It may be the biggest charm offensive since the Khmer Rouge tried belatedly to endear themselves to Cambodians. That didn’t go very well, but then, again, it’s hard to make nice to the relatives of one million dead.
Iran hasn’t committed genocide, though Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, its former president, denied the Holocaust and mused about liquidating Israel. That is why Israel and the world have declared that Iran must not have nuclear weapons.
Now Ahmadinejad is gone, and his successor, Hassan Rouhani, arrives bearing figs and flowers. As he visits the United Nations this week, he talks of engagement and flexibility.
If ever there were an opportunity to start anew, this is it. What happens in New York in the next few days could re-cast this vexing issue.
There remain two choices. Either Iran gives up its ambitions to make and deliver nuclear weapons and rejoins the international community. Or it remains, with North Korea, the world’s pariah — beggared by sanctions, ignored in international councils, threatened with attack.
To understand the importance of this moment, remember how we got here. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long warned that Iran is building the bomb. He has talked often of lines, lights and ultimatums; for him, Iran is an existential threat. Israel cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran.
Eighteen months ago, it looked as if Israel was about to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, as it did Iraq’s in 1981 and Syria’s in 2007. U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly persuaded Netanyahu to wait for sanctions to bite or Iran’s leadership to change. He said that if there is hard proof that Iran is developing a bomb and negotiations fail, the U.S. would strike Iran.
The argument for intervention is unpersuasive, if not unhinged. Hitting Iran would inflame moderate Iranians, ensuring the reign of fire-breathing militants indefinitely. It would invite a wave of terrorism against the West. Worse, if the regime ever had reservations about developing the bomb, it would invoke a moral licence to proceed in self-defence.
The strongest argument against a military campaign, however, is that it won’t work. The intelligence suggests that air strikes would delay Iran’s program of diffuse, well-fortified nuclear facilities — perhaps by two or three years — but not destroy it. For all the risks, the benefits would be minimal.
The argument for restraint has always been to give sanctions and cyber-warfare time to work. The real hope in waiting was that eight years of the loathsome Ahmadinejad would be followed by someone rational.
In other words, the doves asked the hawks to bet on domestic politics and international diplomacy. Now we’ll see. In July, Iran elected Rouhani president. He is not Anwar Sadat, and might not win the endorsement of B’nai Brith. But this we know: He is not Ahmadinejad.
Predictably, the hawks say this is “a trap” set by Iran to buy time.
Netanyahu has already rejected the notion that Rouhani, a moderate, might be a game-changer.
Maybe. But Rouhani has reasons to abandon his nuclear aspirations. His economy is in free fall; the currency is half what it was. Inflation is surging and unemployment is high, particularly among young Iranians. Moreover, as columnist Thomas Friedman writes, Iran faces an environmental catastrophe from a rising population of 75 million, as well as growing desertification. According to the country’s former minister of agriculture, the greatest threat to Iran today is its vanishing groundwater, which in 30 years will make it “a ghost town.”
Obama, who has been diminished by his mishandling of Syria, needs a deal, too. As a display of diplomacy, disarming Syria’s chemical weapons may yet save his credibility and burnish his presidency; the same might also work in Iran.
From Canada, which takes its talking points from Jerusalem, expect little help here. Then again, you become irrelevant when you close your embassy in Tehran and your prime minister shuns the United Nations.
Still, Canada might use its good offices with Israel to close a deal — if it ensures the Iranians will close their nuclear plant at Qum, stop enriching uranium and export their remaining supply.
Unlike Stephen Harper, Obama and Rouhani will address the General Assembly this week. Let them meet, talk and test the good faith of this new, conciliatory Iran.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.
