What’s going on in the Middle East among Israel, the U.S., Iran and whoever else?
As I have previously described on this station, the U.S. has repeatedly and publicly objected to Israel’s driving the Palestinians out of the West Bank but it has used none of its levers of power – so whose policy is that? Is it American policy to push the Palestinians out of anything and everything they have? Or just Israeli policy? The problem with Israel and the West Bank has been described by people like Thomas Friedman since the 1967 Six Day War in which it was conquered.
Nevertheless, improvements from abroad were possible if, but only if, foreign powers knew what they were doing.
President Obama negotiated a deal to restrict Iranian production of nuclear material. Repeated inspections by international agencies confirmed that Iran honored the terms of that deal. But President Trump pulled the U.S. out of that deal in his first term – so it was the U.S., not Iran, who couldn’t abide by a deal. And in his second term Mr. Trump has objected to increases in Iranian nuclear material but that was the result of cancellation of the nuclear deal by Mr. Trump.
Why would Mr. Trump make such a big deal over a policy that was working? I see two reasons. First, he obviously hates being compared, unfavorably, to a Black man. I have no problem with the fact that many Black men, and women, have achieved things I could not possibly have done. Whatever Trump’s private attitude to African-Americans, his hostility to the recognition of Black accomplishments certainly suggests that it has become a problem for him that his path has not yielded the same presidential successes as his Black predecessor.
And Mr. Trump’s understanding of his own political “base” seems to be that he believes his supporters are not only gun-rights enthusiasts, but also people who support the use of guns to solve their problems – at least international ones. So, peaceful resolution of our issues with Iran is a double problem for Mr. Trump. But my stomach turns at the thought of our Presidents using war for political advantage.
Many people would be happier if I gave you a he-said-she-said story but I think the story is much deeper.
Iran is not a backward so-called third-world country. They have welcomed immigrants into Iran with grace and hospitality since Biblical times, reflected in the Biblical description of the reception of the Jews after they were expelled from the Temple in Jerusalem, and they commemorate their hospitality to Jews with the monument to Esther and Mordecai which stands in the city of Hamadan where I often saw it. (Jews celebrate Esther and Mordecai annually as part of the story of Purim.)
Americans trained Iranians at every level of Persian society – from school children to military personnel or, in my case, at the University level. A large portion of the people of Iran speak English and have traveled the world. They are a large country with considerable resources and a very well-developed sense of polite behavior. The most dominant sentiment in Iran has nothing to do with who’s in charge – it is nationalism. Iranians are proud and patriotic. That was obvious to Peace Corps volunteers who served there as far back as the 1960s when I was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer there. But Kissinger (US Secretary of State under President Ford) built a foreign service on the principle that encouraging diplomats to understand the countries in which they served was equivalent to encouraging them to “go native.” But Iran is hard to understand from brief tours. We do not speak or even read their language. We do not go to their schools. Learning to understand Iranian culture so that one can deal with Iran appropriately on the basis of mutual respect is time-consuming and complex. Misunderstanding Iranians, our interventions backfire all the time. So, we misunderstand them all the time.
I can’t give you numbers, but a very large portion of the Iranian people certainly hated the Ayatollah, and nevertheless instinctively understood that removing him would not remove the problem which was built into control over armaments and social connections. They need support, not bombs.
The “problem” isn’t Iran or Iranians, it’s not even Israel or the U.S. It’s the man in what used to be the White House before he gilded it.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. He enjoys the help of his editor, Jeanette Gottlieb
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