Divide Over Kotel Prayer Highlights Racism of Palestinian Authority and Muslim Waqf

BY RABBI YONAH BOOKSTEIN  June 25, 2013

http://www.jewishjournal.com/blog/item/divide_over_kotel_prayer_highlights_racism_of_palestinian_authority_and_mus/

Jewish communities might be fighting about fair access to the Kotel, but what is missing from the discussion is Jewish use of holy places in Jerusalem. The Muslim Waqf and the Palestinian Authority’s opposition to the Kotel compromise demonstrates their intense racism. Instead of infighting, the Jewish community needs a bold and unified approach regarding access to the holiest Jewish sites and exposing injustice.

A newly released compromise for access to the Kotel calls for development of the Southern part of the Kotel wall for the creation of a mixed prayer area.  The plan faces many hurdles. However, it is considered by many to be a fair solution to what seemed not long ago to be an intractable situation. Hopes are high around the world that those who most vehemently seek representation of their religious beliefs, and respect for their prayer choices at the Kotel, will accept the plan.

Even if there is a brokered settlement between opposing Jewish factions, there is a fundamental and historical challenge ahead. The most contentious front against the compromise at the Kotel will be from the Muslim Waqf and the Palestinian Authority which regularly launch protests against any development of Jewish access to places near the Temple Mount.

Jews may be able to reach a compromise, but the Waqf and the PA will not. The PA and Waqf will wage an international campaign claiming Jews are trying to destroy the Temple Mount  just as they have alleged in the past. Whatever solution is eventually created, the Waqf and Palestinian Authority will decry it as encroachment on Muslim holy sites.

PA religious affairs minister said recently that that creating a Southern Kotel Plaza in order to add an egalitarian/mixed section may "push all of us to new conflicts". Clearly these statements are intended to be threatening. He is promising a violent and organized reaction against Jewish access to our holy site, and Israeli sovereignty.

Instead of proposing a plan to create the mixed prayer plaza, Israel needs to start negotiations about a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount itself and development of access to the Temple Mount for Jewish worshippers. Jewish worship on the Temple Mount is currently illegal. In May a group from Canadian B’nai Brith, hardly a radical or religiously extreme organization, were met with intense racism, cries of “Allah hu Akbar,” and harassment when they tried to visit the Temple Mount.

“You don’t have to send delegations to Hungary to witness raw antisemitism,” said Frank Dimant, a man known for diplomacy and moderation,  “Jews are treated as second-class citizens in the Jewish state.” Ironically one of the leaders of the mission to Israel, Eric Bissell, president of B’nai Brith Canada, was also a delegate to the Global Forum on Anti Semitism taking place that same week in Jerusalem.

The problem of Jewish access to the Temple Mount is of paramount importance to the future of Jewish access to other holy sites of Jerusalem some of which, like the Temple Mount and the Kotel, are clearly outside of pre-1967 borders. A future Palestinian State might make Jewish prayer there illegal. Successive Israeli governments have refused to address this racism over desires to avoid a provocation. The Kotel compromise negotiations have drawn this conflict out in the open and presents an ideal opportunity to bring to the world’s attention the intense racism of the Waqf and PA.

The Israeli position could be spelled out clearly for the West:

Israel seeks to provide all their citizens freedom of religious practice— something that the PA and Waqf are clearly against. Israel stands for tolerance of different religious beliefs and unhindered religious practice. Religions can live side-side and Muslim and Jewish worshippers deserve equal access to the Temple Mount. Israeli proposals could include a Jewish prayer area which does not encroach upon the two mosques on the Mount.

The promised outcry from the PA will present the Jewish community with the undeniable fact that they do not control the destiny of their holiest places.

If the Waqf and the Palestinian Authority succeed in making those hard won plans for compromise and fair access to the Kotel obsolete through their threats of violence, the Jewish community in America, and Israel will face a serious test.

Therefore it is in Jewish and Israeli self-interest to reach a compromise over prayer at the Kotel. Israel and Jewish communities abroad need to stand together in solidarity to ensure fair access to the all Jewish holy places like Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb, rather than be bogged down in intense infighting over mixed prayer at the Kotel. Energy needs to expended upon fair prayer and fighting racism not denominational antipathy. Dueling over who decides what is authentic prayer distracts Jews from historic milestone of unfettered access to the Kotel denied for so many generations by successive occupying powers. It was not so long ago that no Jew could pray at the Kotel at all.

The debate must be change from the narrow question of fair access to a universal one - from “who prays where” at the Kotel, to “who prays where” in Jerusalem.

