Clear and Present Danger

Clear and Present Danger

Irwin Cotler - Aug 01, 2007
World Jewish Digest

We are witnessing a state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, whose epicenter is Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad’s Iran, where the toxic advocacy of the most horrific of crimes is embedded in the most virulent of hatreds—anti-semitism.

This eliminationist hatred of Jews is propelled by a desire to acquire nuclear weapons for the stated purpose of eliminating Israel “in one single storm.” Iran’s leaders have not hid their intentions. Indeed, in any number of ways, they have already shown us the methods and means of their plan.

They have paraded in the streets of Tehran a Shihab-3 missile draped in the emblem “wipe Israel off the map.” They have denied the European Holocaust as they incite a new Middle Eastern one. They have espoused an eschatological fanaticism that seeks the “death of Israel” as an apocalyptical annihilationist precursor to the Messianic coming of the twelfth Imam.

Whatever the index of measurement—state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, nuclear proliferation, state support for international terrorism—Ahmadinezhad’s Iran constitutes not only an existential threat to Israel and the Jewish people, but also a threat to Middle East and international peace and security. Moreover, Ahmadinezhad’s Iran is also a major violator of the rights of its own citizens, reminding us of the principle that countries that do not respect the rights of their own citizens are unlikely to respect the rights of theirs neighbors.

The Iranian threat is as pervasive as it is persistent and as serious as it is substantial, threatening not only Israel and world Jewry but international peace and security. But it can be addressed and redressed. What is lacking is a comprehensive, sustained and multi-layered strategy led by the United Nations Security Council and the international community as a whole.

The Scope of the Iranian Threat
Since its nuclear enrichment program was revealed in 2003, Iran has rejected offers from the international community to cooperate in the development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy, including a range of economic incentives, while continuing to defy the international community. In particular, it has repudiated U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1696, 1737 and 1747 passed in July 2006, December 2006 and March 2007, respectively.

As Iran dismisses the U.N.’s authority, there have been a series of ominous developments. The most recent came on May 25, 2007, when the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) reported that Iran sharply accelerated its uranium enrichment program, such that there were four times as many centrifuges on May 25 as had been reported in February 2007. Iran has also halted its cooperation with U.N. inspectors and the head of the IAEA, Mohamed El Baradei (who is normally circumspect in his remarks), said that Iran was proceeding at a pace at which it could enrich enough uranium to make atomic bombs by 2010. Other intelligence sources have said that Iran could have bomb-making capability as early as 2008.

On that same May day, Iranian President Ahmadinezhad said that “Iran will never retreat even one step” from its program to develop nuclear weapons and warned again about Israel being “uprooted” from the Middle East.

A nuclear-armed Iran would constitute a direct threat to the stability of the Middle East, as it may trigger a nuclear-arms race among other Middle Eastern states. What’s more, Iran’s pursuit of weapons increases the likelihood of terrorist non-state actors, including Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, to seek or secure access to nuclear capability.

Even if such weapons are not used, the balance of power in the Middle East will be dramatically transformed. Iran’s temptation to obtain regional hegemony will increase; it could then seek to blackmail its neighbors and use the terrorist weapon more freely against Israel and Jewish targets around the world. Moreover, the regional nuclear-arms race will intensify, exacerbating the existential danger to Israel and the Jewish people.

Combating the Iranian Threat
There are a number of remedies that are authorized under United Nations institutions, such as the U.N. Security Council, and the U.N. Secretary General, as well as under U.N. Law, such as the U.N. Charter and the Genocide Convention.

First, state parties to the Genocide Convention, such as the United States, have not only a right, but a responsibility, to enforce the Convention, particularly as regards the prevention of genocide. It is astonishing that the horrific incitement to genocide by Ahmadinezhad has yet even to be addressed by the U.N. Security Council, the U.N. General Assembly, or any other body or agency of the United Nations.

Second, as a corollary, the U.N. General Assembly, meeting on September 18 for its 62nd session, should declare this genocidal incitement as a standing violation of the United Nations’ Charter, which prohibits such threats to the territorial integrity and political independence of any state.

Third, state parties should initiate in the International Court of Justice an inter-state complaint against Iran, also a state party to the Genocide Convention, for its “direct and public incitement to genocide” in violation of the Genocide Treaty.

Fourth, the situation of the international criminality of President Ahmadinezhad, and other Iranian leaders, should be referred by the U.N. Security Council to the special prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for investigation and prosecution.

Fifth, state parties to the Genocide Convention should prepare criminal indictments for President Ahmadinezhad, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other Iranian leaders on the basis of the “universal jurisdiction” principle embodied in the Genocide Convention.

Sixth, pursuant to the Genocide Convention and the Statute for the International Court, the U.N. Secretary General should refer the genocidal incitement of President Ahmadinezhad and other Iranian leaders to the U.N. Security Council, as a matter threatening international peace and security, pursuant to Article 99 of the U.N. Charter.

Finally, President Ahmadinezhad and other designated Iranian leaders should be placed on a “watch list” by concerned countries preventing their entrance as “inadmissible persons.”

A Comprehensive Security Council Resolution
While Iranian nuclear enrichment continues to accelerate, and a nuclear weapons capability may be only a year away, the international response proceeds in slow motion. Accordingly, given the continued defiance by Iran, the U.N. Security Council should now move to adopt an enhanced and targeted resolution that will include the following components.

