The last time President Barack Obama met Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, it was obvious that the two men distrusted and despised each other. This time (March 5), their mutual dislike was better hidden, but the gulf between them was still as big, especially on the issue of Iran’s alleged desire for nuclear weapons.
There is something comic about two nuclear-armed countries (5,000-plus nuclear weapons for the U.S., around 200 for Israel) declaring that it is vital to prevent a third country from getting a few of the things too.
What divides Obama and Netanyahu is a question of timing. Obama’s “red line” is the point at which Iran “possesses” a nuclear weapon, which would not arrive for a couple of years even if Iran actually intends to make one.
Netanyahu’s “red line” comes much sooner: whenever Iran has enough enriched uranium to build a bomb, whether it does so or not. It is, of course, quite legal for Iran to enrich uranium (which it says is solely for use in civilian nuclear reactors), while an unprovoked attack on Iran would be a criminal act under international law. But that didn’t stop former president George W. Bush from invading Iraq, and it wouldn’t stop Obama now.
What worries Obama are three other things. First, the American public simply isn’t up for a third “war of choice” in ten years in the Middle East. As retired general Anthony Zinni, former commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East, warned three years ago: “If you liked Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.”
Secondly, this is presidential election year in the United States. If Israel attacks Iran, the oil price will soar and kill the economic recovery Obama is depending on for re-election. However, if the U.S. fails to back Israel, American Jews will turn against him and kill his re-election chances anyway.
Thirdly, the attack would not destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment plants. Israel has been threatening to attack them for years, so the Iranians have buried them deep underground. Israeli and American hawks claim that an attack could delay Iran’s capability to enrich large quantities of uranium for three years, but Meir Dagan, former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, thinks three months is optimistic.
Even if it were three years, Iran would be back to where it is now by 2015 — and an Iran that had been attacked by Israel and the United States would be determined to get nuclear weapons as fast as possible. As Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently, Israeli attacks on Iran “would be destabilizing and would not achieve their long-term objectives.”
If Netanyahu and his fellow hawks truly believed Iranian nuclear weapons would mean the extinction of the Jewish state, then their wish to attack Iran would be defensible, but they don’t. That’s just for public consumption. What’s actually at stake here is not the survival of Israel, just the preservation of the huge strategic advantage Israel enjoys as the sole nuclear weapons state in the Middle East.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, let the cat out of the bag in a recent interview with Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman for New York Times Magazine. “From our point of view, a nuclear state offers an entirely different kind of protection to its proxies. Imagine if we enter another military confrontation with Hezbollah, [and a] nuclear Iran announces that an attack on Hezbollah is tantamount to an attack on Iran. We would not necessarily give up on it, but it would definitely restrict our range of operations.”
But there is also a deeper motive. Netanyahu and his allies really think that an attack on Iran would bring the Islamic regime down. As Barak told Bergman, “An Iranian bomb would ensure the survival of the current regime, which otherwise would not make it to its 40th anniversary in light of the admiration that the young generation in Iran has displayed for the West. With a bomb, it would be very hard to budge the administration.”
So what Barak and his fellow hawk Netanyahu are actually demanding is American support for an attack whose real aim is to bring down the Iranian regime. The thinking is delusional: the notion that the Iranian regime will collapse unless it gets the bomb is held by both Israeli and American hawks, but there is no concrete reason to believe it.
As Meir Dagan said in a lecture at Tel Aviv University recently, “The fact that someone has been elected doesn’t mean that he is smart.”
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
Iran poses no threat to me, my family, my neighbors, my town, my county, the rest of Maine, or my country. I’d prefer them not have a nuclear weapon but if they have no means to deploy it here.
Perhaps it really is simple.
When was the last time that the U.S. or Israel invaded a country that had nuclear weapons?
If the criminals who rule Iran launched a nuclear attack on the criminals who rule Israel, the criminals who rule the U.S. would obliterate the aforementioned Iranian criminals.
In a heartbeat.
Gwynne, if you want Iran invaded, why don’t you get the EU together to do it. Why is it that Europeans want the US to bear the brunt of the costs in money and lives?
Did he say in this article that he wanted Iran invaded? I think he was saying it was a stupid idea and shouldn’t be done.
This is a no win situation long coming. Either choice brings big problems. This country is in no position financially or politically to go to war again. And if we do, its not going to be pretty. If we stay home, it’s not going to be pretty later on. This is a bad situation most Americans have been turning a blind eye on since 1978. Remember the late seventies?
I remember a whole lot of Iranian students in the US in the 70’s. We lived close to Norwich University in VT. and there where lots of Iranian students there during the Shah’s regime. They were all very westernized. During the Green Revoulution of 2009 you could see people in the streets protesting the gov’t, those women were not in hajibs, but in jeans with a scarf on their heads. Iran is much more west-centric than much of the Mid East, the people just need to throw out the Theocracy.
Remember the Iranians were voting in 2009, albeit flawed, but they were voting. Our “allies” the Saudi’s don’t vote, Kuwait doesn’t vote, Bahrain doesn’t vote. Funny how we talk democracy yet support kings.
Barak hates Netanyahu for obvious reasons, the Arabs cannot conceal their hatred of the Jews.
This article exemplifies the drum beat to war. It is so propaganda laden it offers no actual insights into the nature of the conflict. It opens saying that Obama and Netanyahu distrust and despise each other. Really? Evidence of this? There is none because it is not true. This premise is what the rest of the article relies on and it is entirely fabricated.
The neo-con worldview says the US can achieve and secure global supremecy by permanently occupying the middle east and taking control of the oil reserves of other sovereigns. Not only is this not likely to be true, it is immoral and very dangerous. Iraq was the first such foray towards this goal. Of course there was nothing linking 9/11 to Iraq. This is simply what was needed to sell the war to the people.
That is the same sales pitch we are getting here. Read up people. Intelligence reports say Iran is years away from even being capable of building a bomb. Mutually assured destruction is still a valid deterrent. Further, reports suggest that even with war on Iran, we would only slow them down by a few years.
We will not win this conflict. We will be mired in it for decades. We will bring the world to the brink of world war. We will destroy our relationships with all of the world except Israel. We will continue to overtax our troops. C’mon folks, that should be reason enough to say forget it. Haven’t they suffered enough? If we go into Iran, we should re institute the draft. It is not fair that the rich are profiting from teh blood of the poor. If they had some skin in the game, they would not be so quick to go to war.
If we enter this conflict, we deserve the terrible consequences that await us. Iran is many, many times more capable than Iraq. They also have more friends with big weapons.
This war would not be for the people, it would be for the oil and gas companies and for the war profiteers and speculators all of which would make a killing. The rest of us only stand to pay the highest price, losing our sons and daughters to enrich the already wealthy. At the end of the day it won’t even reduce the cost of gasoline. Like empires before this, we ensure our demise when we feast on the blood from conquests of choice.
Reread the last paragraph and the closing line of Dyer’s piece please.
No mention of the wizard that runs Iran or the Ayatollahs that promote anti jew sentiment towardss the US, Irael and any western state. Iran does not need nuclear energy unless they are investing in a lot of air conditioners to cool down their homes.