Compartmentalization: Iran Policy

Despite the push for a Palestinian State, it isn’t “Palestine” the Administration is seeking. It is, rather, unified regional – Arab and Israeli – opposition to the nuclearization of Iran and Iran’s export of terrorism and missile technology.

[Ed Note: This is the third in this most recent series of JINSA Reports on the Administration’s “Palestine Policy” and efforts to score a Middle East success by creating the State of Palestine, even if the current State Department proposal for an international conference fails.]

Despite the push for a Palestinian State, it isn’t “Palestine” the Administration is seeking. It is, rather, unified regional – Arab and Israeli – opposition to the nuclearization of Iran and Iran’s export of terrorism and missile technology.

In that worthy quest, Secretary of State Rice has returned to the early days of Bush 43 and to its antecedents in Bush 41. She is listening to Arab leaders (mainly the Saudis) who say they would just LOVE to help us, but as long as Palestine is occupied, their “street” just won’t permit it. In the spring of 2001, Vice President Cheney and then-Secretary Powell toured the region to gin up support for dealing with Saddam and the crumbling 10-year-old sanctions regime and “no-fly zone.” They came home with the understanding that Israel’s occupation of “Palestine” stood in the way. The 2006 Baker Commission report on Iraq said the same thing- the Arab states would just LOVE to help us stabilize Iraq, but the occupation of Palestine was the real problem.

If America could just solve the damn Palestinian problem, it would be so much easier for everyone. Except that it isn’t true.

The United States can’t solve the Palestinian problem and neither can Israel. Which is not to say the Administration can’t pressure Israel into doing dangerous things; or that the Israeli government won’t choose to do dangerous things, only that those things won’t solve the problem. Only Palestinians can solve the Palestinian problem. They have to acknowledge to themselves and their people that they (or the Arab states on their behalf) made a mistake in 1948. They have to accept that the creation of Israel was not a mistake by the international community; that Israel is a permanent, legitimate part of the region. They have to abandon the idea of eliminating Israel by attrition or by waiting for another country to do it in – Iran or any other.

Until that happens, and we are not holding our collective breath, the problems of the Middle East will have to be approached as they are, not as they would be if Israel wasn’t there or if Palestine was there.

• The Saudis, Jordan and the Gulf States are worried about Iran. So are we.
• The Syrians are worried about Sunni jihad.
• Lebanon requires concerted Western help, including sealing the border with Syria.
• Egypt is frozen between an ailing Mubarak with no successor and the potential rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.
• The Palestinians are split between the corrupt, secular Fatah and the Iranian-backed, religious Hamas – both violent and repressive.
• Iraq’s borders need to be controlled on both ends.

None of these crucial problems would be any less so with the addition of a corrupt, terrorist-supporting Palestinian state in the region. Iran requires an Iran policy and the neighbors would be well advised to get on board while there is still some time to pursue the diplomacy the U.S. wants/needs to pursue.