Misreading the Map

And any notion that Amman, Cairo, or Riyadh might go so far as to approve and perhaps even applaud an American or Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear military installations is based on wishful thinking. Sunni Arab leaders are concerned about the potential for backlash by angry publics against their regimes after any such attack. They also realize that Iran would be in a good position to unleash its regional proxies against Israel and the United States, rather than vice versa. So Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia would probably hedge their bets as Iran responds to an outside attack while Israel would be exposed to massive Iranian retaliation. That could force the United States into a costly, direct military intervention on Israel's side and throw the region into chaos. At the end of the day, Washington would discover that the chief alternative to invading Iran and toppling its regime was engaging Tehran diplomatically -- an option available to it today, without all the messy preliminaries.

The Obama administration seems to understand this, and is welcoming Tehran's cooperation in establishing stability in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon while continuing talks with Iran on its nuclear program through the so-called P5-plus-1 setting. This is the most sensible course to take, but at best it is likely only to slow down Iran's drive to build a nuclear bomb, as opposed to stopping Iran's nuclear program entirely. So Israel and the United States should also start preparing for an eventual "day after" by developing an effective nuclear deterrence strategy against Tehran and working with allies across Europe and the Middle East to contain the Iranian challenge.

As for Israel, Obama must recognize that the main threat to Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state is not Iran but its conflict with the Palestinians -- a conflict that will continue to serve as a catalyst for growing anti-Israel and anti-American radicalization in the region at large unless and until it is resolved. Resolving the conflict, in turn, will require the relevant local parties to deal directly with the core problems: the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, settlements, refugees, violence, and Jerusalem.

Washington cannot make a deal for the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it can and should help them do so themselves. At the very least, it should not make matters worse by allowing itself to be distracted yet again from the main task at hand. If anything, successful U.S. efforts to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians would make it more difficult for Iranian radicals to win support across the region. It is more likely that the road to Tehran leads through Jerusalem than that the road to Jerusalem leads through Tehran.