“This has divided the Jewish community. This has divided America,” said Michael Krasny, host of KQED radio program “Forum,” in his opening remarks as moderator of “What’s the Deal with the Iran Deal?”
The panel discussion about the JCPOA — better known as the Iran deal — at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto on Aug. 26 drew a packed house of around 400, with a few people sitting in an overflow room watching a live stream of the event.
To counter the increasingly heated, sometimes ugly debate raging within the American Jewish community, organizers sought a civil, learned debate among experts. Their discussion — sometimes dry, occasionally quite technical — proved to be a breath of fresh air, as each of the four panelists laid out a different, nuanced position.
Though many attendees arrived with their opinions already formed, a big draw was the desire to learn from experts — or, as attendee Mary Hughes of Palo Alto said, “Just pure lust for learning.”
Though she was already in favor of the agreement, Hughes, a political consultant, acknowledged its vast complexity. “I don’t fully feel like I’ve heard from all of the points of view,” she said. “It looked like a learned group, and I thought the more one can know about this issue, the better to make good decisions.”
Jonathan Bendor, a Stanford University professor of negotiation, also pro-deal, was there to gain specialist knowledge on the topic. “I think the key question is whether it’s better than no deal,” he said, “and I know from having taught negotiation at Stanford for over 20 years that people often turn down a deal without thinking too hard [about] ‘Well, what exactly am I going to do when I walk away from this deal?’ ”
The crowd included a number of Israelis, among them Oded Hermoni of Los Altos. “I think, in general, it’s not a good deal, for sure — not for Israel, not for Saudi Arabia, not for the Western world,” he said.
And then there was Allen Rosenzweig of Saratoga, who said he simply came “to see if it’s possible to have a civil discussion on this issue among Jews.”
To that end, in introducing the panel, Zack Bodner, CEO of the Palo Alto JCC, laid out a ground rule: “I ask everyone to be respectful of all opinions here tonight.” Organizers hoped for “a conversation where you hear more questions than answers,” he said.
The phrase “breathing room” came up repeatedly, referring to how the deal buys a 10- to 15-year window during which supporters believe progress can be made in the relationship with Iran — and which opponents say will simply give Iran time to hide its nuclear program and continue its history of human rights abuses and supporting terror. The panelists disagreed on whether this “breathing room” will be a good thing, and each staked out a position on the deal distinct from any particular party line.
“I don’t think it’s great, but I believe we should approve it,” said panelist David Holloway, a professor of political science at Stanford and an expert on international nuclear policy. The deal will not resolve the issues, “but it provides, if it’s implemented, breathing space of 10 to 15 years in which to find a way out of the situation in the Middle East,” he said.
Panelist Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford and a former member of the faculty at Tehran University, took a similar, nominally pro-deal position, calling it “the best worst deal.” Iranian society is “immensely split,” he said, adding that the deal will turn out well “if it prolongs the possibility” of an ascendancy of moderates in Iran’s political order.
However, he had significant reservations about the deal. “The nuclear issue should never have been discussed without the human rights issue,” Milani said.
Though he echoed Milani regarding human rights, panelist Abraham D. Sofaer, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the 2013 book “Taking on Iran: Strength, Diplomacy, and the Iranian Threat,” took the opposite position. “It’s really a terrible deal,” he said. Sofaer described the Iranian government as “evil” and “a criminal enterprise.” He criticized the Obama administration for saying it’s a good thing they engaged Iran only on the nuclear issue, leaving human rights and support for terror off the table. “Why is that a good thing?” he asked. “Temporary relief. That’s all there is in this deal.”
However, Sofaer said, much of the debate in the United States — and whether Congress will approve the deal — is a moot point, given that Europe has already signed on. “The deal is done. The basic benefits we get if Iran complies are going to happen,” he said. “The only issue before Congress is whether this JCPOA is going to become law in the United States.” And if the answer is yes, Sofaer wondered, are U.S. lawmakers comfortable giving up all sanctions against Iran?
Panelist Ali Alfoneh, a native Iranian and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on the inner workings of the Iranian government, basically agreed with Sofaer. “The U.S. government had too little ambitions” going into the negotiations, he said. He acknowledged the possibility that the United States and its allies could use the 10 to 15 years to build a calmer Middle East — “But in Tehran, they are working on a Middle East that is less calm than today.”
In his closing remarks, Alfoneh offered a slice of optimism. Iran has the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel, and Jews and Iranians have lived together prosperously for centuries, he said. “The Islamic Republic is a passing phenomenon,” he said. “The future is much, much brighter.”
Throughout the event, the mostly 45-and-older crowd followed Bodner’s ground rule: There was no heckling at all, and chit-chat was kept to a bare minimum as attendees listened intently, occasionally applauding or chuckling at a particular line.
The main takeaway for Hermoni, the attendee from Los Altos, was that the deal is going forward whether he likes it or not. “If it’s a done deal, like [Sofaer] said, then it’s a done deal,” Hermoni said. “I think it’s a bad deal and a done deal.”
And what about Rosenzweig, the attendee curious to see if a civil discussion was possible? After all was said and done, his verdict, in a word: “Yes.”