Obama's Munich Moment

Washington, D.C. – When the kings and Emirs of four Muslim countries and Israeli leaders are talking alliance something profound is shaking the old order in the Middle East.

That something can only be the role of the United States, Iran and Russia playing out their own interests in the Middle East. As is strikingly evident, the usual “too bad” of Realpolitik may be acceptable to old American foreign policy hands like Brent Scowcroft, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the fabulously rich Gulf Emirates have their own ideas. And why be surprised? After all, the “historic deal” struck in Geneva in the wee hours of last Sunday morning, and hailed as a “historic” achievement by President Barack Obama, will have immediate and long-lasting consequences for Jews and Sunni Arabs alike. Both countries are regional neighbors revered and reviled for their eternal strife, but now are increasingly drawn together to resist an imposed order which, as they see it, reduces them to the status of endangered species.

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That is why Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates may end up in the same tent, justified by the ancient logic of “enemies of my enemy are my friends”.
For Israel and Saudi Arabia Iran per se may not be the enemy. Their enemy is nuclear-armed Iran. Mr. Obama and his five Iran initiative partners – Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany -- insist there is nothing in the six-month agreement which would allow Iran to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. But enrichment is enrichment and experience shows short-term agreements lasting remarkably long and eroding rules they are supposed to enforce. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded the agreement as a “historic” mistake. “Today,” he said, “the world has a much more dangerous place because the most dangerous regime in the world has taken a significant step toward attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world.” He said it to his cabinet and, reportedly, in a stormy telephone exchange with President Barack Obama. But happenings are weightier than words. As reported by American networks, the Times of London and several other major media organs, the specter of Iran armed with nuclear weapons is frightening enough for Jerusalem and Riyadh to have Israeli and Saudi Arabian military personnel evaluating Saudi Air Force bases as launching pads for Israeli planes that could be ordered to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Why do Israel and Saudi Arabia see Iran and its nuclear program more as more menacing than does President Obama? The answer is crisp and clear: Parties subject to agreements made for them suspect and fear that their security is being sold out for the expected benefit of the agreement’s authors. History is replete with such calculations gone wrong. The horrible and best remembered example is the Munich Agreement signed in September 1938. Seventy-five years ago Britain and France agreed with Hitler that Germany should have Czechoslovakia to better protect its German minority. Waving the document as he stood on the steps of his plane back in England, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proclaimed “peace for our time.” The date was September 30, 1938. The Czechs didn’t see it that way, but their anguish did not matter. But Munich mattered soon enough: World War Two broke out 11 months later when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Some fifty million people perished in the war –six million of them were Jews, gassed and cremated industrial-style in Nazi extermination camps. Jews have never forgotten and the impact of the Holocaust haunts the Iranian nuclear weapons issue. Put most directly, Israel sees nuclear Iran as an existential danger. Saudi Arabia, too sees existential danger lurking from Iran. The fears may strike as exaggerated but they are real enough for King Abdullah to order a reorienting of his country’s policy away from the United States and probing for possible common defense with Israel. Why is that so: Because the barely days-old Geneva agreement gives a de facto nod to Iran’s right to uranium enrichment and thus to nuclear weapons. Reached under immense pressure United States and Russia the agreement appears to have been for the sake of agreement because it yielded to Iran’s stubborn insistence to have its right to enrich recognized in however fogged-up form. In addition to the United States and Russia, China, Great Britain, France and Germany are the signatory powers. Article Four of the 1970 Non Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed over thirty years ago, gives all signatory countries the “inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” The United States does not recognize this enabling article on the grounds that word “enrichment” is not in the text of the Treaty. However, in reality, Washington’s policy has been flexible all along. Enrichment has already extended to commercial enterprises where electrical utilities, research centers and hospitals can buy the enriched uranium product they need. Enrichment facilities exist in Argentina, Brazil, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States. The issues involved in the Iran enrichment problem are complex, as even my sketchy outline shows. What is not complex, though, is Israel’s existential fear. It alone drives both the distrust of the Geneva agreement and the previously unthinkable possibility of a common Israeli – Saudi Arabian defense front. “The prime minister (Netanyahu),” commented the Jerusalem Post, “must make it clear to the most powerful man on earth, it is important to make a change in American policy because the practical result of his policy is liable to lead him to the same failure that Americans absorbed in North Korea and Pakistan and Iran could be the next in line.” North Korea and Pakistan have built their own nuclear weapons while plying the United States with denials and delays. President Obama has a record of resetting buttons that alter international balances. The button he reset on United States – Russia relations proved what it means just last week when independent Ukraine landed back in Mother Russia’s lap.