Israel’s Choices and America’s Failure
A number of commentators have drawn a parallel between Israel’s national elections on Tuesday and the formation of a national unity government just prior to Israel’s preemptive attack on Egypt in June 1967. Despite stern warnings to the contrary from the Johnson administration and being at mortal risk, Israel won the Six-Day War. The decision to strike was preceded by weeks of anguished debate. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to form the equivalent of a national unity government after the elections, with the moral authority to strike Iran.
A great gulf is fixed, though, between the Cold War environment of 1967, when the U.S. feared an escalation of a Middle East conflict into a global confrontation with the Soviet Union, and the world of 2013, where America’s competitors have a marginal role in the Middle East. The Johnson administration feared that Israel might upset its Cold War calculus and give advantage to Russia. To some extent those fears were realized (Egypt’s turn toward Russia culminated in the 1973 attack on Israel), but the advantage that America drew from its alliance with the region’s strongest power more than outweighed other considerations. What does the Obama administration have to lose from an Israeli strike on Iran today? Nothing, it would appear, except its own illusions. It is much easier for Israel to disregard American warnings today than it was in 1967. Lyndon Johnson was genuinely sympathetic to Israel but concerned about spillover into the Cold War. Obama has nothing to lose but his illusions.
As Shai Feldman writes in the current National Interest:
Assuming the January 22 Israeli elections will be followed by some three to six weeks of negotiations on the formation of the country’s next governing coalition, Israel’s new government will be sworn in sometime between mid-February and mid-March 2013. By that time, the decision making environment surrounding Iran’s nuclear efforts is likely to be affected by two vectors: One is the expected further evolution of Iran’s nuclear program. The other is the likely efforts of the United States to reach a negotiated resolution of the nuclear conflict with Iran.
If the pace of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities are projected into the next six to nine months, by late spring or early summer 2013 Iran will likely possess enough uranium enriched to 3.5 percent and 20 percent to allow the construction of some 2–3 bombs within 2–3 months of a decision to do so being taken. At that point, Israeli leaders will become uncertain about the extent to which the difference between a nuclear-capable and nuclear-armed Iran will remain relevant. Even the more cautious, balanced, and level-headed among the Israeli defense and intelligence chiefs will then become very nervous, as so much would then rest on the ability to detect the decision of Iran’s supreme leader to order the production of nuclear weapons.
But a prospective Israeli strike against Iran will run into a buzz-saw of opposition from the Obama administration, Feldman adds, which will undertake:
…a heroic U.S.-led effort to negotiate a grand bargain with Iran to prevent it from “going nuclear.” This effort will be motivated by the Obama administration’s assessments that following the lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is war-weary; that even a limited military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations might escalate, requiring another major U.S. military commitment in the Middle East; and that given the state of the U.S. economy and that of the national economies of America’s principal trading partners, a military attack aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons may prove too costly. Given their positions on this issue, the recently announced nominations of senator John Kerry and former senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretaries of state and defense, respectively, point to this likely effort.
Feldman’s summary is accurate, but dispiriting: the stakes for the United States are trivial today compared to the risks in 1967 at the height of the Cold War.
As risky a measure as it is I’ve felt for some time that Israel would be better off bombing the Iranian nuclear program than waiting for Obama to fix it. I agree with your analysis that Israeli’s enemies are relatively weak right now and i think they could get away with it and let Obama and the Euros scream all they want. I trust Israel is strengthening economic ties with countries like India to make it less dependent on the US and Europe. I respect Israeli knowledge of the problems because they live in the midst of the problem of Islamism and I think the rest of the West is still in denial about how toxic Islamism is to it. That’s the West’s problem and Israel should do what ever it has to to ensure its survival.
I’m not convinced that any American president has been friendly to Israel, owing to the ongoing Arabism in the State Department and our dependence on foreign oil. See http://clarespark.com/2009/09/11/oil-politics-and-obamas-view-of-israeli-history/. Students of history, especially of antisemitism, should know that for all practical purposes, “the Jews” are on their own. I support Israel unconditionally, though I am as secular as they come, and resent any moves toward theocracy.
