The AIPAC Foreign Policy Roundtable

Yesterday at the AIPAC Policy conference, there was a Foreign Policy Roundtable featuring Ambassador Dennis Ross, Ephraim Sneh (former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister), Rep. Howard Berman (Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee), and Elizabeth Cheney (former Deputy Secretary of State for Near East Affairs). 

The full one-hour audio of the panel is here.  The last question put to the panel was this:

I want to ask each of our panelists to close by making a prediction . . . What do you predict we will be talking about next year at this policy conference as it relates to the US-Israel relationship?

Here are the complete answers by each of the panelists:

Dennis Ross:  We will be talking about Iran.  That will be the A, B and C of the issues, because the fact is we will be coming to a point where Iran will be much closer to the brink than it is, and we’re going to have to deal with it. . . .[W]e’re beginning to run out of time.  A year from now, the fact is we will be at a point where either we will have begun to change the Iranian calculus, or we won’t, and then you’re going to have to deal with two different possibilities: one possibility — which many people in this town are already prepared to sign up to — live with Iran nuclear weapons, thinking you can deter or contain it; or the other, you have to actually think about using force against it.  If you don’t like the two outcomes, then you better come up with a third way, focused on how you change the Iranian calculus.  I’ll reinforce something that Howard [Berman] said earlier:  It is not that our policy has been ineffective. Our policy has failed.  Our policy has failed.  Iran today is a nuclear power state. According to the IAEA, they have 150 kilos of low enriched uranium. They are a nuclear power state; they are not yet a nuclear weapon state. So a year from now we will be talking about that.

Ephraim Sneh.  A year from now Iran will be very, very close to the completion of its first nuclear bomb.  I predict there will be no government in Jerusalem which would allow it to happen.  (Applause).  The question that will be on the agenda next May is, if nothing has been done until now in sanctions . . . we will have to decide what to do.  Our assumption is that we may face the problem alone.  This is our historical record.  We were always in the first line against evil. (Applause). In the Thirties, in the 67 war, in the attrition war, in the Yom Kippur War we actually fought not only against the armies of Syria and Egypt, but we faced the Soviet military technology.  Now again we are in the first line against Islamic fascism, against Iran.  If we are alone, we will have to act alone.  This will be the subject of May 09.  (Applause). 

Howard Berman:  Darned if I know, but we may be talking about an Israel that has different leadership.  We may be talking about an Egypt that has new leadership.  We will be talking about a United States with new leadership. And I know you are worried and I am hopeful — you have to be worried and I have to be hopeful — that you will find a new administration that shares the strong feelings — and I say love — for Israel and the US-Israel relationship as this one does but is more effective in pursuing policies that deal with the threats that exist to both this government and to the state of Israel.  (Applause).

Liz Cheney:  I think it depends in large part upon the outcome of the election in November. I think it depends upon whether we elect a president who will continue the policies that this president deserves tremendous credit for in the war on terror.  (Applause).  I think it will depend upon whether America stays on the offense, whether America continues the policy in Iraq, continues the success that we’ve seen with the surge, continues what the CIA director calls the near strategic defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq (Applause), and I think it depends on whether we elect a president who understands and supports the importance and unique nature of the relationship between the United States and the state of Israel.  (Applause).  And I agree that we will be talking about Iran, but I hope that we will not be talking about it because nothing has been done about it.  (Applause).

Dennis Ross’s answer reminds me of Henry Kissinger’s observation that every memo he received as Secretary of State contained three options:  (a) unilateral disarmament, (b) nuclear war, and (c) a third option favored by the author of the memo.  Except that Ross does not identify the third option — he just favors one. 

The third option is obviously effective diplomacy, but effective diplomacy requires a credible threat of force.  That is why Ephraim Sneh’s answer was important, and Liz Cheney’s observation was correct.  If there are leaders in the US and Israel who can communicate a credible threat of force, diplomacy stands a chance.  If not, it doesn’t.