WHERE I STAND Brian Greenspun has a new take on Iran Four-letter word can bring peace to Middle East

Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007 | 8 a.m.

The catalyst and the obstacle for peace in the Middle East is a four-letter word.

I have just returned from a fact-finding adventure in that part of our world which, so far, has eluded the greatest efforts of peacemakers and warmakers to end the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

For 60 years the struggle for peace and security of the Jewish people in Israel has been a story of one survival war after another as the various Arab countries have tried their best to use the tiny Jewish state as the whipping boy for the very complex political machinations that seem to define the Middle East.

The most powerful of the Arab countries, Egypt, made peace with Israel 30 years ago thanks to the vision of President Anwar Sadat and the timing of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In more recent years, Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel that allowed the Jewish state to have relative calm on two of her borders.

The rest of the story has been one of peace efforts thwarted by intifadahs, wars and indiscriminate rocket attacks that have claimed hundreds and thousands of innocent lives at the murderous hands of suicide bombers and others who play the pawns to puppetmasters in distant Arab capitals.

Today, however, there is a new story being written and that is the one I witnessed on this most recent trip. We went as delegates to the Saban Forum, which is part of the prestigious Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Funded by the proactive philanthropist Haim Saban, the center is directed by former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and has fast become the authority in the world on Middle East issues as they relate to Israel and her neighbors.

Although the rules of the conference prevent me, for the most part, from saying who actually said what, I am free to tell you that we heard from numerous experts in that part of the world. They included Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, Jordan's King Abdullah, former CIA chief George Tenet and numerous American and Israeli officials whose job it is to know all about such matters - I can't mention them because we didn't hear from them, if you know what I mean.

What I am allowed to discuss is what conclusions I have drawn from all that I have heard and seen this past week, an education that was augmented by a trip and discussions in Dubai, one of the more Westernized members of the United Arab Emirates and a place, arguably, at the crossroads of trying to do the right thing while being pulled toward the wrong things as it relates to peace in that region.

So, back to that four-letter word that, in its efforts to continually destabilize the region and foment political unrest, turmoil and fear, may have latched on to the key to a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli issue and the much broader, more complicated matter of stabilizing the entire Middle East so it can be a boon to mankind rather than the bane it currently is.

The four-letter word is Iran.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, the Arab leaders, who at best are autocratic and often dictatorial despots who subjugate their own people and keep them that way by focusing them on the common enemy, Israel, have something to really be scared about. They know that Israel was never a country they should fear, merely a country they could scapegoat for their own selfish goals.

With Iran raising the ante in the Arab world and threatening to rule the entire region in a way that will overthrow every one of those leaders on the altar of Muslim hegemony, countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and even Syria are looking at their hole cards. They know that Iran poses an existential threat to their rule and the only country that can save them is, get this, Israel.

All of a sudden, all that talk about the Palestinian-Israeli issue being the main reason for Arab unrest has been drowned out by the hushed tones of Arab leadership worried to death about Iranian trans-Arab dreams. Iran's plan is a Shiite-ruled region that for the first time in hundreds of years will put the Sunni Arab world in its place. Or at least the place that the subjugated Shiites have been for close to a century.

In short, the underlying story behind the entire Middle East muddle has risen to the surface and the Palestinian-Israel subplot is but an asterisk.

And that, at least as best I can tell, is the silver lining behind the cloud Iran has cast over peace- and security-loving people around the world.

Israel and her Arab neighbors actually need each other to fend off the brutish Iran, the country with designs on the region and a growing nuclear threat designed to back up her play.

There is also a confluence of leadership issues in the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority that make prospects for peace that much greater, probably more so than ever before.

President Bush, Prime Minister Olmert, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas each is in a weakened state for a variety of reasons. Each is genuinely concerned, I believe, about making peace and about making a legacy for himself that will counter an otherwise low prospect for a high place in history. In short, they have very little to lose and everything to gain.

Couple that very human drive to leave a mark on this world with a very human desire to live in peace rather than pain at the hands of a nut-led Iran, and you have the makings for a peace effort that actually has a chance of working.

Put another way, it has to work because failure cannot be an option. The upcoming Annapolis meeting will be looked upon in the Arab world as either proof that talking with one another can lead to better relations or that talking is foolish and only rockets raining down on innocent Israelis, improvised explosive devices placed roadside in Iraq to kill our brave soldiers, and nuclear bombs used to threaten and change the entire world calculus can affect the future of the once-proud Muslim world.

The fact that Annapolis will see representation from Arab Muslims as well as non-Arab Muslims from around the world shows us the importance that has been placed on this latest peace effort.

For the only way to prevent what looks like a certain attack on Iranian nuclear targets by the United States, Israel or other countries determined not to have to live under the nuclear blackmail of the crazies in Iran is to change the discussion. With an Israeli-Arab relationship going forward that will bring prosperity to the Arab Middle East, North African and Gulf state worlds, the alternative offered by a West-hating Iran will be held in check.

All of a sudden, countries such as Russia and China will be more likely to pressure Iran to back off its nuke agenda because the oil-rich countries of the Gulf will be on the other side. All of a sudden, the jobless, hopeless and futureless young men of the Arab streets will find jobs, security and a life that is brighter for themselves and their families for the first time in - forever!

That is the promise of Annapolis. Not that it will all happen there, but that it can start there and move forward at a speed never before witnessed, because it must. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate even though it is contemplated daily by all parties in the region and around the world.

This is President Bush's opportunity to show real leadership and commitment. This is the Palestinian Authority's opportunity to take the bold step it so far has been reluctant and afraid to take and this is the opportunity for Prime Minister Olmert to do exactly what he has promised to do - live the legacy of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. A man who made war so he could make peace.

If the world plays this Annapolis card right - and the U.S. must make sure that it does - we will see peace in the Middle East, a nuclear-free Iran and a prosperity so far only dreamed of.

All because of that four-letter word, Iran. Who'd have thunk it?

archive