I wouldn’t worry. I’ve been following Knesset debates (See knessetjeremy.com) and while there has been plenty of secular social legislation, there has not been a single piece of religious social legislation. Since the high-water mark of Menachem Begin, the effort – certainly on the end of the religious right – has entirely been not to lose too much ground.
Abortion isn’t even on the table.
I’m not going to give Israel advice on this. I don’t have the information, and I’m not taking the risk–they are. My point is much more limited: if they decide they need to do it, the Obama administration can’t stop them.
True, but they can (and probably will) make the operation much more difficult and therefor much riskier than it already is.
Just consider the situation if Israel starts it and fails due to inherent difficulty of such operation and the possibility of an outright betrayal.
If an American spy satellite picked up Israeli aircraft advancing to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities, would you put it past Obama to call the Iranians up and warn them? I wouldn’t.
Bingo.
In fact Netanyahu has already twice ordered an attack and , since it requires a large number of aircraft, word has twice been leaked to offshore news sources that Israeli planes had gone hot ( engines on ) and a strike against Iran was imminent. There are only two countries whose satellites could have revealed that and the timing is conclusive that it was American sats that picked up the heat signatures. If the planes had taken off the story would have hit the wires before the planes could reach their targets. Additionally since the number of planes required is quite large the temporary depletion in air capability puts Israel at risk. Advance notice would allow another force to attack Israel while our resources are deployed elsewhere.
As a “parting gift” from Bush in December, 2008, it was announced that the US would site an X-Band radar installation in Israel’s Negev. That site however is under US control, and the US decides what it passes on to Israel. Sensitive enough to detect an Iranian launch far from Israeli airspace, it also likely knows about everything flying in ISRAELI airspace. So even if Israel elected not to warn the US of its intentions to launch an attack, the US would know about it long before a satellite passing overhead could detect it.
It is my understanding that the system you refer to recognizes only airborne threats. The heat signatures I referred to were revealed while the planes were still on the ground.
Thanks for the clarification, David. I may have mistakenly had the impression you were to some extent giving advice. You will notice that I opened my comment with a reference to the risk and I have no illusions that the only group who can assess that risk and decide what to do is the Israeli government. I also feel good that Israel has an experienced prime minister of proven mettle who is about as capable a leader as any nation could hope for in a dicy situation. In any case I found your essay cheered me up about Israel’s capacity to make its decision about the Iranian nuclear threat.
While I agree and have always argued that forceful action against Iranian nukes is not only prudent but necessary, I have to say that an air strike, no matter how precise and effective, will not even begin to gain the two to three years David postulates as an acceptable outcome.
It will require some sort of boots on the ground to ferret out and demolish major installations and material stockpiles.
That this can be done under the cover of massive, repeated over days and perhaps weeks, air attacks is possible, it is even possible that dissident forces inside Iran may help Mossad and Israeli Spec Ops boys do the job, but it will be very, very tough. I doubt Israel even has the manpower, much less the logistics tail, to sustain a one week series of raids that far from home.
We gave up the easy option 5 years ago, both politically and tactically.
We, the US and EU, will pay the piper. Sooner than later.
sigh
ta
Very interesting article as usual.
One minor quibble. Iron Dome is technologically advanced – but has no use outside of Israel. Any country outside of Israel that was being harassed by missals would respond by invading the aggressor. Its mostly European and Saudi political control of Israeli defensive choices that creates the necessity of Iron Dome.
Of course, long range missal defense is another matter, but there Israel has lots of competition.
South Korea and India are often mentioned as prospective buyers for Iron Dome.
At the rate things are going in five years or so especially if Obama retaliates economically or otherwise against Israel unconstrained by reelection, the Russians are going to get their hands on a copy of Iron Dome too.
“Russia would be pleased, although it wouldn’t say so in public. The chess players in the Kremlin don’t like a nuclear fianchetto on their southern flank.” Yep as I’ve said many times Russia will denounce an Israeli strike on Iran all the way to the bank as crude spikes to $110-$125 a barrel before settling down after Iran fails to close the Straits of Hormuz and Iranian production is easily replaced by other countries opening the spigots. If you see a peep in the Russian-language press about the Russian early warning radar station at Gabala being down for ‘routine maintenence’ that’s the signal that Putin has winked at the Israelis to go ahead and do it, especially if they plan to stop for gas in Azerbaijan at night after hitting the northern Iran targets.
