With the Iranian presidential elections only two months away, foreign policy issues are hotly debated in the crowded field of candidates, and a chorus of prominent voices is aiming to lower the temperature with Israel.
The rising softer tone may reflect a new elite consensus that a revised approach toward Israel is in the nation’s interests, in light of Tel Aviv’s powerful influence in Western capitals, Turkey’s normalization of relations with Israel, and the Arab world’s indifference toward the Palestinian problem, compared with Iran’s traditional “overcommitment”.
Leading the march toward a new Israel policy, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has expressed interest in joining the presidential race, has flatly declared that Iran is not “at war” with Israel. Calling for a non-confrontational foreign policy, Rafsanjani has criticized President Mahmud Ahmadinejad for inflammatory rhetoric that has backfired on Iran.
Echoing this sentiment, two other potential presidential elections, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Tehran’s mayor, and Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a conservative lawmaker who is close to the Supreme Leader, have also seen fit to criticize Ahmadinejad’s “denial of Holocaust” as a campaign issue.
“Suddenly, the issue of the Holocaust was raised without any attention to its repercussions and impacts. Did that have any benefit for the progress of Iran and the Palestinians?” Ghalibaf was quoted in the Iranian media as saying last week. The question now is whether Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who advises the Supreme Leader and has formed an alliance with Ghalibaf and Adel for the coming race, will publicly express a similar sentiment.
Irrespective, the fact that some leading politicians have explicitly distanced themselves from the Ahmadinejad administration’s hardline anti-Israel policy reflects the depth and seriousness of policy debates in today’s Iran and underscores the ruling elite’s growing concerns about the effects of Iran’s isolation due to the nuclear crisis.
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