“The Idea that Iran is an Existential Threat to Israel is Nonsense”

 

On Monday the United States, along with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China, reached an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. 

The deal has been widely hailed as a triumph of diplomacy, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran now has “a sure path to nuclear weapons.” He called the deal “a stunning historic mistake.”

British journalist David Patrikarakos is the author of Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, a history that follows the development of Iran’s nuclear program from the days of the Shah to the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

IranWire spoke to Patrikarakos about Israel’s role in the history of the Iran nuclear crisis.

 

Your history of Iran’s nuclear program covers the long period of nuclear development in Iran under the Shah. Did Israel say anything about the Shah's nuclear program?

Nothing overtly hostile. Israel had good relations with the Shah. That all changed with the coming of the Islamic Republic in 1979. It's at that point that you start to see Israeli rhetoric become very anti-Iran getting a bomb. 

 

When and how did Israel learn that the Islamic Republic was building on the Shah's nuclear program?

When the Islamic Republic came to power it initially cancelled the nuclear program because it was seen as a Trojan horse into Iran of western interests. It had basically been built by the French and the Germans. With the Islamic Republic you got this rhetoric of self-sufficiency, and foreign involvement was considered anathema. 

But after about a year it became clear that given how much money Iran had invested in it, and given the fact that Iran needed electricity, that it was worth starting it again. That was in 1980. So they restarted it, and they were pretty public and open about that. 

Then you start to get the comments from Israel, saying that Khomeini shouldn't have a bomb, and that these people can't be trusted. It’s since come out that through the mid 1980s, Iran was dealing with the A.Q. Khan network [a secret supply chain of nuclear equipment connected to Abdul Khadeer Khan, the top scientist behind Pakistan’s nuclear weapons]. It is in the mid- to late 80s that you start hearing this constant Israeli rhetoric that Iran is five years away from a bomb, which they've been saying for 30 years now.

 

 

In your recent Spectator piece, you mention the Mojahedeen Khalq Organization in relation to the revelations of Iran’s covert nuclear activities in the 2000s. What was the relationship between Israel and the MKO?

Well the exact relationship is unclear and unofficial, but the nuclear crisis was begun in August 2002 by a press conference that the MKO gave in Washington D.C., announcing full details of the nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak. It’s claimed they discovered this information themselves. In fact, I was told by diplomats that it came from Israeli intelligence. Beyond that I'm not sure. In recent years you can perhaps see a clearer pattern of relations between the MKO and the Israelis in that the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists was almost certainly carried out by MKO members inside Iran, who were liaising with the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad.

You can see the quid pro quo, because the MKO now, due to lobbying — not directly by Israel but by Israel's supporters — has been taken off the US State Department’s terrorist list in 2012 for the first time since it came into being.

 

We've seen the Israeli position diverge hugely from American and European positions since nuclear negotiations began. Why do you think Netanyahu has opposed Obama's efforts outright rather than try to participate more in the process?

I think there's a lot of demagoguery. He's playing to a domestic audience. He wants to be seen as a tough guy. I think that, despite what the majority of the Israeli security officials say, he believes Iran when it says Israel should be wiped off the map, or that it should disappear from the page of history. He genuinely believes he's trying to save the Jewish people. 

Personally I think the idea that Iran is an existential threat to Israel is nonsense. What it is is a strategic threat. Israel and Iran are both very powerful countries in the Middle East, and they are in geopolitical competition with each other. 

Certainly a nuclear Iran is not in Israel's interests. It's not in anyone's interests. But I think Netanyahu has decided to take a stance on this. I think it's also a distraction from the Palestinian issue as well. Whenever you hear about Israel now, apart from the Gaza War, it's rarely in conjunction with the Palestinians. It’s more about Israel’s feuding with the US over Iran.

 

How do you think this deal does affect Israel's security?

It probably makes it more secure. It is the least bad option. You've got to look at the alternatives. Iran learned the lessons of 1981 when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq, which was a single above ground reactor. The Iranians have dispersed their facilities throughout different parts of the country, in a country far larger than Iraq, deep underground. It's highly unlikely the Israelis would be able to strike the facilities. Only the US could, and the consequences of that, both politically and possibly militarily, and in terms of destabilising the region, would be extreme. 

We have to look at what are the alternatives. Military action isn't going to come. The sanctions regime was working, but the Iranians are very good at hunkering down and suffering as they did during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. I think that the deal is imperfect, but it is better that it was made than that it wasn't. 

 

Listen to this week's podcast: Israel and the Nuclear Deal

 

Related article:

Former Mossad Chief: American and Israeli Interests Are Not Identical

 

To read more stories like this, sign up to our weekly email.