By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
On Dec. 16, a day after the U.S. House of Representatives approved a sanctions plan that would restrict the sale of refined petroleum to Iran, a group of about 40 people gathered at Town Hall Seattle to listen to a panel of experts discuss the U.S. and Israel’s policies toward Iran.
The views shared at the Town Hall event, intended to be a left-leaning counter to a similar Jewish Federation-sponsored event held in October, have become increasingly less popular among the Jewish community in the past few months.
According to a recent survey by the American Jewish Committee, more than 60 percent of American Jews would support an attack on Iran by the U.S. Even left-leaning lobbying organization J Street has voiced its support of sanctions, a tactic it initially opposed.
Still, a good deal of the American public sees sanctions as a poor choice for dealing with Iran, and they deserve to have their opinions heard, said organizer and local blogger Richard Silverstein .
“We’re here because we want to hear intelligent, thoughtful discussion on this topic,” he said.
Keith Weissman, former director of AIPAC’s Iran desk, kicked off the event with a discussion about why sanctions won’t work in Iran and what he feels the U.S. ought to do instead.
“No sanction that has ever been enacted unilaterally by the U.S. has ever gotten anyone to do anything,” he said.
The best thing the U.S. can do right now, Weissman argued, is to take a wait-and-see approach. Since Iran’s contested elections in June, the country has been in a state of turmoil, lacking in a clear chain of command or cohesive political ideology.
“When we say ‘dealing with Iran,’ who exactly are we talking about?” Weissman asked. “There is really no way for us to tell how decisions are being made on [the nuclear] issue.”
The political landscape of Iran may change dramatically over the next couple of years, negating the need for aggressive action on the part of other nations wanting to halt its nuclear program. But right now, Weissman insisted, Iran’s future is too hazy for the U.S. or any other country to be able to see what threat, if any, Iran will actually pose.
“We have no control over this and no reason to try to control it,” he said.
Ian Lustick, political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said that although Israelis have different reasons for wanting to curtail Iran’s nuclear activities, they too have overestimated the risk Iran actually poses.
“There is no bona fide threat from Iran to Israel,” Lustick said. “Why then the hysteria if not for actual risk of a nuclear attack?”
Lustick painted a picture of Israel as a country still mired in the trauma of the Holocaust, unable to see the political reality of the Iran situation.
“If you want to understand Israeli foreign policy, it is really kind of a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder situation,” he said.
Lustick neglected to explain why Israel should disregard the consistent threats of violence and anti-Semitic rhetoric from Iranian leaders as less than legitimate, however.
Muhammad Sahimi, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California, filled in a few of the gaps through his assessment of the state of Iran’s nuclear program at this time.
He presented Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons as a program of national security rather than part of any ambition to attack another country.
“The lesson Iran has learned from other countries in the Middle East is if you have the bomb, they will leave you alone,” he said. “Iran, just like Israel, has legitimate security concerns.”
He stressed that despite Iran’s hostility toward Israel, an actual attack is unlikely, given the horrendous consequences such an attack would have for Iran itself.
“I cannot think of any conceivable scenario in which they would use a bomb [against Israel],” Sahimi said.
Since the threat of real aggression from Iran is so low, he said, the best way to influence Iran’s nuclear policy is to encourage the nation to move toward real democracy.
“The way to go is to support Iran’s democratic efforts,” Sahimi said. He noted that if Iran were to become a more democratic nation, there would be less international concern about their nuclear program.
“India has the bomb, but no one worries about it because India is a democracy and we can talk with them,” he said.
Sahimi stressed that supporting democratic movement in Iran does not mean military intervention, however. What it does mean, he did not say.