Another pertinent signal of Obama’s intentions vis-a-vis Iran: He’s forcing USMC Gen. Jim Mattis, CENTCOM commander, to take early retirement ASAP at age 62.
Under the US military command-to-region(s) org charts, CENTCOM actually does not encompass Israel — EURCOM does.
(Sounds slightly counterintuitive, but in actual practice this tends to work out better in Israel’s favor, inasmuch as the IDF and Israel’s MOD don’t find themselves having to work with the Pentagon via the “Arabized” US officers of CENTCOM.)
Still, it’s not a favorable development for Israel when a US 4-star who resolutely doesn’t drink the Obama-Jarrett-Kerry-Hagel Kool-Aid on Iran is kicked to the curb.
Then again, such a move may prove to be yet another “hoist-by-his-own-petard” blunder for Obama, if it actually spurs Israel all the more to launch a strike.
Hadn’t heard the bad news about Gen. Mattis. Thanks for the heads-up.
http://freebeacon.com/report-obama-ousting-centcom-chief-mattis/
To see Kerry pompous and impotent, Hagel abrasive and impotent, and Brennan incoherent and impotent in the face of an Israeli strike will be a a great consolation and vastly amusing.
Whether or not Israel strikes or not strikes or if she does if the strikes will be successful is beyond my pay grade. However if Israel does strike the nuclear plants should’t be the only targets. If they can, they should also strike arms factories, oil refineries and their oil export terminals. Once Middle Eastern oil fields are seen as potential targets oil importers will seek to find oil anywhere outside of the Middle East which long term is good for the rest of the world. Seriously damaging the Iranian economy will no doubt result in a burst of support among Iranians for a time but as the economy further circles the drain and the regime is incapable of arresting the slide it will lead to revolt, which overall will be a good thing and a lesson not to be lost among the other Arab and Islamic regimes.
While in concept you are correct, as I implied in my comments above, you are up against reality.
To do what you suggest is a multi-day/ week sustained campaign, using lots of weapons and people. It is not a single squadron, four tanker (two in, two out) quick hit.
The answer is easy… the execution is much much harder
ta
Three months ago at national journal
Those underground Iranian Nuclear Research Centers can ‘not!’ be reached even with the bunker buster ordinance. The “INRC” are located beneath lay upon lay of solid rock!, that will deflect the blast force away, similar to the design of a T-34 tank.
Like
3 months ago
in reply to Perplexed
Perplexed
You must not be aware of the nuclear bunker buster. Yes, it exists in our ordinance inventory. Israel does have nukes but I don’t think that they have the bunker buster variety. All of this was avoidable had the West moved sooner when the existence of a nuclear program was known by the West.”
So USA would have to give Israel the nuke bunker buster
Waxwing,
Do you really believe that Obama would give Israel nuclear bunker busters for them to drop? I’d be happy to believe that he would continue to provide Israel with conventional weapons, but nukes? Really?
This is completely off topic, but in view of Mr. Goldman’s previous discussions of the probable cognitive advantages that the Chinese are gaining by widespread music education of their children, I can’t help thinking that if he has not already heard and written about it, he probably will be interested in the Chinese eugenics program for breeding brilliant children, as described in the first essay at
http://edge.org/responses/q2013
of which I have only just learned by a link from Walter Russell Mead’s Via Meadia blog. I suspect that he and his readers will find other items of interest in the material on the linked page, but there are so many lengthy discussions that I have not read them all yet.
what the Chinese may find is that higher IQs seem to be linked to lower emotional intelligence — maturity — and with a higher propensity to believe nonsense and think magically. See: Academe’s near-unanimous support of Obamism.
@cubanbob, @michael hoskins, @waxwing01
The IAF’s opening salvo against Hamas in Cast Lead and the more recent anti-Hamas op (I forget the name) suggests, to me at least, that regime decapitation (mullahs, IRGC, etc.) may be the approach Israel takes in a strike.
Higher potential value for Israel both in the immediate and longer terms (imagine an Iran-wide equivalent to what was achieved vis-a-vis Hizballah via the Mugniyeh assassination), greater ease of execution for the IAF(so to speak!), and greater potential for forcing the US to follow up with the requisite large-scale/wide-ranging strikes on the actual nuclear facilities.
