BIBI’S NOT CHURCHILL, NOR OBAMA CHAMBERLAIN
–BUT CONGRESSIONAL SPEECH DOES DRAW BLOOD,
UPSETTING U.S.-IRAN NUCLEAR APPLECART
Munich 1938 analogies being made to describe Israeli P.M. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress are inexact. Israel is indeed a small country excluded from talks affecting its fate, but while there are certain analogies, Netanyahu isn’t Churchill, Obama isn’t Chamberlain, nor is Israel a helpless victim facing “German”, i.e. Iranian, aggression. Indeed, Netanyahu’s powerful critique, made before an overwhelmingly approving joint American legislature and carried on most radio and tv networks across America and the world, has clearly drawn political blood.
Most commentators—even those critical of Mr. Netanyahu’s supposed use of the venue for political reasons (the Israeli election is only two weeks away)–agreed with Isaac Herzog (Labor), his domestic electoral opponent, that “the speech we heard today was impressive”.
They also generally agreed that its substantive critique of the deal moved the Iran negotiation issue off a largely unexamined dead center, reinforcing the bi-partisan Congressional demand that any deal be subject to its approval and, if necessary, strengthening. Such opposition has been reinforced and given renewed life.
Netanyahu was careful to emphasize that he sought not to destroy the deal, but to help achieve the best deal possible, for Israel and the U.S. He underlined that this means not only the substantial dismantling of Iran’s capacity to produce sufficient fissionable material and the means to deliver it (its so-far unrestricted intercontinental ballistic missile development), but also an end to Teheran’s broad backing of M.E. and international terrorist regimes.
Iran’s unrelenting pro-terrorist activities were noted: in the Middle East, in Gaza (Hamas), Lebanon (Hezbollah), Syria (Assad and, paradoxically, IS), Iraq (Shi’ite militias), Yemen (the now-dominant Houthi rebels), and also internationally, in Argentina (1992, 29 dead in the Israeli Embassy and (1994, 87 dead) AMIA Jewish Community Center bombings, the attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington, DC (and, Netanyahu might have added, its support for the Chavez dictatorship in Venezuela).
Indeed, the careful delineation of the extremist Iranian Islamist dictatorship’s record as the primary supporter of world-wide terrorism (generally ignored by an Administration increasingly viewed as seeking a Shiite alliance against Sunni extremists) was one of the speech’s strongest dimensions. It threw light on the key question of why Obama makes concessions to such a thuggish entity–having initially pledged to eliminate its bomb-making capacity entirely, but now allowing retention of both processing plants and thousands of centrifuges, with an agreement end-term of only ten years (with even this now rejected by the regime ).
This, and his reminding his distinguished audience of the long record of Iranian nuclear subterfuge and broken agreements, right up to this week’s IAEA statement about continued, and hidden, Iranian nuclear weapons research, served to raise key issues: why give up sanctions, which brought Iran to the table; why not press for tougher terms, especially given the current collapse of oil prices; and why uncritically assume the reliability of any agreement entered into with Teheran?
The impact of the speech on Congress, and on the American people, will undoubtedly make selling it in what looks to be its current naïve and trusting form harder, if not impossible, for the Obama Administration. In this respect, Netanyahu, for whom the deal raises immediate existential questions for Israel, clearly succeeded in his primary mission.
The key question now is, What can Israel do if Obama, who gives every indication of pressing on with the current deal, signs it, and manages to either evade, or somehow to maneuver, Congressional approval?
Here there are only two possible answers: either Israel accepts the fact that, sooner or later (probably sooner) Iran is a nuclear power, threshold or actual, and forges some kind of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) strategy neutralizing its arsenal; or Israel decides that it has to remove, or substantially reduce, Iran’s nuclear capacity militarily.
The first instance is not promising. The extremist Islamic Iranian regime is not the nuclear-armed Soviet Union which the U.S. faced in the Cold War: it is a millenarial theocratic structure seeking regional hegemony, and for which a coming titanic Messianic confrontation with the infidels is an article of faith. Far from rationally backing away from such a nuclear Armeggedon, as the Soviets did, Teheran may well welcome it.
The second instance, Israel alone acting militarily against Iran to destroy or severely delimit its nuclear potential, is also fraught with dangers. Aside from issue of Israel’s military capacity to achieve such a result, there is also the problem of Iran’s retaliatory ability, which involves not only its own military assets, but those of its regional clients (e.g., Hezbollah’s proven arsenal of over 100,000 rockets and missiles, Syria’s remaining chemical weapons capacity (and its own missile arsenal), and even—if a general Middle East war were sparked—unstable Islamist Pakistan’s nuclear potential.
On the other hand, a region (and a world) in which a genocidal Iranian regime–pledged to destroy the “Zionist entity” and, unresponsive to MAD considerations, actually possessed multiple nuclear war-heads and a missile delivery system–is simply an unbearable existential reality for the tiny Jewish Israel.
Publically raising and underlining such issues, consciously obscured by the Obama Administration’s p.r. for an Iran nuclear agreement which has clearly become a major ”legacy” goal, is the clear achievement of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech.
So no, it is not exactly 1938—but not because the “Great Powers” (the 5+1 of the US., Britain, France, Russia, and China, plus Germany, the last five of which look forward to resuming their lucrative pre-sanctions contracts with Teheran) are incapable of selling out a tiny state. And it is not 1938 because Netanyahu in fact literally thinks he is Churchill (though he was, before his speech, presented by Congress with a bust of the great British Prime Minister [a similar one was removed from the Oval Office by Obama as his first Presidential act in 2009]).
No, it is not 1938 because modern Israel—though like Czechoslovakia excluded from the conference affecting its fate—is not the weak and defenceless state dismembered and finally given over to Nazi destruction by Western appeasement. (NB: March 15th is the anniversary of the final post-Munich German invasion and conquest of Czechoslovakia.)
Where the Munich analogy most clearly breaks down is clear from the concluding words of the Israeli leader’s address to Congress.
Having initially noted the emblematic importance of the coming Purim holiday, with its celebration of Israel’s triumph over an earlier Persian regime’s attempt to destroy the Jewish People, and directly addressing Holocaust witness Elie Wiesel, symbolically as well as physically present in the audience, Netanyahu guaranteed that “the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies…are over…Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand”.
Netanyahu concluded his address to tumultuous applause by stressing Israel’s and America’s shared heritage and values. He pointed to the largely unknown sculptural relief of Moses, savior of the Jewish people, placed above the Congressional chamber, quoting—in Hebrew and in English–the great Jewish leader’s Biblical call to his People, and to Congress: “Be strong and resolute, neither fear not dread” our enemies.
Should the Iranian nuclear treaty in its present form be signed, and should Obama, as promised, veto any Congressional role insofar as its final approval (and, potentially, enhanced treaty safeguards) is concerned, it would then remain for Israel, alone, to deal with the existential threat . How, and whether, it would so, remain key questions—concerning the latter issue, the Israeli leader’s speech seems clear enough.
(Prof. Frederick Krantz is President and Director of the Canadian
Institute for Jewish Research in Montreal and Toronto)