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THE TRUTH ABOUT SETTLEMENTS 

  ARTHUR COHN 6-26-13

http://www.jewishjournal.com/ opinion/article/the_truth_about_settlements/

Whenever the Middle East peace process is a topic in the news or in discussions, its factual stagnation is almost automatically blamed on the Israeli settlement development. It is one of the most controversial issues in the Middle East conflict. Even friends of Israel dissociate themselves when it comes to questions of the settlement policies. Without any intention to define in any form what steps should be undertaken in this regard, it is extremely important that some central points concerning the settlements question are explained factually: 1. “The West Bank is illegally occupied territory, and all Israeli settlements there are unlawful.” The reasoning that the settlements in Judea and Samaria are illegal is based on the 49th Article of the Geneva Convention IV, implemented after World War II and the Nazi occupation of European states. Accordingly, the oppressive relocation of a civil population to other states is prohibited. Such a kind of relocation, however, never took place in the West Bank. Moreover, Israel did not — and this must be specifically stressed — occupy any territories of a recognized, sovereign state. Jordan, from which Israel took over these areas in the Six-Day War (that was provoked by the Arab states), never had been able to enforce there its sovereignty because its occupation of the territories had been illegal and not been recognized by any state except by England and Pakistan. But most of all we must in all explicitness be reminded that the League of Nations — the decisions of which were taken over by the United Nations (Article 80 of the U.N. Charter) — at the time had clearly determined in San Remo that Jews are allowed settle down in all areas of Palestine. These areas thus are not a matter of “occupied territories,” and the construction of settlements there does not contradict international right. The term “occupation” is linked to many dismal associations, according to which the West Bank is “stolen” territory, and consequently has to be eliminated in political discussions. This of course does not mean that under a peace agreement this land should not be redivided — but the moral and legal grounds for the peace negotiations have to be clearly defined: It certainly is not about illegally occupied, but about disputed territories to which people make a claim and the future of which must be determined in the context of a peace treaty. 2. “Jerusalem is an Arab town, and Jews cannot legitimately build there.” This is a totally untenable assertion. For thousands of years (see 1. Book of Kings, 8,48), Jews all over the world have prayed toward Jerusalem — not least for the good of their Holy City, and in the hope of soon being able to return in this “City of Peace” (uru-salem).  In the 2,000 years since the Roman rule, Jews practically uninterruptedly have lived in the Holy City, and for 150 years they again have represented the majority in Jerusalem. Until 1967, Jews were absolutely prohibited to access the Western Wall. In total contrast, the State of Israel thereafter left the administration of the Temple Mount and its mosques to the Arab side, in order to create the grounds for a peaceful atmosphere in Jerusalem. This tolerance-minded act however has been badly rewarded: Until today, it has been strictly forbidden to Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. And now, in defiance of all these facts, it should be forbidden that Jews build up their homes in large parts of Jerusalem — what an irony! As the Arabs expelled the Jews by force from Jerusalem in 1948, and now, as a “result” of this illegal attack, a return to the city of their dreams should be prohibited to them? What a peculiar idea. 3. “The settlement construction inhibits the continuation of the peace talks.” This is a strange statement. The absolute hostility toward Israel’s existence has accompanied the Jewish state ever since its founding in 1948. The PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), the forerunner of the Palestinian Authority, was founded in 1964, i.e. at a time when there were no “occupied” territories yet — unless one considers the whole of Israel (also Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beer Sheva) as illegally occupied areas. But most important is that in the Oslo Accords, on which the Palestinian-Israeli efforts for peace are based, there is no talk of a settlement stop as a precondition for peace negotiations. The Accords explicitly state that the settlements in question shall be discussed only in the last phase of the peace negotiations. 4. How did the expansion of the settlements come about? Right after the Six-Day War (1967), in which Israel was able to successfully ward off the Arab states’ attack, the Old City of Jerusalem and the West Bank were liberated from Jordan’s illegal occupation, and Israel was hoping for peace negotiations. But eight Arab states unanimously decided on a triple “no” in Khartoum: no peace negotiations, no recognition of Israel, no peace with Israel. At that time, the Israelis started, for historical and security-related reasons, to populate primarily those territories that have been a direct part of the Jewish history, such as the regions around Jerusalem and Hebron. Because of the Arabs’ rejection to negotiate with Israel, these construction activities then broadened, but it has always been clearly determined that no privately owned land may be used for settling, and to this date, Israeli courts give assistance to Arabs who can evidence their rights to private property. At the same time, it has always been obvious that in the course of true peace negotiations certain settlements would be evacuated. So it happened for the peace agreement with Egypt (Sinai settlements). And later, Israel retreated from the 25 (!) prosperous settlements in the Gaza Strip (thus causing 10,000 people to lose their homes), in order to promote a peace process. This, however, was badly rewarded: Instead of settling Palestinian refugees in this area, these settlements were turned into bases of terror from which towns in southern Israel and their civil populations are permanently shelled. This is no confidence-inspiring development in view of future negotiations regarding the settlements! Three years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decreed a 10-month settlement stop in order to facilitate the peace negotiations — this, too, without any success. 5. How can the question of settlements be resolved within the scope of a peace treaty? By means of a true will from all sides concerned to peacefully coexist in the Middle East. To achieve this, it is indispensable to accept each other, to recognize the other’s rights and to believe in an acceptable modus vivendi. Israel has done much already in this regard. It recognizes the rights of the Palestinian Arabs and their cause to have their own state, and it prohibits (also by its courts) any attacks against the latter’s population. Also, Israel has proved that within the Jewish state, a large Arab minority (far more than 1 million people) can live freely and with full civil rights. The Palestinian Arabs, however, still have to undertake a lot in this regard. For the time being, they deny, also in official documents, any rights of the Jews to Israel and the Holy Land (“no rights, even in Jerusalem”); they reject the formula “two states for two people” and are not willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state; they use their official media against Israel and Judaism and to highly praise the worst of terrorists. And as far as the settlements: They time and again declare that the West Bank must become totally “judenrein” (free of Jews)! In spite of all the internal difficulties, the Palestinian Arabs now have to change their basic attitude toward Israel and the Jews — then the question of settlements certainly can be resolved, be it by the elimination of settlements in areas densely populated by Palestinian Arabs, be it by the exchange of territories or be it by the peaceful coexistence also in a Palestinian state, as it has been the case within Israel since 65 years. Moreover, it would probably also be a natural solution to link the West Bank with Jordan. Jordan rules over more than 77 percent of the classical Palestine Mandate, and the majority of its citizens are Palestinian Arabs. With a candid will of all sides, it will certainly be possible to find ways to a true peaceful coexistence in the Holy Land. Arthur Cohn is an international film producer whose films include “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” “Central Station” and “One Day in September.”