Respectfully disagree. Killing leaders does not demolish the facilities and most importantly remove the material on hand, an absolute necessity to get the job done. There are enough loonies in islamic garb to keep pick up the pieces, hell, we train them in our engineering schools.
And aside to waxwing, bunker busters, nuke or otherwise, are not that specific or precise a device. They are for excavating silos.
thus boots going in and doing the deed.
not easy
My guess is Morsi launches an attack on Israel. Mr. Goldman and I disagree here, I think the terrible economic condition of Egypt pretty much guarantees an attack, because Israel is too small demographically to occupy even the Sinai, much less Egypt proper, and the “cost” of an Egyptian attack is pretty much zero from Morsi’s view — he gets to burnish his Islamist credentials and make Egyptians for a while forget his miserable economy.
I think Russia won’t be pleased, with any attack on Iran; their whole strategy is to team up with Iran and help them nuke up to get oil at around min $150 a barrel and probably over $200. The FT did a series of calculations and figured Putin needs oil at $118 now and $150 min for future budget revenue.
However, with Algeria realistically gone from supplying Europe with gas and oil, and Libya the same, Europe is desperate to get alternatives to Russia for oil and gas. Europe will swallow its objections if Israel offers a cut of the oil and gas exploitation in the Med.
But I would look to an Egyptian attack more than anything else.
Wrong Whiskey, there’s far less risk for Morsi in grabbing the eastern Libyan oil fields and far more to gain than a useless attack on Israel. Morsi is a jihadist at heart but he’s also not stupid. Obama cannot get all Bush 41 on Saddam on him like when the Iraqis took Kuwait.
Hell he can claim the Egyptian troops are just ‘peacekeepers’ after his buddies in the Brotherhood cause more 9/11/12 style mayhem.
The eastern Libyan oil fields, and the eastern Libyan water source and infrastructure, what is historically Cyrenaica with Benghazi as provincial capital are historically part of Egypt, and trans-border tribal links -
makes it so much more rational for Egypt to seize, or hire themselves out to protect, than to send tanks across the Sinai.
Someone else in this thread asked who would counter a nuclear Iran the way India counters a nuclear Pakistan.
I assume, and may be wrong, the Saudis are already paying Pakistan to be the first counter to Iran. Pakistan has been hostile to their own Shi’a.
Baluchistan is another British map decision that actually split apart a recognized nation (1848 map of the world in this Massachusetts village shows Balochistan, Afghanistan, and Hindoostan quite clearly defined.)
Baluchistan could become a major front in the Sunni-Shi’a war, since most Baluchis are Sunni.
fwiw, the way things have been going, I am not ruling out a Sunni monarchies +Pakistan+Egypt joint strike on Iran, led by France
I thought Qatar’s AlJazeera purchase from Gore was also to progandize against fracking – huge threat to Qatar’s export LNG business.
French foreign policy of late does seem to show a strong Muslim Brotherhood influence/slash fear of Islamists. A kind of bipolar personality if you will that would fit right in down in Paris.
K2K, the AlGore-Qatari buyout is on the surface about propagandizing against fracking, but look deeper and you’ll see it’s about Qatar being a fully paid up member of the globalist club. Ten years ago we heard about how Al-Jazeera was ‘jihad TV’, now Politico and other D.C. establishment mouthpieces go out of their way to emphasize how professional and respectable AJ is while damning the evil Russia Today, despite the fact that the two channels have had quite a few personnel in common, at least for their Arabic offerings.
Even the Qataris as with the Russians (who have their people in Houston, see Gazprom USA) have to realize that fracking horse has left the barn already and its coping with the fallout of fracking that’s important now. Russia has the human potential to somewhat diversify its economy, at least to the same extent that Canada or Australia is diversified despite their comparative advantages being in exporting natural resources or slightly value added products of natural resources. No one says Australia is third world because it relies so heavily on exporting iron or coal or natural gas in liquid form to China. Unfortunately for the Qataris all they have mainly to export is gas, their oil mix is not so great as their Saudi or Kuwait neighbors.
