Deadlier consequences

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I was recently startled to see a photograph in the Financial Times showing members of the Osnabruck Symphony Orchestra, a German provincial ensemble — some of the women musicians wearing Muslim headscarves — playing a concert in Tehran.

The picture's caption read: "Orchestra reaches for harmony with Iran," and the accompanying story quotes its executive director that he was "hoping music can help ease the tensions between Tehran and the West over Iran's nuclear program," adding that "his mission was about trying to stop a possible military confrontation — if Iran is bombed, it would be the biggest imaginable disaster for the world."

He didn't deign to reveal whether in his view Iran using a nuclear device against some of its neighbors — Israel, for instance — would be less of a disaster. The above gentleman also declared that "the concerts would draw attention to real life in Iran."

This brings to mind equally naive — or hypocritical — statements made 71 years ago about the Berlin Olympics. Some people at the time also claimed that bringing international sports to the German capital would ease tensions between Nazi Germany and the democratic West. They may also have added that the Olympics would draw attention to real life in Germany. Well, they didn't — Dachau and Buchenwald remained hidden from the eyes of the games' international visitors — as will the present goings-on in Iran from the eyes of the merry band from Osnabruck.

But it apparently isn't only the Osnabruck group that is playing a "double concerto" in Germany. So we hear about a conference titled "Iran — Business Opportunities for German Exporters" taking place in Darmstadt under the auspices of the Hessian state government and the federal office for foreign trade. The original (later discarded) text of the invitation to the conference said: "Iran's economic potential makes the country a worthwhile investment," while a German government representative rhapsodized that Iran was eager to buy all sorts of capital goods that German companies manufactured: turbines, monorails, etc.

Official spokespersons in the German chancellor's office or in the Foreign Ministry have yet to explain how all this fits in with the West's policy — supposedly supported by Berlin — of tightening economic sanctions against the Iranian regime and calling for disinvestment from its economy? German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech in February 2006, had condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying that "A president that questions Israel's right to exist, a president that denies the Holocaust, cannot expect to receive any tolerance from Germany. We have learned our history." Has Iran?

True, the major German banks, under pressure from the Bush administration — perhaps also remembering their unsavory past during the Nazi era — wound down their business in Iran, which was an important step. But in view of the fact that for most other German enterprises it seems to be "business as usual," can observers be blamed for feeling that Germany is playing a double game with regard to Iran? Not that all other Western countries' record in this matter is perfect, but one cannot imagine America, Britain or France at this stage holding conferences to actually promote transactions there.

President Bush and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have called for tightening the sanctions against Iran — the latter and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner even making it clear that the United States and its allies could face a choice between allowing Iran to get the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and going to war to prevent it (albeit, further action by the U.N. Security Council was again delayed by the obstructions of Russia, China and the International Atomic Energy Agency's Mohammad El Baradei). But where is Germany?

In his recent semi-memoir, "To the Castle and Back," former Czech President Vaclav Havel writes about what he calls "the old European Disease, which is the tendency to make compromises with evil, to close one's eyes to dictatorship" — and Nasrin Amirsedghi, an Iranian writer and opponent of the Tehran regime, distributed protest leaflets at the Darmstadt conference, saying "Germans either can't, or won't, see the kinds of people with whom they are doing business — how can this country, with its history, ignore such things?"

Contrary to Mr. Ahmadinejad's bragging in New York, Iran may not yet have achieved its nuclear goal — but unless stopped, it's getting there. If Nazi Germany had acquired the atom bomb during World War II, it would have meant the end of the Free World and of civilization as a whole. Will Mr. Ahmadinejad be allowed to succeed where Adolf Hitler failed?

Ambassador Zalman Shoval, who twice served Israel (1990-93 and 1998-2000), is president of the Israel America Chamber of Commerce.