'EVEN IF YOU GIVE UP ALL THE LAND, IT WON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS IN THE MIDEAST' An interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of "Infidel" •  "From the perspective of the Arab leaders, reaching a two-state solution is to betray God. If you want peace and not merely a process, you must make peace with the people. The negotiators themselves are of no importance." Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of "Infidel" | Photo credit: Dudi Vaaknin There is something dignified in the quiet, determined manner of Ayaan Hirsi Ali as she rises from the audience and walks towards the podium to deliver her lecture. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's intricate history starts in Somalia, where she was born to a Muslim family. At the age of five she underwent female genital mutilation. By her teens she was a devout Muslim. In her early twenties, upon learning of plans for an undesirable arranged marriage, she made her way to Holland, where she applied for asylum. Hirsi Ali studied at Leiden University and began publishing critical articles about Islam, the condition of the Muslim woman, and so forth. She wrote the script for the Dutch movie "Submission" for director Theo van Gogh, who was subsequently murdered by a Muslim assassin. Hirsi Ali joined the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and in 2003 was elected to the Dutch parliament. A few years later she moved to the United States, where she became a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. She published some books; notably, an autobiography titled "Infidel" that became an international bestseller. Already in 2005, Time magazine named Hirsi Ali among the 100 most influential people in the world. The internet abounds with information about her, with articles and videos of her lectures. She is doubly courageous: in her stand against Islam, leading to threats on her life, and vis a vis the Western liberal elite, which disapproves of criticism of multiculturalism and the blindness afflicting Western society in grasping the strategic threat to its existence as a free society. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was visiting Israel for the recent Presidential Conference in Jerusalem. Q: In your lectures you made numerous references to the situation in the Middle East. You claim that people in the West do not understand that what is taking place in the Middle East is not a dialogue. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: More than one issue is at stake here. Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian context, the main problem is that you may speak of a peace process, but what you get is a process, not peace. And why is this process so prolonged? Because for the Israelis this issue is a territorial problem. For the Palestinian negotiators, on the other hand, it is not a territorial problem but a religious and ethnic one, It is not only about Palestinians but about all Arabs. Most of all, it is a religious problem. From the perspective of the Arab leaders, reaching a two-state solution is to betray God, the Koran, the hadith and the tradition of Islam. Q: Even though they are portrayed as secular? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: The presumption that the Palestinian negotiators are secular is not supported by facts. Were they secular, there would already be a settled territorial agreement of some kind. But there is no agreement as of today, because on one side it has become religious jihad of all or nothing, while on the other side it is still a territorial issue. Of course I know that there are Israelis who also perceive this as a religious problem; but their numbers pale in comparison to the Muslim side. Reaching a settlement that brings about two states is a religious betrayal -- not only for the leadership but for most Muslims today. The West does not understand this. Q: Why? After the many years you have lived in the West, how can you explain this? Ayaan Hirsi Ali:  The conception of religion in the West in the 20th and 21st century differs from that of Middle Eastern Muslims. The West successfully separated religion and politics, but even in places in the West where there is no distinct separation, still the concept of God and religion, even in the 13th or 15th century, differs to the current reality in the Middle East. Islam is an Orthopraxy, Islam has a goal. So if you are a true Muslim, you must fight for that goal. You can achieve a temporary peace or truce, but it is not ultimate, not everlasting. It is not just about the territory. Because the territory does not belong to the people; it belongs to God. So for a Palestinian leader -- even if he is secular, even an atheist -- to leave the negotiating room with the announcement of a two-state solution would mean that he would be killed the minute he walks out. Q: Many wise people come here advising us Israelis to act rationally. Do you think this dispute has anything to do with rationalism? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Europeans and Americans -- and I do not refer merely to the leadership, but to people in general -- when they have a problem, they think there must be some kind of compromise on the table. What they cannot accept is that one party would say "the only rational outcome is our complete victory." If you put aside the Israeli-Palestinian situation, you see components of this culture in the events in Syria, in Lebanon. You've seen it with Mubarak. There is a winner and there is a loser. But there cannot be two winners. Q: So the proposal of compromise stems from naivety? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: You can give it any label you like. I have listened to someone like Tony Blair, I was in two or three conferences where he spoke, and he is not naïve anymore, he is not the same man he was ten years ago in regards to this conflict. More and more leaders see that this conflict is not going to be resolved Western-style, namely that all conflicts are resolvable and no-one leaves the table empty-handed. In a culture dictated by honor and shame - in addition to the religious issue - defeat of any kind, accepting a compromise, is to leave the room empty-handed. Compromise is loss in this culture. It is very hard to explain this to contemporary Westerners. Q: Many liberals around the world, who support the compromise solution, also tend to blame Israel. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Many liberals perceive Israel to be one of their kind; another liberal, white, rational state, etc. Therefore they expect you to approach matters the way they would. But then they approach the subject in the context of the U.S. or Europe, or some other Western system, where there is rule of law, arbiters, an ability to go to court in case of disagreement. There is a district court, a court of appeals, a supreme court, and once the judges have spoken their decision is final. You lose face, but you have to accept defeat. What these liberals do not understand is that we are speaking of a fundamentally different context, where such a judicial infrastructure does not exist, and those who aspire for it are a persecuted minority. And yet I am optimistic, after the Arab Spring. I see people, albeit few in number and very disorganized, but who do want that infrastructure where religion is put aside and where compromise becomes central. They just don't know how to go about it. They lack the resources and the institutions to make that happen. But it is possible. Q: Your views are not prevalent within the liberal media or liberal intellectual elite. Have you encountered difficulties in delivering such ideas? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Among Western liberal elites there are those who have actual experience and those who have not. Those who have actual experience with any aspect of Islamic culture or religion, who have really given it their all to achieve some kind of compromise, come out -- after years of endless abortive attempts -- with a completely different perspective. Them I do not need to persuade. I mentioned earlier Tony Blair, the most-renowned liberal to change his perspective. He once believed that the ability to always find a compromise for whoever was in the negotiations room was an art. He no longer thinks this way. As we are dealing with a wholly different phenomenon, we need voices like his to educate liberal Westerners on why this is different. I think that whoever acts on the presumption that we are all the same and that we are able to solve this -- is uninterested, indifferent, and inexperienced. Q: There is also a certain measure of idealism... Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Idealism is a good thing. But when idealism encounters reality, you must not try to manipulate it to fit your utopia. You have to take in the reality. 93,000 people have died in Syria because the fighting forces could not, cannot, and will not compromise. This toll is higher than all the fatalities on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict! So, to go on and on about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in my view is to take a tranquilizer or smoke pot. You do it just to feel better. You cannot face reality, so you just keep on harping about something that can make you feel better. One can also mention the number of people who died in Libya because Kaddafi and the opposition would not find the way to the negotiating table. This phenomenon is repeated throughout the region, not only today but throughout history. Reaching compromise is to lose face. Q So do you think that talk about negotiations brought up by the Arab counterparts is a game, with no real intentions behind it? We know that right after the Oslo accords, Arafat spoke in a mosque in South Africa, comparing the Oslo accords to the hudaiba treaty by Muhammad with his enemies. In Israel, there were those who accepted this, as they said that Arafat had to resort to speaking two different languages, one for his people and one for us. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I hear this argument constantly, also in relation to the Turkey's Erdogan and in regards to the Saudis. Do you know what is wrong with this argument? If you want peace and not merely a process, you must make peace with the people. The negotiators themselves are of no importance. They are a few individuals who may tomorrow be out of power or dead. You have to have peace with the people you are in conflict with, and as long as they do not want to hear a different tune, you will not have peace. Until the people at large are ready for that compromise, there is no compromise. This is true of the domestic politics of any nation or the external politics with foreign nations, for whom the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is seen symbolically as the biggest icon of all foreign affairs relations with the Arab Islamic world. There has to be a change of attitude and a change in attitude within the culture and of culture, and I hope that we can see this. I believe that true emancipation cannot exist without the freedom of the individual, without the individual's space and voice. The fact that individualism is not given a chance in the Arab Muslim world is related to belonging and the collective. If you want to belong and be part of the collective you have to be a winner. If you are not, then you are a source of shame. So you have to ask yourself why the Syrian regime and its likes are incapable of putting an end to the bloodshed after killing ten, or 1,000, or 10,000 people. Why not? It is not caused by Israel, the Americans or any outsiders; it is part of the culture. And for the culture to grow out of such phenomena, change has to come from within. Q: If so, do negotiations have any meaning when we talk about peace while the Palestinian Authority use anti-Israeli school books, which do not even mention Israel by name in their geographical maps? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Not now. Not as long as a majority of the people do not want peace. An Arab leader who genuinely wants peace has to convince the Arab people first, must get their endorsement and then go and get peace. That is why the first thing that needs to be worked out is not so much the relationship with Israel but changing the culture, Islamic and Arab. This process does not depend on you, though you can help it, facilitate it, be a catalyst; but it does not depend on you, on America or the rest of the world. Q: In reference to Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" theory, is there any sense that Europe is awakening to the threat it faces? We have a feeling that Israel is a scapegoat of sorts for the rest of the world. Do you not think that Europe is overcome by a quiet conquest of the Muslims there? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Yes, but it is no longer quiet, ever since 9/11 and the terrorist plots. Because the countries of Europe and the U.S. are democracies, their citizens enjoy freedom of speech. The more we listen, the more discernible is the extreme cultural divergence between the civilizations, as Huntington claims. One must first face it before blaming Israel or scapegoating others, otherwise things will not change. And the Europeans are waking up to this. I visited Israel for the first time in 1998 or 1999, and saw people in uniform with guns in buses, in the market, on the streets. My European friend who came with me found this so strange. You would never find this in Holland. Now all airports in Europe and the U.S. have security men, all wielding machine guns, just like I saw in Israel at the time. After the Boston marathon bombings, I think that on the Fourth of July this year there will be more security than spectators. So, as these liberal Western democracies are beginning to face the same challenges as Israel, or at least a tiny fraction of them -- you see attitudes changing. Q Do you perceive attitudes changing towards Israel? An understanding of Israel? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Well, some people get hardened. I do not understand Stephen Hawking's refusal to come to Israel. There is a boycott on Israel by the intellectuals. Yet, the people in Boston are the most liberal in the United States, maybe short of San Francisco, and they were really quite happy with people in uniform patrolling the streets, which compromises their civil liberties. But people would rather face reality than lose limbs. Q: What would you like to say to the  people of Israel? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Exactly what I say in my lectures. You have to be a realist and acknowledge that Israel is not the problem, though neither is it the solution. I also speak of the signs of hope, of [Muslim] women who aspire to improve their lives, of homosexuals, of religious minorities. If anyone in Israel, including ordinary people, wants to be an activist, they need to forge relationships with those individuals in the Middle East who have developed something closer to what the Israelis want. Q: And you think that it will be a huge mistake to give away territory before a cultural change occurs? Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I will just say that Israel is not the problem nor is it the solution. Even if you give up all the land, it will not solve any of the problems in the Middle East. It will not obliterate despotism, it will not liberate women, it will not help religious minorities. It won't bring peace to anyone. Even if Israel does not give up an inch of land -- the result will be the same. If you want a process, continue the way you are. If you want real, lasting peace, then things have to change first within the Arab Muslim individual, family, school, streets, education, and politics. It is not an Israeli problem. You must learn to take advantage of opportunities. Due to technology, things can develop quickly. Look at the Iranians; what took the Iranians thirty years could take the Egyptians five or ten. Q: To become secular? Ayaan Hirsi Ali:   No, just for the majority of the people to stand up to Shariah. This is what I want to say about Muslims in general: Muslims want Shariah until they have it... For cultural change to transpire we need one hundred years and more to pass. You can pick any number you want. I am speaking of a lengthy, bloody period. But it is going to change.

