China, Russia, Iran: Worrisome Pals

For the worldwide Jewish community, the term “never again” refers to the Holocaust, of course. But these days David A. Harris, the American Jewish Committee’s executive director, uses it to refer to Iran’s reported missile and nuclear weapons buildup as he recalls that traumatic 1991 night when Iraqi missiles started raining on Israel: “I was there when the first Scuds fell, and there we Jews were again, huddling in bomb shelters with gas masks on our faces.” But these days Harris and his colleagues believe that it is Iran--the theological state and relentless opponent of the Mideast peace process whose routine reliance on terrorism and subversion led to comprehensive U.S. sanctions--that is the long-term threat to Israel, greater, even, than Iraq. Harris says: “And we don’t believe in remaining silent.” Putting its cards on the table, the American Jewish Committee has launched an effort to raise the world’s consciousness about Iran’s ominous nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions, which are inherently threatening to Israel and destabilizing to the region. The AJC has just issued a major report that excoriates China for its complicity in helping Iran advance militarily--and for its duplicity in denying to the West that it’s doing any such thing. “With the exception of Pakistan and possibly North Korea,” concludes the report, “China’s arms trade with Iran has been more quantitatively and qualitatively comprehensive and sustained than that with any other country.”

Israel’s overall relations with China--and indeed with the rest of Asia--have not gone all that swimmingly. And it’s not likely that this AJC report--”Silkworms and Summitry: Chinese Arms Exports to Iran and U.S.-China Relations”--will dramatically improve it. Written by respected East Asia expert Bates Gill of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, the report lays out the Chinese-Iranian military connection carefully and thoroughly. No doubt when confronted with its findings, Beijing will defensively point to the October Sino-U.S. summit understanding when President Jiang Zemin agreed to suspend further assistance to Iran’s nuclear program. Harris is skeptical about that; he believes that top Chinese officials have deliberately and repeatedly misled Israel and America by denying any such involvement. He fears that the Chinese, having lied before in saying they weren’t doing any of this nasty stuff, and now promising Clinton not to do what they said they weren’t doing, will change their tune yet again and continue to do what they have been doing all along.

The AJC report was set in motion long before the Chinese made their apparent concession, and AJC officials wrestled with whether even to release the findings now. As Harris puts it, “We must develop a broader, longer-term interest between Jews and Asia, the other half of the world, especially with the emerging giant.” Indeed, the AJC’s Asia and Pacific Rim Institute, which issued the report, was created precisely to help correct this perceived institutional deficiency. This report will work against that, but so be it. It’s a story that needed to be told in full. This is one issue with China that shouldn’t be pooh-poohed.

The AJC is not putting all of its focus on China, however: Russia is also getting an icy glare for its arms aid to Tehran. Harris points to intelligence information (“that the U.S. and Israel totally agree on”) which paints a disturbing picture of Moscow-Tehran cooperation. In fact, many U.S. experts now believe that Russian military aid to Iran exceeds anyone else’s. “‘Undoubtedly the Russians are doing far more now than the Chinese,” confirms one U.S. expert. Soothing assurances to the contrary by top Russian officials have hardly calmed nerves. It’s time, says Harris, for a strong America to step in: “The president has to get off his indecision. Will he seek to get around it as part of the U.S. rapprochement with Russia? This is a very tough call for an administration that has put such stock in its special relationship with Yeltsin.”

Unless America hangs tough, Israel, a minuscule state of 5.4 million, will have its hands full with the religious republic of 66 million now holding court in Tehran to a weeklong summit of 50 Islamic nations. “Like China,” Harris says, “Iran is not a country you can easily push around.” Only a determined U.S. can beat back the Iranian menace in the Middle East. “But if America continues to demonstrate a lack of will,” Harris warns, “it will create a huge power void. I would not preempt unilateral Israeli action.” He was referring to the secret--and successful--1981 Israeli air attack that knocked out an Iraqi nuclear installation.

American diplomacy must focus on the Iranian threat to Israel. The summit understanding between Jiang and Clinton, however vague, does light the way to a possible Sino-U.S. consensus down the road that could put an uncomfortable spotlight on opportunistic Russia and some serious heat on Iran. Though Beijing has huge strategic energy needs in the Middle East that help explain its Machiavellian coziness with Tehran, it may soon come to agree that its relationship with America is even more vital. America must encourage this instinct, as should Israeli diplomacy. If--admittedly a big “if”--China could be drawn into the Iran containment effort, however indirectly, Iran’s leaders might get the message: Evolving into what the West would surely regard as a constant gun to Israel’s head will earn the disapproval of the biggest players in the East as well as the West.

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Times columnist Tom Plate is a professor in public policy and communications at UCLA. E-mail: tplate@ucla.edu