Peace in Our Time

Roger Cohen in today’s New York Times on Obama’s “bold message to
Iran’s leaders,” which Cohen predicts will make it inevitable that a “defining strategic issue” of his presidency will be “a painful but necessary redefinition of
America’s relations with
Israel”:

He abandoned regime change as an American goal. He shelved the so-called military option. He buried a carrot-and-sticks approach viewed with contempt by Iranians as fit only for donkeys. And he placed
Iran’s nuclear program within “the full range of issues before us.” . . .

He referred twice to “the Islamic
Republic
of
Iran,” a formulation long shunned, and said that republic, no other, should “take its rightful place in the community of nations.” Here was explicit American acceptance of
Iran’s 30-year-old clerical revolution. . .

One of the people involved in the review [of American policy] told me he had been bombarded by warnings from Israel and Sunni Arab states that engagement with Iran would lead nowhere. . . . Obama’s overture represented a victory not only over such lobbying but also over officials’ favoring tightened sanctions or delaying any American initiative until after
Iran’s June presidential election. . . .

A senior Israeli official told me
Iran has 1,000 kilos of low-enriched uranium and will have 500 more within six months, enough to make a bomb. It could then opt for one of three courses.

Rush for a bomb by shredding the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, adapting its centrifuges and producing enough highly enriched uranium within a year.

Move the process to a secret site, in which case getting a bomb would take longer, perhaps two years.

Or continue making low-enriched uranium so that “it would have enough for 10 bombs if it decides to rush at a later stage.”

And where, I asked, is
Israel’s red line? “Once they get to 1,500 kilos, nonproliferation is dead,” he said. And so? “It’s established that when a country that does not accept
Israel’s existence has such a program, we will intervene.”

Cohen is unperturbed.  He thinks “there’s some bluster” in
Israel’s position, and that in any event “Obama’s new Middle Eastern diplomacy and engagement will involve reining in Israeli bellicosity and a probable cooling of U.S.-Israeli relations.  It’s about time.”

UPDATE: David Hazony has an excellent post on Cohen’s column over at Contentions.

Scott Johnson on “The Case of Roger Cohen.” Case closed.