Appeasement's benefactors offer it to Iran

Yossi Klien Halevi:

Business opportunities in Iran were the theme of a German government-sponsored conference last week in Darmstadt, Germany. "Iran is accustomed to crises," the conference invitation delicately noted, "but somehow always keeps going forward." In fact, Iran's resilience is made possible in no small measure by Germany itself, which remains one of Iran's largest trading partners. Now Berlin is balking at international attempts to intensify economic sanctions against the Tehran regime for its nuclear program.

Just how discordant Germany's Iranian policy is even within the European Union was made clear to me last spring, when I participated in a "roving seminar" on Iran and nuclear weapons that visited Paris, Brussels and Berlin. As the sole Israeli participant in the seminar--jointly sponsored by the German Marshall Fund and the American Enterprise Institute--I assumed that my role was to play the heavy, reminding naïve and self-righteous Europeans of the unpleasant truths of the Middle East.

Instead, I encountered sobriety about the Iranian threat, loathing for the Ahmadinejad regime and sympathy for Israel's fears. The Europeans I met were keenly aware of the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Arab world triggered by fear of a Shiite bomb. In Paris, a senior French diplomat said that, while he opposes a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, he well understands why Israelis see matters differently. In Brussels, a senior EU official went further, telling me how necessary it was for the U.S. and Israel to maintain the threat of a military option, which only strengthens European efforts at a negotiated solution. Everywhere our panel appeared, we met opinion makers who understood that the greatest threat to world peace was a nuclear Iran.

Everywhere, that is, but Berlin. There, government officials spoke of giving the Iranians one more chance to prove their peaceful intentions. When I raised the possibility that at least part of the Iranian leadership holds apocalyptic religious beliefs that could encourage a nuclear strike against Israel--former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani declared in 2001 that "even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything"--I was dismissed as an alarmist. One senior German politician declared that a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities would be the worst of all scenarios--worse, even, than nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust and threatens to launch another holocaust against Israel. This politician did, however, manage some outrage--over Israel's settlements policy. In Berlin, it seemed to me that afternoon, the decision had already been made to learn to live with the Iranian bomb.

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... Last year, German exports to Iran totaled about $5 billion. Though German trade with Iran has reportedly dropped this year by 20%, some 5,000 German companies--including major corporations like BASF, Siemens, Mercedes and Volkswagen--continue to do business in Tehran. As Michael Tockuss, former president of the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, boasted last year, "Some two-thirds of Iranian industry relies on German engineering products."

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There is also some political cowardice involved in the German reaction. There are no profiles in courage in Germany today when it comes to making the decisions needed to stop Iran's drive toward another holocaust. Apparently, they would rather see an Israeli US strike against Iran than do something constructive now to avoid it. That way they do not have to take responsibility for the loss of business by German companies. This is a pretty cynical approach to a problem they could help solve. Like the Russians and Chinese, they all three expect to profit from the aftermath of such a strike. That is, unless regime change takes place and then they are all out of luck.