The Economist  and Haaretz , certainly no cheerleaders for Prime Minister Netanyahu nor for Israel have, in the last several days, radically reversed their previous positions on the Iranian threat.

Attached below, is a four article package ,for your information.

#1     The Economist explains How close is Iran to having a nuclear bomb?

 6-26-2013

#2      The Economist explains  Can Iran be stopped? 6-22-2013

#3     Harretz Surprise: Benjamin Netanyahu was right about Iran  By Ari Shavit  6-27-2013 

#4     ‘Economist’ Warns Iran Won’t Be Stopped Jonathan S. Tobin  6-27-2013

For several years  I had been assisting  the National Security Council and the State Department in facilitating their back channel communications  with Iran. These efforts proved discouragingly unsuccessful.

On April 23, 2012, in an open  unclassified forum,   I was asked  whether I personally believed Iran would obtain a nuclear weapon. I answered “yes”. This was based in part upon my understanding of Iran's nuclear development progress and my understanding of the interplay within US intelligence/defense/ political establishments.

 Unfortunately, my pessimism appears to be well warranted.

#1     The Economist explains

How close is Iran to having a nuclear bomb?

Jun 26th 2013

IRAN is putting up with sanctions that damage its economy rather than accept a deal limiting its nuclear programme. It has developed the capacity to enrich far more uranium than it needs for generating nuclear power or for medical research. And its outgoing president has talked about wanting to wipe Israel off the map. All of which suggests to outsiders that the country intends, at a time of its choosing, to get its hands on nuclear weapons. Iran, for its part, denies that it wants any such thing and points to a fatwa against both the possession and use of nuclear weapons. So how close is Iran to having a nuclear bomb?

To become a nuclear power, a country requires both the fissile material for a bomb and the means of delivering it reliably to its target (“weaponisation” in the jargon). Iran was thought to have suspended work on weaponisation in 2004, but now the International Atomic Energy Agency is not so sure. In order to create a nuclear weapon, Iran would need to convert highly enriched uranium into a metal sphere and make a detonator small enough to fit in the warhead of a ballistic missile. That is not beyond its technological capability.

But does Iran have enough uranium for a bomb? To make one it would need about 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. To get there it would need to begin with a larger amount of medium-enriched uranium—somewhere between 94 kilograms and 210 kilograms—and enrich it further. At present it is thought to have around 123 kilograms of medium-enriched uranium. And getting from 20%, the upper limit for medium enrichment, to 80% or 90% is not as hard as getting from 2% to 20%, which Iran has already done. The upshot is that although Iran may not have decided whether it wants a bomb, it already has most of what it needs to build one.

British and American intelligence sources think Iran is about a year away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb, and rather further from mastering the technologies to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a missile. But David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security, thinks that by mid-2014 Iran will have the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a single bomb in one or two weeks, should it choose to do so. It seems unlikely that Iran could be forced to change course on this matter by foreigners. The best that can be hoped for is that it decides that it does not want or need a nuclear weapon. The alternative is probably a nuclear-armed Middle East in which Iran and Israel—and eventually Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt—all have missiles pointed at each other.

#2     Can Iran be stopped?

The West should intervene in Syria for many reasons. One is to stem the rise of Persian power

Jun 22nd 2013 |From the print edition

IN 2009 Iran was on the verge of electing a reformer as president. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, subverted the vote and crushed the ensuing protests. Last week the same desire for change handed a landslide victory to Hassan Rohani—and Mr Khamenei hailed it as a triumph.

When a country has seen as much repression as Iran, outsiders hoping for a better future for the place instinctively want to celebrate along with all those ordinary Iranians who took to the streets. The smiling Mr Rohani’s public pronouncements encourage optimism, for he sounds like a different sort of president from the comedy-villain, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who precedes him. Yet even if his election bodes well for Iranians, it does not necessarily hold equal promise for the rest of the world. Iran’s regional assertiveness and its nuclear capacity mean that it is a more dangerous place than it ever was before.

The case for Compromise

Given the country’s obvious weaknesses, that sounds implausible. Inflation is running at over 30%, and the economy shrinking. Inequality is growing, with 40% of Iranians thought to be living below the poverty line. Sanctions restricted May’s oil exports to just 700,000 barrels a day, a third of what they used to be; as a result there are shortages of basic goods and growing unemployment caused by factory closures.

Yet the Persian lion has not lost its claws, nor has the theocracy suddenly become a democracy. Mr Rohani was indeed the most reformist of the candidates on offer at the election, but in much the way that Churchill was more of a teetotaller than George Brown. The 64-year-old cleric has been a loyal servant of the Islamic Republic from its inception. For years he headed the national security council (see article). He is constrained by a system that deemed just eight people fit to stand in the recent election and rejected 678 others (including a former president). The president’s power is limited by Iran’s other institutions, many of which are in conservative hands.

While Iran’s politics have probably changed less than Mr Rohani’s election suggests, the balance of power between Iran and the rest of the world has been shifting in Iran’s favour for two reasons. First, thanks to heavy investment in nuclear capacity by the mullahs, and despite attempts by the West and Israel to delay or sabotage the nuclear programme, Iran will soon be able to produce a bomb’s worth of weapons-grade uranium in a matter of weeks (see briefing). Iran has installed more than 9,000 new centrifuges in less than two years, more than doubling its enrichment capability. It is a short step from the 20% enriched uranium that the country’s facilities are already producing at an increasing rate to conversion into the fissile material needed for an implosion device. Although Western intelligence agencies think Iran is still at least a year away from being able to construct such a weapon, some experts believe that it could do so within a few months if it chose to—and that the time it would take is shrinking.

This makes a nonsense of Western policy on Iran. Round after round of negotiations to try to persuade Iran not to get a bomb have been backed up by the implicit threat that armed force would be used if talks failed. But now it looks as though Iran will soon be in a position to build a weapon swiftly and surreptitiously. Should the West decide to use force, Iran could amass a small arsenal by the time support for a military strike was rallied.

Against that background, a friendlier president becomes a trap as well as an opportunity. He may offer the chance of building better relations through engagement and the gradual lifting of sanctions. But Iran could take advantage of this inevitably slow process to build a weapon.

The other development that threatens the West’s interests is happening around Iran. Despite its economic troubles, the Iranian state is a powerful beast compared with its neighbours, and is keen to assert itself abroad. The Iraqi government is now its ally. It has sway over chunks of Lebanon through Hizbullah, the Shia party-cum-militia it finances. And it has sent Hizbullah into Syria, where its fighters have joined Iranian advisers, money and special forces to help turn the tide of the war in Bashar Assad’s favour. Ostensibly the reason why Barack Obama agreed last week to arm the rebels in Syria (see article) was Mr Assad’s use of chemical weapons; but many believe that the greater reason was his reluctance to see Mr Assad hold on to power as a client of Iran’s.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst

This analysis may be too gloomy. It is possible that Mr Rohani’s arrival heralds a more pragmatic and less aggressive position. The new president used to serve as Iran’s main nuclear negotiator, and during his campaign made clear the link between Iran’s economic weakness and the nuclear sanctions, and called for better relations with the West. The West should reciprocate, making it clear that it has no intention of impeding Iran’s peaceful development. At the same time, it should continue to push for progress on the nuclear negotiations.

But it must do so warily. Any deal offered to Iran should include restraints draconian enough, and inspection intrusive enough, to prevent it from building a weapon surreptitiously, otherwise it would be worse than not doing a deal at all. And such a deal would very likely be unacceptable to Iran.

