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PETER O’CONNOR
Contributing Columnist
oconnor@lbknews.com
In the early days of this summer I wrote a piece for these pages suggesting that our friend, The State of Israel, might be letting its guard down. That column relied heavily on the published works of others.
I thought that their conclusions were spot on, as our British friends might say.
Now as summer passes and autumn begins, we might have to turn our attention to that staunchest of allies again. Of late we are consumed in our Country with domestic politics. We hear nothing but tales of government shutdowns, debt ceilings, debt limits, who won’t negotiate, who might be a chicken, which party will be destroyed, or not. All of these important topics have foreign policy implications. None of these are more important than considerations of the middle-east. Israel is key in that region.
While in the air, where I sometimes do my best thinking, I came upon a piece by Bret Stephens in the Journal entitled “Israel’s Failing Strategy.”
(The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, October 1, 2013) His headline is,“The Jewish state cannot rely on the United States for its security.” This was a grabber I thought. I read on.
Stephens writes, “Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House on Monday and on Tuesday addresses the United Nations. It’s a predictable routine. First he obtains the stylized assurances from President Obama – still exulting from his 15 minute phone call with Iran’s Hasan Rouhani – that Iran will not be allowed to get the bomb and that “all options are on the table.” “Then Mr. Netanyahu denounces Iran at the U.N. and issues unspecified, and increasingly noncredible, warnings that Israel may act on its own.”
Continuing, “In May 2007 Israel disclosed to the U.S. that Syria was constructing a nuclear reactor in its eastern desert with help from North Korea. Mr. Olmert, then Israel’s prime minister, asked President Bush to bomb the facility. Mr. Bush weighed the options, said no, and proposed taking the matter public at he U.N.” The Israelis later conducted a strike on that facility in Syria themselves. This action was in their own self interest. Likely today?
The WSJ piece goes on, “The Israeli prime minister (Netahyahu) infuriated the White House a couple of years ago by treating the president to a public lecture in the Oval Office. Yet Israeli policy since then has amounted to one big kowtow to Mr. Obama’s needs, political and diplomatic. Israel apparently refrained from attacking Iran a year ago, largely in deference to Mr. Obama’s electoral calendar. Since then it has given the administration the widest possible latitude to pursue diplomatic initiatives until they prove their futility.
A year on here is where things stand.
(1) U.S. credibility on enforcing presidential red lines and carrying through on military threats is in tatters thanks to Mr. Obama’s Syria capitulation.
(2) America’s ‘diplomatic option’ is for Mr. Obama, a journey not a destination: He will pursue it no matter how flimsy the pretext or the likelihood of success.
(3) Iran has enriched nearly 3,000 kilos of uranium in he last year alone, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA also notes in its most recent report that ‘the agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities . . . including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.’
(4) Oh, and (4); Despite this, Israel finds itself on the diplomatic back foot because Iran’s new president, unlike his predecessor, has alighted on a less-uncouth way to deny the Holocaust.”
Stephens uses a football analogy; Mr Rouhani’s efforts to negotiate a deal, that, if honored, would leave Iran first and five at the nuclear goal line. He goes on to use a line he says he never thought he would write: “How does Mr Netanyahu get out o this trap; by downgrading relations with Washington.”
“That isn’t to say that Israel doesn’t benefit from good relations with the U.S. But the U.S., like Britain after World War II is in retreat from the world, and Israelis need to adapt to a global reality in which the Americans are willing to do less. What Mr. Netanyahu has been doing instead is granting Mr. Obama a degree of leverage and a presumption of authority over the Jewish state to which he is not entitled and has done little to deserve. That needs to stop.” Stephens’ words.
“What also needs to stop is the guessing game over Israel’s intentions towards Iran. Mr. Obama will not – repeat, will not – conduct a military strike against Iran. Israelis who think otherwise are fooling themselves. But Israel will soon have to decide whether to act alone. If so, Israelis must proceed without regard to Mr. Obama’s diplomatic timetable. If not, they’ll need to reconsider the concept and structure of Israeli deterrence, including nuclear ambiguity.
Stephens related George Bush’s comments on that strike alone on the Syrian facility. The President wrote, “ The bombing demonstrated Israel’s willingness to act alone. Prime Minister Olmert hadn’t asked for a green light, and I hadn’t given one. He had done what he believed was necessary to protect Israel” Those were words of respect. That is what Israel needs.
These are still trying times.
We in America can never take our eyes off the ball.