By David K. Shipler
In the
spring of 1982, just over three years after Iran’s Islamic Revolution, I was
invited by Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to his sheep ranch in the
Negev Desert to hear his surprising arguments about Iran. As we sat in his
spacious house, he made a strong case that Washington should work to repair
relations with Tehran—in the strategic interests of both the United States and
Israel.
This was
not a complete break from decades of Israeli policy toward Iran, which had
traded oil for weapons. Yet at that moment, Sharon was voicing a bold and
counterintuitive position for his country, which was the target of anti-Zionist
hatred from the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. And the timing was
off, for it came when American emotions remained high, little more than a year
after the release of American diplomatic personnel who had been held for 444
days after the US Embassy was overrun.
Sharon wanted his controversial
idea in The New York Times, but only “on background,” not with his name
attached. This is a trade-off journalists accept to give the public significant
information that would not be available otherwise. So, in a broad
piece about American, Israeli, and Soviet stakes in Iran, I called him “a
well-placed Israeli official,” a disguise unnecessary now, a dozen years after his
death.
A former general infamous for
ruthlessness toward Arabs, Sharon was more opportunist than ideologue. His lens
was military, not religious. He saw Iran—Muslim but not Arab—as a counterweight
against the well-armed Arab countries. At the time, only Egypt had signed a
peace treaty with Israel. Iraq, Syria, and—to a lesser extent, Jordan—remained
in the Arab order of battle.
Sharon worried about Moscow’s
gains. He began his pitch by assessing Iran as the region’s most critical
Muslim country, which deserved cultivation by Washington. “In spite of all Iran
has done to the United States,” he insisted, “the United States cannot afford
to permit Iran to be totally and unreservedly anti-American and leave the field
open to Soviet penetration.”
Furthermore, he noted that about
40,000 Jews lived in Iran. “Under a regime like this one, you can consider them
as hostages,” he said, making Israel responsive to Iranian requests for military
equipment and spare parts for weapons.
In fact, Israel continued to provide military supplies to Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution (250 tires for F-4 fighter jets in 1980, for example, ammunition and parts for tanks); it suspended the sales under US pressure until the hostages were released in 1981, then resumed shipments for awhile. “No matter how intense their zeal against Zionism,” Sharon told me, “we don't have to fuel this fire.”
