The past few years have not been kind to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the so-called Israel lobby in Washington. And it's not just because the Jimmy Carter and Walt-Mearsheimer books made it to the best-seller list. It's because its policies on Iran have been far too confrontational, at a time when (according to the polls) most Americans favor talking to Iran before considering the war option.
Last week, for instance, the House of Representatives killed a resolution that "demanded" that the president begin to enforce a host of economic sanctions on Iran that, although currently on the books, the Bush administration has not implemented. In addition, it would have imposed an air and naval blockade on that country until it agreed to suspend its nuclear-enrichment activities.
The blockade's purpose would have been to stop the import to Iran of gasoline (Iran has a limited refining capacity). But it would have gone far beyond that. It would, for example, have "prohibited the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program." In other words, the United States would have relegated to itself the option of physically preventing Iranian officials from traveling abroad, except when those officials travel in order to implement our demands.
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Proposed this past spring, the resolution initially gathered majority support in the House. That was predictable, as it was introduced in conjunction with AIPAC's annual conference in Washington in June. The lobby's thousands of delegates were dispatched to the House and Senate and told to sign up co-sponsors to the bill. As is always the case with AIPAC-pushed legislation, most representatives quickly signed up. But then something unusual happened.
Internet bloggers (including me) began writing about the bill, explaining that the blockade it proposed far exceeded sanctions. We explained that a blockade is in fact an act of war (that is, of course, how Israel viewed Egypt's blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba in 1967), and that this made the resolution dangerous. Although non-binding, it would be telling the Bush administration that Congress prefers actions tantamount to war before diplomacy. (In fact, the resolution did not even raise the possibility of negotiations.)
Once the bill was exposed on the Internet, Capitol Hill was inundated with protests. Suddenly AIPAC and the Jewish right found they were not the only players concerned about the issue. Suddenly, members of Congress saw that other constituents were paying attention to the Middle East and that they preferred diplomacy to war. A number of organizations started their own lobbying efforts against the bill. And they were effective.
Then two Jewish members of Congress, Barney Frank and Robert Wexler - both close to AIPAC, and both of them co-sponsors of the resolution - said they could not support it unless its text was amended so that, as Wexler put it, it also "highlight[ed] a more effective strategy that calls for direct engagement with Tehran." That effort to amend the resolution did not succeed, and Wexler and Frank were joined by several other representatives who expressed dismay that the bill could be construed as a war resolution.
Sources on Capitol Hill tell me that the bill's failure was assured when key House members asked the leadership not to bring the resolution up for a vote. They didn't want to offend AIPAC, but they didn't want to offend their constituents either. The leadership agreed and that was that. Congress is adjourning without taking action on either the House bill or its far more moderate Senate counterpart.
Another AIPAC-backed bill, urging tighter sanctions on the Iranian regime, did pass the House, but not in the form preferred by the lobby. AIPAC pushed hard for a bill that would have eliminated the president's authority to not impose sanctions on Iran if he believed that they were not in the national interest. But even here AIPAC's clout made no difference. The House passed a weakened bill that maintains the president's authority and emphasizes the need for diplomacy.
And that is the key issue. The problem with the AIPAC approach is that it ignores the idea of negotiating with Iran. Why? Talking to Tehran is hardly a radical suggestion, having been endorsed last month by five former secretaries of state, including Henry Kissinger. The five endorsed unconditional negotiations with Iran over the nuclear issue as well as over the Islamic Republic's support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, in exchange for improved relations with Washington.
Both Congress and the former secretaries are right. The U.S. and its allies have tried sanctions and they have not worked, largely because there is no way to get China and Russia to join us in implementing them. Even the American government refuses to enforce all the sanctions that are already on the books. As for the military option, it is always on the table. But before even considering an option so destabilizing, and also likely to fail, we need to try diplomacy.
Is Iran ready for it?
We now know that in 2003 the Iranian regime sought a "grand bargain" with the U.S. that would have addressed all the outstanding issues dividing the countries. The Bush administration ignored the Iranian overture. That was a mistake.
And so is AIPAC's approach. Any serious effort to block Iran's nuclear ambitions must begin with unconditional talks. Asking the Iranians to suspend enrichment prior to negotiations won't work. If we want something from them - and we do - we need to stop issuing demands and sit down and negotiate. War must be a last resort, especially following the Iraq debacle. If AIPAC is serious about countering the Iranian threat, it needs to recognize that.
The Iranian regime is dangerous and I take its threats against Israel very seriously. Because I do, I favor using every weapon in our arsenal to neutralize it. One of those weapons is diplomacy. To reject it out of hand is to accept that, at some point in the not-so-distant future, the missiles will fly. That is simply insanity.
M.J. Rosenberg is the director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, in Washington, D.C.
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