Bill Clinton, when he was running for re-election as President in 1996, declared, “We remain the world’s indispensable nation to advance prosperity, peace and freedom and to keep our children safe from the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction.” His second-term secretary of state Madeleine Albright repeated the phrase “indispensable nation” so much that many people thought she originated the phrase.
Actually, Clinton privately had a more modest view of America’s role in the world. Strobe Talbott, a friend of Clinton’s and former deputy secretary of state, says that after leaving the White House, Clinton told him he wanted to get the American people to accept a multi-polar world. Clinton said, “I wanted to build a world for our grandchildren to live in where America was no longer the sole superpower, for a time when we would have to share the stage.”
Talbott asked Clinton why he didn’t say that while he was president. Clinton responded, “That’s why you’re a wonk, and I was president of the United States. Because it’s political suicide to say … [that] ‘my vision is that we have to prepare for our children’s and grandchildren’s era when America’s not going to be the top dog.’ I’d have been ridden out of town on a rail!”
Barack Obama is facing this dilemma right now in the controversy surrounding the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers. There is a massive campaign underway by Republicans, the gov ernment of Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to kill the deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran wishes to “take over the world.” Naftali Bennett, the leader of Israel’s far right settlers party, says this is “one of the darkest days in world history.” In the United States, GOP presidential candidate Lindsey Graham says the deal is a “death sentence for Israel” and radio talk show host Glenn Beck predicts that the deal will cause another Holocaust “perhaps bigger than the last.”
Peace groups and multi-issue progressive organizations are campaigning for the deal. Among them are J Street (the self-described “pro-Israel and pro-peace” Jewish lobbying group which competes with the hawkish AIPAC) and Jewish Voices for Peace. In June, J Street commissioned a poll of American Jewish voters which found that they favor by 59 to 41 percent an agreement that would require Iran to significantly restrict its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of economic sanctions. This is higher than the 53 to 43 percent margin that CNN found recently among the general public.
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami says:
“Most American Jews support the president in believing that diplomacy, and not military action, provides the best chance of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran. If finalized, the emerging deal would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon, and it would impose the most intrusive inspections regime in history, allowing inspectors full access to Iranian facilities, including underground sites.”
But in Israel, a majority of Jews and almost all politicians support Netanyahu’s opposition to the deal. However, there are a growing number of high-ranking veterans of Israel’s security establishment who are publicly supporting the deal. J.J. Goldberg reports in The Jewish Daily Forward that they include a former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, who now heads Israel’s main defense think tank; a former chief of arms technology, Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, who now chairs The Israel Space Agency; and Israel Ziv, a former chief of military operations among others.
Goldberg reports that the security insiders have differing opinions about the agreement. Some say it is a bad deal but Israel can live with it. Others say it’s good for Israel. But Goldberg notes that “[e]ither way, they agree that Israel should work with the Obama administration to plot implementation, rather than mobilize Congress against the White House. All agree that undermining Israel’s alliance with America is a far greater existential threat than anything Iran does.”
Goldberg adds: “It’s impossible to say for certain whether the dozen or so exgenerals and spymasters who have spoken out are representative of the broader security community. But there are hints. Netanyahu has replaced top personnel repeatedly, but each new cohort takes the same stance: opposing precipitate action; denying that Iran represents an existential threat, insisting that Iran’s leadership is rational and responds to negotiation and deterrence.”
This is a precarious situation. If the deal is killed, international sanctions will go away and the hardliners in Iran will become more powerful, and we will likely be headed for another war in the most volatile region on the planet. For once, let’s give peace and diplomacy a chance.
