Bruce Wolman writes:
President Obama gave the keynote address Thursday at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the US Capitol. The theme for this year's ceremony was "Never Again: What You Do Matters." Peterr over at Firedoglake remarked "it was actually pretty good — if you could put Gitmo and Abu Ghraib out of your mind."
Obama quickly recognized the essential contradiction of the Holocaust:
It is the grimmest of ironies that one of the most savage, barbaric acts of evil in history began in one of the most modernized societies of its time, where so many markers of human progress became tools of human depravity: science that can heal, used to kill; education that can enlighten, used to rationalize away basic moral impulses; the bureaucracy that sustains modern life, used as the machinery of mass death, a ruthless, chillingly efficient system where many were responsible for the killing, but few got actual blood on their hands.
While acknowledging the uniqueness of the Holocaust, Obama tied it to other atrocities with these words:
While the uniqueness of the Holocaust in scope and in method is truly astounding, the Holocaust was driven by many of the same forces that have fueled atrocities throughout history: the scapegoating that leads to hatred and blinds us to our common humanity; the justifications that replace conscience and allow cruelty to spread; the willingness of those who are neither perpetrators nor victims to accept the assigned role of bystander, believing the lie that good people are ever powerless or alone, the fiction that we do not have a choice.
Obama noted, "To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened, who perpetrate every form of intolerance — racism and anti- Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and more — hatred that degrades its victim and diminishes us all."
And he gave his own interpretation of Never Again:
"Our fellow citizens of the world, showing us how to make the journey from oppression to survival, from witness to resistance and ultimately to reconciliation. That is what we mean when we say, 'Never again'."
Walter Reich – a former director of the United States Holocaust Museum, the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior at George Washington University and a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars – wanted to hear something different from Obama, as he wrote in an article that was published before the speech in The Baltimore Sun and the Jerusalem Post.
In contrast to Obama, here is Reich's take on Never Again:
Until now, Holocaust remembrance has been about the past: the systematic murder by Nazi Germany of six million European Jews between 1939 and 1945. Suddenly, Holocaust remembrance is also about the future. It's about the threatened murder by Iran of nearly six million Israeli Jews. And, even worse, it's about the potential murder of many millions more. The meaning of "never again" has never been as clear, as urgent or as universal.
Of course, Reich attacks Ahmadinejad's speech from Monday, and then insists, "The seriousness of this threat by the bellicose leader of a country clearly rushing to amass nuclear weapons, and utterly committed to the elimination of Israel, can hardly be exaggerated."
Apparently for Reich, no evidence is necessary to counter the the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which stated that the ending of Iran's weapons program in 2003 "indicates Tehran's decision are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs." Even the NIE was unable to present evidence proving that Iran has made the decision to proceed with making a bomb.
Skeptical of Obama's "reach out" to Iran, Reich is convinced that Iran's "bellicose rhetoric, like the bellicose rhetoric of murderous leaders six and seven decades ago, sustains and justifies the rush to violence. Ahmadinejad is a man obsessed and determined, as are others in the Iranian leadership, and is fast on his way to building the instruments of mass death." Reich just ignores the bellicose rhetoric coming out of Israel, and the fact that Israel is the only power in the Mideast with any nuclear weapons, hundreds of them in fact. Apparently, Iran is suppose to just ignore and not take seriously Israeli nukes, IDF war exercises, and the extreme hostile threats emanating from Israel.
While the Obama administration has moved slowly on Iran, it has already recognized that the Bush policy – demanding a halt to Iran's current low-level enrichment program before negotiations could even begin – was a failure. But this decision just sets off alarms for Reich: "the Obama administration's readiness to drop the demand that Iran suspend its nuclear program while negotiating about it could guarantee that, as the talks proceed, the centrifuges will continue to spin, the warheads will be made, the rockets will be poised, and Iran will be ready to strike."
Reich sets out his risk calculations: "TOO MUCH is at stake – not only for Israel and its Jews but also for America and the world. A nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel could kill many times six million, both Israelis and Iranians. And before any exchange – even if Iran only uses its nuclear weapons for blackmail – other nuclear powers, fearful of Iran's thrust toward regional hegemony, will emerge in the region." Mutual Assured Deterrence, the strategy applied in the Cold War, will not work with Iran, according to Reich's strategic calculations. "The world created by a nuclear Iran could never be controlled. And the nuclear-tipped rockets shot off by those countries could reach well beyond the Middle East into Europe and elsewhere."
The Professor of Ethics and Behavior insists that Obama "should explain clearly why talking to Iran is necessary." Does Reich prefer that Obama proceed directly to the bombing and just skip the further talking part? Like the rest of us, Reich wants the President to explain "what he wants to accomplish." But then Reich also wants to be told what Obama will do "if, after a reasonable effort, it becomes apparent that Iran is only using the talks as a tactical maneuver to buy the little time still needed to build nuclear weapons."
Shifting to his Woodrow Wilson Scholar hat, Reich offers his suggestions:
Options are available, including very sharp and targeted sanctions against elements in the Iranian regime, that have a chance of at least slowing, and even preventing, Iranian weaponization. Mr. Obama should make it clear that he's ready to pursue those options, and any others he thinks might work and would be compatible with world peace, and to lead America's European and other allies in doing so. And, given the urgency, he should make clear that he will do so well before Iran's ticking nuclear clock strikes twelve.
Despite the supposed singularity of the Holocaust, the pro-Israeli lobby couldn't help itself from infusing Iran talk with the Holocaust, on this Remembrance Day 2009. Reich gave us a window into the lobby's demands on Obama when it comes to Iran policy. Let's hope Rahm has the president's back.
Disappointingly for Reich, Obama did not mention Iran in his speech. But had Obama given the talk Reich hoped to hear, it would have been a controversial Holocaust speech. However, none of the Congressional audience nor invited guests would have walked out.