The growing risk of a nuclear Iran is one reason why the West should intervene decisively in Syria not just by arming the rebels, but also by establishing a no-fly zone. That would deprive Mr Assad of his most effective weapon—bombs dropped from planes—and allow the rebels to establish military bases inside Syria. This newspaper has argued many times for doing so on humanitarian grounds; but Iran’s growing clout is another reason to intervene, for it is not in the West’s interest that a state that sponsors terrorism and rejects Israel’s right to exist should become the regional hegemon.

The West still has the economic and military clout to influence events in the region, and an interest in doing so. When Persian power is on the rise, it is not the time to back away from the Middle East.

#3  Haaretz.com  Friday, June 28, 2013 Tammuz 20, 5773

Surprise: Benjamin Netanyahu was right about Iran  By Ari Shavit | Jun.27, 2013 

What the world promised would never happen is happening. What Israel’s defense establishment promised would never happen is happening. Iran is becoming a nuclear power, while Israel stands alone.

The Natanz nuclear facility in Iran. Photo by Reuters

Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the UN about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. Photo by AP

If Israel were a sane country, it would have been concerned this week with one thing only: The Economist. The British weekly is the leading quality news magazine in the West, one of the few media outlets that give voice to the serious strategic and economic discourse of the global elite. Therefore, when the Economist declared this week that it's impossible to stop Iran's nuclear program, the significance of this statement was dramatic.

Via the Economist, the mainstream of the international community admitted that its campaign against Iran's nuclearization has ended in failure. And via this journal, the school that favors containing a nuclear Iran came out of the closet.

While Israel was busy with light entertainment in the form of political reality shows, The Economist informed it this week that a difficult strategic reality is taking shape around it. What the world promised would never happen is happening at this very moment. What the top ranks of Israel's defense establishment promised would never happen is in fact happening. Iran is becoming a nuclear power, while Israel (which is sunk in summer daydreams ) stands alone.

From 2009 to 2012, a vigorous debate over Iran took place here. On one side were the optimists: President Shimon Peres, then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan, then-Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin, then-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the defense establishment, the media establishment and the refreshing spirit of hoping for the best. On the other side was a gloomy, besmirched pessimist: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

America is there, said the optimists. No, it isn't, said the pessimist. There's a hidden hand, said the optimists. No, there isn't, said the pessimist. There's time, said the optimists. No, there isn't, said the pessimist. Iran's nuclear program must be stopped by the fall of 2012, the pessimist said. It's not Iran's nuclear program that's the problem, but the prime minister, the optimists said.

For three and a half years, the optimists went from one journalist to another and from one American to another and said that the pessimist is a dangerous purveyor of doom and gloom who sees molehills as mountains and doesn't understand that the world won't let Iran go nuclear. For three and a half years, the optimists tied the pessimist's hands on the basis of the threefold promise of America, the hidden hand and time.

But suddenly, this week, along comes The Economist and says that the optimists' absolute promise was a false promise. That it's too late. That the enriched uranium horses have already fled the stables. The international optimists and the Israeli optimists were wrong, big time. Surprise surprise: Benjamin Netanyahu was right.

It's possible to criticize his conduct. It's obligatory to criticize certain aspects of his policy. The Israeli military option shouldn't have been the principal option on the table. Generosity toward Ramallah should have been part of Jerusalem's battle against Tehran. But Netanyahu understood the Iranian challenge better than others, and he read the map of the campaign against Iran better than others.

While the optimists were misled by their illusions, the pessimist read reality correctly. While the defense establishment and the media establishment were smitten with weakness and apathy, the pessimist kept sounding alarms. But because neither the sinking West nor partying Israel paid attention to his warnings, the world has entered a new and dangerous strategic reality. Wolf? Wolf? Wolf! A strategic wolf with nuclear teeth is now at the gate.

Perhaps it's still possible to disprove The Economist's situation assessment. Perhaps an immediate, complete diplomatic and economic blockade of Iran could still cause it to suspend its nuclear program in order to preserve its regime. But anyone who wants to refute the prophecy of disaster diplomatically rather than militarily must act immediately. We're out of time. We're really out of time.

Waking up at one minute to midnight will be hard. But waking up at one minute after midnight is liable to be catastrophic.

 #4   ‘Economist’ Warns Iran Won’t Be Stopped

Jonathan S. Tobin  06.27.2013 

For years, we’ve been told that there’s plenty of time to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. The world laughed when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu drew a red line across a cartoon bomb at the United Nations last fall to demonstrate the need to act before it was too late. President Obama, who has vociferously pledged that Tehran will never gain such a weapon on his watch, tried engagement and then a mix of sanctions and diplomacy to try and make good on his promise. He still insists that this policy will eventually work and with the election of a new supposedly more moderate Iranian president, virtually everyone in the chattering classes and the foreign policy establishment has seemed content to allow the administration to keep talking about talking with the Islamist regime even if there’s no sign that it will ever work. This complacence has been criticized by American conservatives and some Israelis to little effect, but now one of the most reliable indicators of establishment thinking in Europe with little sympathy for Israel is agreeing with those long deemed alarmists about Iran.

In an eye-opening article published this week, the Economist dismisses the notion that anything the United States and its allies has been trying will work:

British and American intelligence sources think Iran is about a year away from having enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb, and rather further from mastering the technologies to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a missile. But David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security, thinks that by mid-2014 Iran will have the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a single bomb in one or two weeks, should it choose to do so. It seems unlikely that Iran could be forced to change course on this matter by foreigners. The best that can be hoped for is that it decides that it does not want or need a nuclear weapon.

But given that, as the magazine stated in the opening sentence of the piece, ” what possible reason is there to believe that the ayatollahs would simply give up what the regime has worked so long and hard to achieve? The obvious answer is none at all. Which means that the assurances we have been getting from Washington about having all the time in the world to let diplomacy work—in spite of repeated failures—was pure bunk. While I wouldn’t expect those who have been working diligently to switch American policy from one aimed at stopping Iran to one of containment (something Obama has disavowed) to draw any conclusions from this, it should be noted that this turn of events has led a leading columnist at Israel’s left-wing Haaretz newspaper to make a startling concession: Netanyahu was right all along.

As Ari Shavit notes in today’s Haaretz:

While Israel was busy with light entertainment in the form of political reality shows, The Economist informed it this week that a difficult strategic reality is taking shape around it. What the world promised would never happen is happening at this very moment. What the top ranks of Israel’s defense establishment promised would never happen is in fact happening. Iran is becoming a nuclear power, while Israel (which is sunk in summer daydreams) stands alone.

From 2009 to 2012, a vigorous debate over Iran took place here. On one side were the optimists: President Shimon Peres, then-Mossad chief Meir Dagan, then-Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin, then-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the defense establishment, the media establishment and the refreshing spirit of hoping for the best. On the other side was a gloomy, besmirched pessimist: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The mention of Dagan and Diskin is important here. The former spooks were two of the stars of The Gatekeepers, a film in which former security chiefs flayed Netanyahu’s government for its policies and have been lionized in the West as the sane, smart Israelis who should be listened to instead of the dumbbells that were elected by the Israeli people. Yet, as one of their cheerleaders now attests, they were wrong about the most important defense issue faced by the country.

But as Shavit writes, it was the famous gatekeepers and other liberal Israelis who were listened to by the West:

America is there, said the optimists. No, it isn’t, said the pessimist. There’s a hidden hand, said the optimists. No, there isn’t, said the pessimist. There’s time, said the optimists. No, there isn’t, said the pessimist. Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped by the fall of 2012, the pessimist said. It’s not Iran’s nuclear program that’s the problem, but the prime minister, the optimists said.

