Surprise for Wesley Clark

On the topic of General Wesley Clark's remark about the influence of "New York money people," let me say that I hope he is right. I hope "New York money people" are, in fact, telling Democratic Party hotshots with their hands out for contributions that beyond the terrible mess in Iraq lies a more dangerous challenge, that of Iran.

The big problem is that General Clark might well be wrong. The chief editor of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, writes in his blog, "many New York money people, as" Clark "calls them, refuse to face the necessity of, at least, the war option." And I have little doubt that many American Jews are wedded to the foreign policy conceptions currently predominating on the liberal-left.

Still no mainstream Jewish organization has come out against such an attack, although no one has come out for it either. That's because, in part, everyone agrees that the diplomatic efforts orchestrated at the United Nations Security Council should be given some time to play out. The gamble is whether intelligence agencies, diplomats, and politicians will correctly calculate exactly when their efforts produce — or fail to produce — positive results, before Iran actually tests its first weapon.

So far, the only effective sanctions are the ones that have been imposed by our own Treasury Department. Russia and communist China aren't playing ball. They say the right things — they don't want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons — but then Russia sells Iran a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile system. It's defensive, the Russians explain. Well, yes, but against what? Whose planes will those missiles be shooting down and under what circumstances?

The only sensible argument I've heard against such an attack is that, given how Iraq went down, the Bush administration can't be trusted to carry out such a complex mission. But liberals who believe that should also understand the gravity of the threat posed by Iran. Yet parts of the anti-war left think America, not Iran, is the problem.

United for Peace and Justice, the "moderate" — as compared with the ANSWER coalition — anti-war umbrella group, "opposes any military action against Iran, as well as covert action and sanctions. … All diplomatic solutions must be pursued." Presumably, United for Peace and Justice will continue to urge "diplomatic solutions" even after diplomatic solutions are pursued to the end and result in a nuclear armed Iran.

General Clark thinks, from the context of his statement, that it is a terrible thing for New York donors to push the party on the Iranian question. I agree. With the Jewish community already under fire for allegedly dragging the country into the Iraq war, it will be awfully tricky to see Jews leading the push to keep all the options open on Iran. Better by far would be if non-Jews, or, to use the term of choice, non-New Yorkers, would push the Democrats on this point.

But where are they? Last March, Senator Edwards told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference that "for far too long we've abdicated our responsibility to deal with the Iranian threat to the Europeans. That is not the way to deal with an unacceptable threat." Whether that was accurate or not last March, it's clearly no longer a viable criticism of the Bush administration policy.

Mr. Edwards' speech was short on offering any solutions. General Clark thinks we should "go as far as you can with the diplomacy," but advises "the United States to tone down the rhetoric, tone down the threats." He favors direct talks with Iran.

Democratic Party leaders, and certainly all of them running for the presidential nomination, vigorously oppose a nuclear-armed Iran. The question is this: with anti-war fervor sweeping the party base, which of them will insist on distinguishing the Iranian threat from the Iraqi morass — and not only in front of a Jewish or pro-Israel audience?

At least one senator thinks that this will prove politically impossible. Senator Bayh of Indiana told Jeffrey Goldberg of the New Yorker that he was concerned that Iraq had "soured … an entire generation on the necessity, from time to time, of using force. … That would be tragic, because Iran is a grave threat. They're everything we thought Iraq was but wasn't." With the country weary of the cries of "wolf," will anyone cry wolf, now that the real wolf is outside the door?

Mr. Twersky is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.