1. Target the vulnerable oil and gas industrial sectors. International economic sanctions will only be effective if they have a impact on Iran’s lucrative energy sectors including, in particular, the Iranian engineering giant Khatam-ol-Anbia, the nerve center of the Iranian natural gas and oil pipeline industry.

2. Target the banking and military-industrial sectors. The previous U.N. Security Council Resolutions only froze the accounts of Sepah, Iran’s fourth-largest bank. However, several other Iranian banks, including Bank Melli, Bank Saderat and the Central Bank of Iran, should have their funds frozen overseas and sanctioned with a ban on doing business with them. The massive military-industrial complex must be targeted, as it is controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are involved directly with Iran’s proliferation activities and increasingly in control of the economy.

3. Implement the sanctions regime adopted by the U.N. In particular, Europe should leverage its $20 billion in loans to Iran while member states of the international community should withdraw any export credits respecting the trading with and financing of the Iran economy.

4. Treat President Ahmadinezhad and the officers of his regime as “inadmissible persons,” unable to enter countries to spread their message of hatred beyond Iran’s borders. There should be no sanctuary for those who incite to genocide or commit crimes against humanity, or seek to acquire nuclear weapons for that purpose or other nefarious means.

5. Impose a two-way arms embargo. The flow of weapons, both into and out of Iran, must be stopped. A complete embargo would prevent the weapons entering Iran from being used for terror, just as cutting off the cash flow from arms sales would prevent its financing.

6. Establish a U.N. monitoring team to ensure compliance with these sanctions and to verify that member states obey what has been agreed upon. Without such follow-up, any new sanctions risk amounting to little more than words on paper, lacking any practical effect on their object.

7. Enforce the foreign asset forfeiture that has been imposed on 23 Iranian persons and entities by the European Union. The U.N. should incorporate this list into its own, putting an end to financial safe havens for those who bankroll genocide.

In a word, Iran needs to be shut out from the international financial system until compliance is achieved. The previous U.N. sanctions must be followed- up in the form of tougher sanctions that go after a broader range of banks, companies and industries that deal directly with nuclear capacity, energy, and financing of terror and those supporting it. Iran is well integrated into the world economy—and it has survived the symbolic sanctions unscathed. Real sanctions would leave the economy vulnerable, bringing the goals of such sanctions to fruition.

Divestment
As a complementary support system to comprehensive U.N.-sponsored economic and financial sanctions, it is a necessity to encourage divestment from companies, institutions and entities doing businesses in Iran. Such a campaign would exert considerable pressure on those in the Iranian leadership who are responsible for the public incitement to genocide, the acceleration of uranium enrichment to achieve nuclear capacity and its state-sponsorship of international terrorism.

The United States has taken the lead in developing concentrated divestment campaigns targeting specific Iranian entities. Indeed, in the U.S., the divestment campaign is part of a broader push to encourage divestment from companies doing business with countries that sponsor terrorism. For example, bills have been introduced in the U.S. Congress and individual states to order pension funds to divest themselves of any Iranian interests. A bill introduced on May 16, 2007, also seeks to protect fund managers from shareholder lawsuits should the funds divest interest in energy companies doing business with Iran.

An international divestment would send a clear message to the leadership in Iran: its state-sanctioned incitement to genocide, its uranium enrichment program and its terrorist financing are not only violations of international law and a threat to international peace and security, but also utterly prejudicial to the national interests of Iran and Iranians themselves.

Congressional and Other Parliamentary Initiatives
If the United Nations Security Council and other U.N. agencies do not act, on their own initiative, to bring Ahmadinezhad and the Iranian leadership to account, the developing initiatives in the U.S. Congress and other parliaments may yet prevail upon the U. N. to undertake the necessary actions.

For example, on June 20, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Con. Res. 21 by a sweeping 411-2 vote. Although nonbinding, this measure calls on the Security Council to charge Iranian President Ahmadinezhad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the U.N. Charter “because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.” Similarly, Canada’s House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights passed a motion to refer the “direct and public incitement to genocide” by Iranian officials, including President Ahmadinezhad, to the United Nations.

These legislative initiatives have not only an important symbolic value; rather, they signify a finding, a legal determination, that Iranian leadership is engaged in incitement to genocide. They are representative of a growing consensus that Iranian officials have violated prohibitions of the Genocide Convention and the Treaty for an International Criminal Court, and should be duly addressed through the U.N. system. Beyond North America, a similar motion is now before the United Kingdom’s Parliament and is moving forward in Australia.

Public Diplomacy
It is important not to conflate Ahmadinezhad’s Iran with the Iran many of its citizens wish to see established as a free, democratic state living at peace with its neighbors. Experts speak hopefully of the forces of change working within Iran, though, admittedly, there are also those who regard the authoritarian control and repression of the extremist Iranian leadership as overriding. Yet, Iranian scholars such as McGill Law Professor Payam Akhavan, a board member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center at Yale University, have stated that many of the fissures we are witnessing in Iran may well be the “dying gasp” of a regime that has lost touch with the majority of its Iranian citizens.

Accordingly, the appropriate public diplomacy should support the dynamic civil society struggling to have its voice heard, while reflecting the necessity of isolating, and holding accountable at the same time, the authoritarian regime of President Ahmadinezhad. The international community should support the Iranian civil society’s promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law in Iran.

The list of initiatives suggested here constitutes a necessary set of strategic actions in the interest of the protection of Israel, the promotion of international peace and security, and the long-term interests of the state and people of Iran itself. But let there be no mistake: time is running out. We must act now.

Irwin Cotler is a Canadian Member of Parliament and former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada


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