For three and a half years, the optimists went from one journalist to another and from one American to another and said that the pessimist is a dangerous purveyor of doom and gloom who sees molehills as mountains and doesn’t understand that the world won’t let Iran go nuclear. For three and a half years, the optimists tied the pessimist’s hands on the basis of the threefold promise of America, the hidden hand and time.

Just as Israel’s left-wingers have done much to poison the minds of Western journalists and opinion-makers about the standoff with the Palestinians, the willingness of so many top Jerusalem figures to align themselves against Netanyahu on Iran had serious consequences. The optimists, as Shavit calls them, refused to help the prime minister to ratchet up the pressure on Obama to act before Iran had amassed the huge store of enriched uranium that it now possesses or it had stored much of its nuclear infrastructure in hardened, mountainside bunkers that would be difficult even for the United States to destroy. Instead, they helped hamstring the efforts of Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Ehud Barak in their efforts to mobilize the West to act or to get a green light from Washington for Israel to strike on its own.

After repeatedly accusing Netanyahu of crying “wolf” about Iran, as Shavit puts it, Israel must now deal with the fact that “a strategic wolf with nuclear teeth is now at the gate.”

But, as he notes, as dangerous as the situation has become, it is not too late for it to be corrected. A decision by the West to enact a total economic blockade and boycott of Iran—with no exceptions for China to buy their oil—could bring an already shaky Iranian economy to its knees in a manner than even the ayatollahs would have to notice. A credible threat of force rather than the amorphous language used by a president who is clearly determined to do anything but use force to stop Iran might also get their attention.

But with the U.S. seemingly ready to waste another year on a diplomatic track that is designed merely to give Iran more time to develop their nukes, there seems little chance of either of those things happening.

The result is the situation the Economist describes in which Iran is certain to get a nuclear weapon sometime before the midterm elections next year. At that point, apologies to Netanyahu from his detractors in both the U.S. and Israel will be both too late and of no use to a Jewish state confronted by a nuclear Iran that wants to wipe it off the map.

We've seen this show before   Dr. Haim Shine 6-8-13 Once again we are all invited to a repeat performance of the age-old "negotiations with the Palestinians -- now and forever." We have seen this performance many times in the past, and it has never had a happy ending. At the end of the show, we have always regretted having paid such a high price for the ticket. The actors may change, the sets may be different, but our enemies' sea of hate continues to flow. Even Greek philosopher Heraclitus (famous for saying "no man ever steps in the same river twice") would not be able to understand how intelligent people can voluntarily jump into the same turbulent, dangerous waters time and time again. No marketing slogan or presidential pyrotechnics can hide the fact that the Palestinian leadership, whichever leadership it may be, will never accept Israel's existence as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as the capital. It will never relinquish its demand for the right of return. Every Palestinian leader knows that every concession brings him closer to his demise. There will always be a "shahid" (martyr) glad to take to heaven anyone seen by radical Islam as an infidel. Every time the U.S. runs into difficulties, whether domestically or abroad, it immediately focuses all its energies focus on Israel and the Palestinian issue. It is a clearly Pavlovian response. This conditioned response rests on the assumption that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will put the entire Western world out of its misery and allow the U.S. to rehabilitate its weakened status. Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, shows very little respect for the U.S. and provokes it incessantly, as though it were a tired, hibernating bear. Putin has learned to identify the limits of President Barack Obama's ability to use force, and he is grinding the U.S.'s power advantage to dust. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, instead of investing his efforts to resolving the U.S.'s real diplomatic problems, is wasting his time on futile trips between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Kerry's efforts will not help rehabilitate the U.S.'s standing, and could actually lead to unnecessary bloodshed. The State of Israel, the American superpower's most strong and stable ally, has no choice but to play the negotiations game. Sometimes a true and essential friendship comes with a price. But it is extremely important not to fall back into the delusional trap of repeating historic mistakes like trading land for peace, freezing settlement construction or releasing Palestinian prisoners. The Jewish people congregated in the land of Israel cannot become addicted to dreams. The Jewish people must always be prepared to defend their existence. For decades now, we have been terrorized, mainly by leftists, with the notion that time is not on our side. That is nonsense. Time certainly is on our side. The State of Israel is growing stronger while the Palestinian Authority is collapsing. Every new home built in Judea and Samaria ensures our possession of our homeland. Intelligent Israelis have already understood that every piece of land that we hand over to a foreign regime will turn into a frontline terror base. It is frightening to think, in light of recent events, where we would be today if we had handed the Golan Heights over to the Syrians in exchange for peace with the mass murderer Bashar Assad. The power of Israel's leadership depends on its citizens' endurance. The citizens of Israel are determined, strong, and convinced that it would be a bad idea to buy into the same old used merchandise of a delusional peace agreement. Peace is not at our door. It will arrive only when our enemies finally understand that it is in their best interests too, and that the people of Israel will live in their historic homeland forever and ever.

