interests is an act of colossal arrogance.

We justify our animus toward Iran by smearing it as a “state sponsor of terrorism”.  The problem is that definitions of terrorism are notoriously slippery.  When Menachem Begin, who went on to become Israel’s 6th prime minister, authorized the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, which killed 91 people and wounded 46 others, was he acting as a freedom fighter or a terrorist?  When the man who became Israel’s 11th prime minister, Ariel Sharon, orchestrated an attack on the Palestinian village of Qibya in 1953, in which 69 people, mostly women and children, were massacred, was he acting as a military hero or a terrorist?  The answers depend on who you ask.  It wasn’t Iranians, after all, who brought down the World Trade Center.  All but one of the 19 hijackers who perpetrated that horror came from countries we now embrace as “friends and allies”. 

It is not my intention to suggest that Iran is blameless, benign, or harmless.  Far from it.  The Iranians have much to answer for.  But so do we. 

Our demonization of Iran is the result of two other decisions, one bad, the other blind. 

The first of those decisions is our continuing embrace of oppressive, anti-democratic Arab regimes.  We call the current military dictator of Egypt an “ally;” we laud the despots who rule the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf states as “friends”.  Yet these so-called “friends and allies” violate every principle we claim to stand for.  They oppress their peoples with an iron hand; they suppress free speech and the media; and they lock up, torture, or exterminate those who dare to challenge them.  What’s more, they pour millions of dollars into funding the most backward, extreme, and violent versions of Islam.  There is no longer any excuse for turning a blind eye to such behavior in the name of realpolitik.  Once upon a time, we may have needed Middle Eastern oil, but that time has passed. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that any longer justifies our support of these corrupt regimes.

The second of those decisions is our unconditional and blinkered support of the State of Israel.  This is a tricky subject, a “third rail” in American political discourse that for decades could not be touched without the risk of being electrocuted.  There are those who charge that any criticism of Israel qualifies as anti-Semitism. I reject that contention. It is demeaning, not only to Israel, but to the Jewish people as a whole.  If we cannot criticize our friends, when criticism is called for, what kind of friendship is that?

The United States played a major role in the creation of the Israeli state, and we should forever be proud of that fact. The Jewish people, having suffered unprecedented horrors, deserved a refuge and a homeland, and today, they have every right to live securely in that homeland.  Our commitment to ensuring that security should never waver.

This does not, however, oblige us to support any and all actions by every Israeli government, no matter how illiberal and demagogic that government may be; nor does it require that we turn a blind eye to the bad behavior of a corrupt, outright liar like “Bibi” Netanyahu.  If for no other reason than the security of Israel itself, we should withhold our support until Netanyahu mends his ways.  If this does not happen, and happen soon, Israel will end up as an apartheid state, in which, not only displaced Palestinians, but its own Arab citizens, will be browbeaten into submission by fear, force, and intimidation—a state of affairs that would be not only a violation of the best things Israel stands for but a sure recipe for disaster.

Netanyahu wants the world to believe that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel’s security.  To the extent that this may be true, Israel has every right to protect itself.  But that is not the only reason “Bibi’s” fear and hatred of Iran is so venomous. 

Since its foundation 70 years ago, Israel has fought half a dozen wars against Arab armies, all of which it trounced without breaking a sweat.  This made Israel the de facto military superpower in the Middle East, a power made even greater by one of the worst-kept military secrets on the planet—that Israel has an arsenal, never admitted to, of several hundred nuclear warheads.  As long as Israel is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, its neighbors dare not challenge its behavior, knowing that they run the risk of being incinerated.  

Because of this military and nuclear hegemony, the worst of Israel’s political actors have been free to act with impunity, building and expanding illegal settlements on the West Bank, stonewalling the desire of Palestinians for their own state, and thumbing their noses at the protestations of the United Nations, knowing that such protestations are empty gestures so long as they lack commensurate military force.

Israel’s generals, who are no fools, realize that Iran is the only nation that has even the slightest chance of threatening their country’s military choke-hold on the Middle East.  Iran’s army is currently twice the size of Israel’s, but it has enough military-age manpower to field an army 10 times larger.  Israel’s generals also know that Iran once fought a 10-year war against a technologically superior foe, grinding that foe to a standstill through sheer numbers and force of will.   Standing alone, Israel’s well-trained and supremely well-equipped armed forces might well prevail in a conflict with Iran, but its military and intelligence leaders aren’t willing to venture the chance.

That is why Benjamin Netanyahu has been so desperate to draw the United States into a showdown with Iran, a showdown designed to topple Iran’s government.  And that is why Donald Trump, dunce that he is, just stepped into Netanyahu’s trap.  

Although it is tempting to blame this misstep solely on Trump himself, that would be too easy.   It is merely the latest in a long series of ignorant and arrogant blunders.  We will never get things right in the Middle East until we shed our illusions—about our friends, our enemies, and our own bad decisions.