Outcome of Iran Diplomacy Is Inevitable
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

A military attack to halt Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon may be too dangerous. Alternatives to an airstrike are being floated, but can they be effective? One thing, at least, should be abundantly clear: The West’s current diplomatic strategy — offering endless incentives to Iran, hoping it will change its behavior — is little more than an exercise in self-delusion.
Western diplomats reportedly are “disappointed” at Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki’s written response over the weekend to the most recent incentive package that the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, offered to Iran. Disappointed? The Iranian response should have been foreseeable to anyone who’s been paying attention.
Reading Mr. Solana’s package of benefits, Israel’s Ephraim Sneh told me, “I thought it was being offered to Sweden or Norway,” not a terrorist regime that has thumbed its nose at U.N. Security Council resolutions. But the mullahs will react to the new generous package as they always have, he predicted last week.
“Iran will fool the West to buy time, and the West will allow itself to be fooled,” Mr. Sneh, a former deputy defense minister, said.
Sure enough, European diplomats swore that they could detect “new language” in statements from Iranian officials such as Mr. Mottaki and Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign policy adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Their statements were vague enough to raise hopes for a breakthrough. But then the nonanswer came in writing: The mullahs made it clear that they have no intention whatsoever of suspending their enrichment of uranium, as the Security Council has demanded. Instead, they offered more negotiations.
Surprised? Was any other outcome possible?
Meanwhile, some much-needed cold water is being thrown on the recent talk of a possible Israeli air attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Nonstop barking from Jerusalem seemed to replace Israel’s painful bite in recent weeks, as anonymous Israel Defense Force sources and Pentagon officials predicted an Israeli military strike before the end of President Bush’s term.
But some missing pieces of data might render such an attack ineffective, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday. Gaps in Israeli intelligence on the precise locations and vulnerabilities of Iran’s facilities emerged during recent talks between Israeli generals and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Telegraph reported. Such gaps could explain why Admiral Mullen cautioned last week against the opening of a “third front” in America’s wars and walked back American support for an Israeli air attack.
Israel struck the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981 and reportedly demolished a Syrian facility last September, doing so without publicly commenting in advance about the nuclear sites. Constant speculation about its plans to attack Iran now — chatter that at times is derived from political needs in Washington and Jerusalem — can’t be helpful for Israeli air force strategists as they chart their military course.
Even if someone like Osama bin Laden were to go berserk tomorrow and attack the Iranian nuclear facilities, America and Israel would immediately be seen as the culprits. With dependents such as Hamas in the south, Hezbollah in the north, and Syria in the east, Iran would certainly retaliate and shower Israeli cities with missiles. Attacks on U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, as well as a possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 70% of the world’s oil passes, would no doubt cause considerable discomfort here, as well. The military planners need to take all that into account.
But what if they already have? In some Israeli circles, there is talk that persistent cloak-and-dagger operations could hobble Iran’s nuclear program much more effectively than a spectacular one-time air strike. Somewhere on the way between, say, Beijing and Natanz, agents could replace deliveries of highly sensitive components with defective material. Such “switches” may already have occurred, according to some press reports. But an Israeli intelligence source I talked to dismissed such ideas as “James Bond stuff” that at best could be employed only once.
Still, with all these caveats in mind, few Israelis would go along with the notion, increasingly accepted in international circles, that the West should begrudgingly accept a nuclear Iran. This will be the unavoidable outcome of Mr. Solana’s diplomatic charade. Many analysts, especially in Europe and at Turtle Bay, genuinely believe that military or any other nondiplomatic action to halt Iran’s nuclear progress is the real danger — one that should be stopped by all available means.
If that’s your primary fear, wouldn’t you too hang on to the thinnest sliver of hope for diplomacy with Iran’s skilled negotiators?
bavni@nysun.com