The Twilight War The Secret History of America's Thirty-Years Conflict with Iran by David Crist Penguin Press, 2012. 656 pp. $36 Reviewed by Ali Alfoneh Middle East Quarterly Spring 2013, pp. 87-92 NO WESTERN COUNTRY CAN EVER WIN A NEGOTIATION WITH SOMEONE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST.  In the meantime, the Iranian regime's occasional offers of rapprochement, such as the much debated May 4, 2003 fax to the U.S. State Department,[30] carry little weight in reality. Civilian leaders may have sounded out Washington at a time when the U.S. military surrounded Iran, but were the officers of the Revolutionary Guards on the same page? Even if they were, would Tehran have honored its obligations once the vulnerabilities of the U.S. positions in Afghanistan and Iraq had become apparent? On the whole, one cannot help but think that the fundamental obstacle between the two states is the nature of the regime in Tehran. Absent external enemies, how else can Iranian leaders legitimize their repression of internal opposition? The balance between bellicosity and faux rapprochement is delicate. One day Tehran will cross the red lines of Washington and its allies thereby igniting a disastrous war,  What the Iran-Iraq War Can Teach U.S. Officials Relations with Iran have challenged every U.S. administration since the 1979 revolution, and all U.S. presidents since Jimmy Carter have had to address the regime's attempts to export its Islamist revolution abroad, its fierce opposition to the Arab-Israeli peace process, and its dogged nuclear quest. As President Barack Obama begins a second term in office, it would serve the president and those advising him well to truly understand the mindset of the revolutionary regime in order to avoid repeating past mistakes. The task of untangling that history, facilitated by such books as Kenneth Pollack's The Persian Puzzle[1] and Patrick Clawson and Michael Rubin's Eternal Iran,[2] has now received a major boost with David Crist's excellent new title The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Years Conflict with Iran.[3] Based on twenty years of archival research and four hundred interviews, it is a serious contribution to our understanding of the turbulent relations between Washington and Tehran during the past three decades. Crist highlights both the immaturity of the revolutionary regime in Tehran and errors in judgment by Washington that have led to numerous missed opportunities to normalize relations over the years. The book's most important shortcoming, however, is its lack of primary source material in the Persian language. In most cases, this material would have reinforced Crist's arguments, yet in a few important instances, this deficiency leads to questionable conclusions. In particular, his judgments about the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88)—the formative experience shaping the minds of the current crop of Iranian decision makers—would have greatly benefited from the use of such sources. Its proper understanding offers insights into the Islamic Republic's strategy today that might help avert looming catastrophes. The Iraqi Invasion According to official Islamic Republic historiography, the war with Iraq began on August 22, 1980, when Iraqi forces conducted a surprise invasion of Iranian territory.[4] Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini himself made a point of stressing the element of surprise when addressing ambassadors of Islamic countries in October 1980: "The usurping government of Saddam attacked Iran from the sea, air, and on the ground without any excuse acceptable to the governments of the world and without prior information or warning of conquest."[5] The Iraqi invasion provided Khomeini (center) with a golden opportunity to consolidate his rule, a claim borne out by former Iranian president Rafsanjani (left) who has stated: "The war gave us a path to solve the regional problems and build our nation. We all said this, and the imam too was of this belief." Notwithstanding Khomeini's public pronouncement, he had been warned of an imminent Iraqi invasion well in advance. Crist perceptively cites a meeting on October 1979 between CIA officer George Cave and then-foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi, in which such a warning was given.[6] Cave also instructed Yazdi to reactivate a signals intelligence collection station in Ilam to "find out what Iraq is up to," but Yazdi dismissed the advice saying: "They wouldn't dare!"[7] Persian language primary source material reveals other early warnings ignored by the supreme leader. In a September 22, 1991 interview with the weekly Payam-e Enghelab, Ahmad Khomeini, son of the grand ayatollah, disclosed that Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of the shah, had reached out to Grand Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris through his chief of staff. When denied an audience with Khomeini, Bakhtiar's chief of staff met with Ahmad and warned him of suspicious movements by Iraqi forces detected by Iran's military intelligence.[8] Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed Bakhtiar's warnings as a scare tactic. On June 15, 1980, Iran's first post-revolutionary president, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, sent a letter to Khomeini warning of suspicious movements of Iraqi forces.[9] A September 19, 1980 letter from the president is even more revealing: I don't know what happened at your residence last night and what the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] discussed with you. But I find it necessary to report this: … One month ago I sent you the exact same commanders who passed you information about today's conspiracy. Afterward you told me that you didn't believe in such intelligence. Today the intelligence has been proven right, and there is a strong possibility of an extensive battle from the Turkish border to Pakistan.[10] Why did Yazdi dismiss the CIA's alert? Why did Khomeini ignore Bakhtiar's, Bani-Sadr's, and the army commanders' reports on developments on the Iraqi side of the border? And why did the grand ayatollah isolate Iran diplomatically by continually threatening its neighbors with "export of the revolution" at a time when he was perfectly aware of the Iraqi threat?[11] Crist correctly concludes that the Iraqi invasion provided Khomeini with an opportunity to consolidate his rule.[12] This is further confirmed by a 2008 interview in Persian between political scientist Sadeq Zibakalam and former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. In the course of the conversation, Zibakalam told Rafsanjani: "My conclusion is that deep down, the imam [Khomeini] was happy about the war. He never said so directly, but deep down he thought that it was not us who wanted to attack the Baath regime of Iraq, but now that they have attacked us, we will pursue it [the war] to the very end." To which Rafsanjani responded: "I agree with your view. But it is not true that it was deep in his [Khomeini's] heart. He would also say that aloud. He did not hide it. … The war gave us a path to solve the regional problems and build our nation. We all said this, and the imam too was of this belief."[13] Thanks to the Iraqi invasion of Iran, Khomeini was able to rally a fragmented nation around the revolutionary leadership and hoped to use the war to overthrow the Baath regime in Baghdad. The revolutionary leadership also used the war instrumentally, to keep the remnants of the shah's army busy at the front and effectively out of politics. Finally, the invasion gave the Islamist regime the necessary excuse for suppressing popular demands for political freedoms by imposing a state of emergency. The war, indeed, proved a "divine blessing" for the regime—one actively sought and called for by Khomeini.[14] Why the War Continued after 1982 On April 3, 1982, Saddam Hussein offered a cease-fire, which was dismissed by Tehran. Not long thereafter, on May 24, Iranian forces liberated the border city of Khorramshahr, ending Iraqi occupation of Iranian territory. Why then did the war continue? According to Crist, a "divided Iranian leadership" debated its next steps in the war, but "[n]o one advocated accepting the cease-fire." He claims that Ahmad Khomeini pressed for continuing the war on Iraqi soil, but then-president Ali Khamene'i, foreign minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, and Rafsanjani (then parliamentary speaker) were "less sanguine about invading Iraq proper." Most importantly, he suggests that to some degree, Khomeini himself opposed an invasion of Iraq.[15] Access to Persian language documents corroborates this. In his September 22, 1991 interview with Payam-e Enghelab, Ahmad Khomeini revealed, The imam believed that it was better to end the war, but those responsible for the war said that we had to move toward Shatt al-Arab so that we could demand war reparations from Iraq. The imam did not agree with this line at all and used to say that if … one didn't prevail in the war now, this war couldn't be ended at all. We must continue this war to a certain point. Now that Khorramshahr had been liberated, it was the best time to end the war.[16] Rafsanjani's memoirs also stress Khomeini's opposition, conveyed through his son on March 26, 1982, and at a meeting with military commanders on June 10, 1982.[17] According to Rafsanjani, three days after the liberation of Khorramshahr, the grand ayatollah argued against invasion before the Supreme Defense Council, stating that (1) After invading Iraq, the Arab countries will support Baghdad more overtly and will display Arab extremism. (2) The people of Iraq have not supported Saddam until now because he was on our soil. But should we invade Iraq, they will support him; we should strive not to drive the Iraqi people to oppose us. (3) Should we invade Iraq, the Iraqi people will be harmed. Thus far, those Iraqis who have not fought have not been harmed. (4) The world will present us as invaders and will subject us to propaganda pressure.