OP-ED IN NY TIMES INCITES FEAR OF IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Who is this Michael B. Oren" who writes today in The New York Times that Iran is and will be a threat of Islamic extremism for many years to come? His op-ed ID identifies him as:

"Michael B. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and a visiting senior lecturer in Middle East history at Yale, is the author of “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present.”"

Oh no. Not another Israeli here in the U.S. looking to stir up American military confrontation with Iran. Oren writes:

"Yet, in spite of its glaring handicaps, Annapolis must be deemed a triumph — not of peacemaking, paradoxically, but of girding the region for conflict. Though no doubt sincere in their desire to neutralize the Arab-Israeli irritant in Middle Eastern affairs, participants in the conference were above all motivated by their fear of a radical and relentlessly aggressive Iran.

"This fear has deepened with the success of the Iranian proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as the expansion of Iranian influence westward into the Iraqi vacuum.

"The inability of the international community either to entice or deter the Iranians from producing nuclear weapons adds urgency to the need to unite those countries threatened by those bombs. That, and not American fiat, brought 49 states and organizations to Annapolis; that, and not the yearning for an Israeli-Arab accord, impelled a Saudi prince to sit alongside an Israeli prime minister."

Oren engages in pure scare tactics, reminiscent of what George Bush and Dick Cheney like to do. Scare the living daylights out of your readers or listeners by foretelling doomsday. In this case, Oren implies Iran is making or will make nuclear weapons, something for which so far no one has produced even the slightest shred of credible evidence.

Second, Oren implies that Iran, if it did have nuclear weapons, would use them against Israel and other countries in the Middle East such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia. This is utter nonsense. Russia has had the bomb for the last 50 years, yet did not use it because of what would happen if it did. Utter annihilation and destruction. The same for Pakistan, China, India, France and all the other nuclear powers.

Oren's thesis fails on rational levels. But it will still tend to provoke fear in some readers by stoking the sparks of anti-Iranian prejudice.

Instead of seeing Iran as the "enemy," we need to treat Iran as a proud member of the community of nations. We need leaders who will not be afraid to sit down with Iranian leaders and work out perceived difficulties with respect and diplomacy, rather than with Oren's bluster and fear.