It’s not just the nukes

The day after Iran ignored the UN Security Council’s ultimatum to freeze uranium enrichment, it spoke at a Council meeting on preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Although Iran defies the IAEA and maintains its network of terrorist organizations, it hammers on themes of legitimacy and rights and paints the US and Israel as aggressive protectors of an unjust status quo.

Debate in Israel tends to focus on preventing Iran from going nuclear, but Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons is only one piece of its strategy to achieve global power status.

While the prospect of a nuclear bomb striking Tel Aviv is terrifying, an Islamic Republic which sets the agenda and controls political processes for the region constitutes the true strategic threat to Israel.

The key may lie in understanding that Iran’s strategy to elevate its global status includes activity designed to build international coalitions around similar ideas and values.

Nuclear project a national achievement

A typical line of thought contends that Iran, whose President has famously called for Israel’s elimination, may use the bomb against Israel or give it to one of its clients committed to the destruction of Israel. Others suggest that Iran seeks to deter an aggressive America from seeking regime change.

But beyond hard power, Iran frames the nuclear project as a matter of national achievement and legitimate rights, to unite and rally its population, reducing opposition to the regime and increasing stability.

Furthermore, by fashioning itself as a Muslim world leader, a champion of the Third World and defiant to the unipolar status quo, Iran seeks to attract to it a club of nations who identify with its Anti-Zionist and Anti-American values and policies.

Israel, America must shift debate 

By focusing solely on the bomb, the solutions we develop may be limited to military or economic coercion, inducement or, at worst, appeasement.

But with a wider view of Iranian efforts to elevate their global status through relationships and alliances with other actors, it may be that the most effective way to address Iran’s threatening aspirations is to hurt their image among those they hope to lead in the region and across the world.

Israel and America must shift the debate in the world from potential military interventions to Iran’s violations of the principles and norms of the international community.

When Iran frames its quest as an effort to evict and deter America and Israel from the Middle East, we need to generate the conversation with China, Russia and Muslim states around the point that an aggressive Iran with aspirations to dominate is a threat to them.

When Iran seeks to attract actors to it by focusing on values and culture, we should make every effort to expose the contradictions between human values accepted by the international community and human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic.

While Iran seeks to maintain the Islamic revolutionary character of its regime yet yearns for foreign trade and investment, we need to expose to the international community that investment in Iran finances its client terror organizations that block the agenda of the international community and disrupt governments across the Middle East.

The writer is an analyst at the Reut institute.