[18] If Grand Ayatollah Khomeini was so adamantly opposed to an invasion of Iraq, how and why did the war drag on for another six years? Who were the supporters of the continuation of the war? Persian language primary source material shows that it was the Revolutionary Guards' leaders who managed to persuade an unwilling grand ayatollah to continue the war. And in contrast to Crist's view, they were supported in this position by Rafsanjani himself. In his April 18, 1982 diary entry, Ayatollah Rafsanjani writes: The country's warlike atmosphere and the high expectations of the people, especially the combatants, are such that they ridicule such propositions [of peace negotiations] and do not consider immediate but conditional withdrawal enough and criticize those responsible for the war effort … [as to] why they don't immediately enter Iraqi soil.[19] Further, Khomeini withdrew his opposition since the "armed forces made solid military and technical arguments, and the imam, in a limited and conditional way, capitulated to their view."[20] In his memoirs and interviews, Rafsanjani has deftly avoided clarifying his own position concerning the continuation of the war after Khorramshahr, but Mohsen Rezaei, then-commander of the Revolutionary Guards, shed light on this in his own war memoirs: Following the liberation of Khorramshahr, the imam said: "You stay at the border and fight here" … [but] Rafsanjani said that we should move beyond the international borders. Should we desire to end the war, we need to have something we can use in the [cease-fire] negotiations.[21] Rezaei also claimed that Rafsanjani had urged the military to occupy Basra, to be used as a bargaining chip.[22] Different proponents of continuing the war had their own motives for doing so, but the Revolutionary Guards had the strongest. When Rezaei was appointed commander on August 24, 1981, there were only "20 to 30,000 members of the Guards and the Basij [its closely allied paramilitary force]."[23] That number increased to a quarter of a million members by 1988 with the lion's share of Iran's military budget allocated to it. This development would not have been possible had it not been for the continuation of the war. The IRGC essentially sacrificed Iran's national interest and hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives for the sake of its corporate and organizational expansion. Apart from this, Khomeini's acquiescence in the IRGC's demands for continuing the war after Khorramshahr's liberation illustrates the clerics' dependence on the IRGC to suppress domestic opposition. Beyond its historical relevance, this mechanism may also in part explain Supreme Leader Ali Khamene'i's position on the nuclear crisis today. Why the War Ended In The Twilight War, Crist echoes the widely held belief that the accidental and tragic July 3, 1988 downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes convinced the Iranian leadership to end the war with Iraq.[24] Yet while Khomeini's July 20, 1988 acceptance of the cease-fire agreement happened in the immediate wake of the civilian airliner tragedy,[25] Persian primary source material reveals that the decision had been maturing for quite some time prior to the incident. On June 3, 1988, Rafsanjani was appointed commander-in-chief. In his account, Ayatollah Abd al-Karim Mousavi Ardebili, the judiciary's chief, President Khamene'i, Ahmad Khomeini, and Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi had all concluded by June 1988 that "they [the West in general and the United States in particular] will not allow us to win in the war."[26] A number of Revolutionary Guards commanders endorsed this view, and on June 10, 1988, Ali Shamkhani, then-Revolutionary Guards ground forces commander, urged Rafsanjani to end the war.[27] On June 16, Rafsanjani met with Khamene'i, Mousavi, and Ahmad Khomeini and concluded that Iran would either have to mobilize all the resources of the state for the war effort or end the conflict. Despite their passing this on to the grand ayatollah, Khomeini still opted for total war. However, barely a month later, on July 14—eleven days after the downing of the Iranian airliner—Khomeini decided to end the war.[28] Yet rather than being impelled by the civilian disaster, this decision was based on a letter Khomeini had received from Rezaei in which the Revolutionary Guards commander confessed there would be no victory in the next five years unless almost unlimited resources were to be directed to the IRGC and the military and unless Tehran developed a nuclear bomb and managed to force the United States to leave the Persian Gulf.[29] Since none of these options seemed realistic, Khomeini chose to drink from the poisoned chalice and end the war with Iraq. Thus, the IRGC had the final say in both continuation of the war after 1982 and its end in 1988. Conclusions Iranian archives remain closed to scholars, and few individuals involved in the shaping or execution of Tehran's policies are willing to risk their lives giving interviews. Outside of Western intelligence experts with access to classified documents, there is little that academics or nongovernment analysts can rely on for accurate information. In spite of the lack of Persian source material, Crist's Twilight War is among the best works we have. What is most sobering is that twenty-four years after the end of the war with Iraq, the leadership of the Islamic Republic faces many of the same challenges seen during that conflict. The regime in Tehran combines an incredible degree of unpreparedness for conflict with the greatest degree of provocation against regional countries and great powers alike. Threats to annihilate Israel, rivalry with Sunni Arab states, systematic provocations against the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with its clandestine nuclear program, have left Tehran largely isolated and friendless in a dangerous world. The regime hopes to rally a fragmented nation around the flag by maintaining Iran in a permanent state of crisis, just as it did during the Iran-Iraq war. Yet in the midst of the crisis, political factions, in particular the Revolutionary Guards, sacrifice the welfare of the Iranian nation on the altar of their own narrow interests, following the exact path as in the 1980s. In the meantime, the Iranian regime's occasional offers of rapprochement, such as the much debated May 4, 2003 fax to the U.S. State Department,[30] carry little weight in reality. Civilian leaders may have sounded out Washington at a time when the U.S. military surrounded Iran, but were the officers of the Revolutionary Guards on the same page? Even if they were, would Tehran have honored its obligations once the vulnerabilities of the U.S. positions in Afghanistan and Iraq had become apparent? On the whole, one cannot help but think that the fundamental obstacle between the two states is the nature of the regime in Tehran. Absent external enemies, how else can Iranian leaders legitimize their repression of internal opposition? The balance between bellicosity and faux rapprochement is delicate. One day Tehran will cross the red lines of Washington and its allies thereby igniting a disastrous war, which is likely to prove another poisoned chalice waiting for Iranian leaders to drink. Ali Alfoneh is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. [1] Random House, 2005. [2] Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. [3] New York, Penguin, 2012. [4] "Aghaz-e Jang-e Tahmili-ye Eragh Alayh-e Iran Va Hafteh-ye Defa'-e Moghaddas," Markaz-e Asnad-e Enghelab-e Eslami website, Tehran, accessed Sept. 13, 2010. [5] Moassesseh-ye Tanzim Va Nashr-e Asar-e Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, CD-ROM, Tehran, vol. 13, p. 276. [6] "Toward an International History of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988: A Critical Oral History Workshop," Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., July 19, 2004; David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Years Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 87. [7] Crist, The Twilight War, p. 87. [8] Moassesseh-ye Tanzim Va Nashr-e Asar-e Emam Khomeini, Majmou-eh-ye Asar-e Yadegar-e Emam—Hojjat al-Eslam va Al-Moslemin Hajj Seyyed Ahmad Khomeini (N.P., 1996), p. 715. [9] Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, Nameh-ha Az Agha-ye Bani-Sadr Be Agha-ye Khomeini va Digaran (Frankfurt Am Main: Enghelab-e Eslami Zeitung, 2006), p. 55. [10] Ibid., p. 156. [11] See Khomeini's Dec. 17, 1979 interview quoted in Moassesseh-ye Tanzim Va Nashr-e Asar-e Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, vol. 11, p. 290; idem, Dec. 19, 1979 interview quoted in Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, vol. 11, p. 336; idem, Jan. 5, 1980 interview with Time quoted in Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, vol. 12, p. 37; idem, Mar. 21, 1980 new year address quoted in Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, vol. 12, p. 202. [12] Crist, The Twilight War, p. 89. [13] Sadeq Zibakalam and Fereshteh Sadat Ettefaghfar, Hashemi Bedoun-e Routoush (Tehran: Rowzaneh, 2008), p. 277. [14] Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami, Gozari Bar Do Sal Jang (N.P.: Daftar-e Siasi-ye Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami, n.d.), p. 21. [15] Crist, The Twilight War, p. 94. [16] Khomeini, Majmou-eh-ye Asar-e Yadegar-e Emam, pp. 716-17. The same claim was also made in the memoirs of Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khaterat-e Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri (Los Angeles: Ketab Corp., 2001), p. 330. [17] Fatemeh Hashemi, ed., Pas Az Bohran. Karnameh va Khaterat-e Hashemi Rafsanjani Sal-e 61, (Tehran: Daftar-e Nashr-e Ma'aref-e Enghelab, 2000), pp. 40, 137. [18] Zibakalam and Ettefaghfar, Hashemi Bedoun-e Routoush, pp. 285-6. [19] Hashemi, Pas Az Bohran. Karnameh, pp. 68-9. [20] Zibakalam and Sadat Ettefaghfar, Hashemi Bedoun-e Routoush, p. 286. [21] Mohsen Rezaei Mir-Qaed, Jang Be Revayat-e Farmandeh, Pezhman Pourjabbari, ed. (Tehran: Bonyad-e Hefz-e Asar va Nashr-e Arzesh-ha-ye Defae-e Moqaddas, 2012), pp. 140-1. [22] Ibid. [23] Ibid., p. 42. [24] Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 370-1. [25] Moassesseh-ye Tanzim Va Nashr-e Asar-e Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, Sahifeh-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini, vol. 21, p. 95. [26] Rezaei, Jang Be Revayat-e Farmandeh, p. 289. [27] Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Payan-e Defae—Aghaz-e Bazsazi, Ali-Reza Hashemi, ed. (Tehran: Daftar-e Nashr-e Maaref-e Enqelab, 2012), p. 163. [28] Ibid., pp. 171-2, 210. [29] Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khaterat-e Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, pp. 571-2. [30] Crist, The Twilight War, p. 476.