I say this as someone who knows someone who knows one of Gazprom’s top young PR bucks. I look forward to speaking with that chap the next time I’m in Moscow and getting some inside skinny on what the Gazprom Evil Empire is really thinking.
My quick take is that both undersea pipelines to France (Algeria, gas) and Italy (Libya,oil) are flowing full tilt at this time.
The facility that was attacked was just a portion of Algeria’s natural gas processing capacity. To the extent it was crippled, it will be back up and running in months.
A further cordon will soon enclose the entire zone, for sure. “Fool me once,”… and all that.
I understand that Israel expects to pipe in their own gas by this Summer.
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/03/03/feature-04
Excuse me…
A new gas pipe now runs to Spain, too.
“Spain is one of the most important markets for Algerian gas. Algeria relies on European markets to export energy, which is Algeria’s first source of income and accounts for 98 percent of the country’s annual revenues.
Algeria plans on launching another project to allow gas exports to Italy via Sardinia. Galsi is still in the phase of technical studies to identify the investment potential of supplying Europe with natural gas.”
I stand corrected on a direct connection to France. It went by tanker:
“With the start-up of the LNG plant at Arzew in 1964, Algeria became the world’s first producer of LNG.”
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm
Because the Russians have placed such a high roof on gas supplies to Europe, Algeria has an additional link to Italy far along in the planning stages.
————
Between Israel and Algeria, it would appear that the Europeans would rather import than frack.
Correct Blert, the Norwegian output has been so prodigious as to surprise/upset Gazprom’s estimates and to prove them overly optimistic. But the Russian energy industry analysts who have no skin in the game for Gazprom have been all over it.
Even RT is reporting this on their Business page, implying that Gazprom must rely on Gazpromneft more or start withering. That is of course apart of the Kremlinology game as the non-Gazprom clans (including Russian Big Ag which Jim Rogers bought into via VTB’s private equity wing) gain clout at the expense of the Gazpromers.
A few years ago the company was riding high and was the most profitable in the world despite having 300,000 employees on the payroll, many of whom aren’t working or aren’t working too hard.
The patronage side of Gazprom is about to die a slow agonizing death and Putin’s closest advisors are already frantically preparing for this behind the scenes, which is why you’ve seen Rosneft aggressively merge with Exxon and TNK BP’s oligarchs selling out with the impressive technological build up they’ve obtained during their shotgun marriage to the mother company BP. BTW, the British press has been quite cheerleading/home team rah rahing about how BP has escaped the clutches of the evil Russian oligarchs, when in fact the reverse is true, it was BP that was desperate to sell out one of the most profitable portions of the whole company (Russia’s got gushers, what can I say, while the input to output ratios are not so favorable in the Middle East for BP as they used to be) to raise cash to pay off the tens of billions in Deepwater Horizon claims.
The Russians as ever knowing that their biznis partners cojones were in a vise squeezed for a hard bargain. No one said the troika of TNK BP oligarchs made their billions by being stupid, and if Bob Dudley or another member of the Bildeberg/Davos club’s folly enabled their profit, why would the Anglo-American media mouthpieces admit as much? Oceania’s always been at war with Eurasia old boy. Don’t mistake the Vlad the Bad hype for the cold hard realities of biznis po Russki.
Interesting as usual. What else was going on in 1967 in Utopia? Ah, the summer of love, the hippies were in heaven, and wearing flowers in your hair was the suggested attire for visiting San Francisco. Of course, there was 159 race riots during the long hot summer of 67. Tet wouldn’t be happening until the end of January, 68, which sort of blew LBJ’s cover on the light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam. Curiously, a month before when I raised my hand to swear in and join the army at the Oakland Induction Center the Marines had apparently had a bad month at Khe Sanh and x amount of us surprised nineteen year olds were drafted into the Marines for the first time since WW2. The expressions on their faces was priceless, but when the North Koreans took the Pueblo we were more worried about the cold of Korea than the tropics of Vietnam, for which Tet sealed are future assignment fates in the big muddy. As I recall, Iran does back up against Afghanistan where it also funds the local Taliban and we’ll still have some token forces hanging out in the fall for Taliban bait, doing Obama’s good war as he cuts and runs.
Israel will be here when you and Iran (as it currently is constructed and governed) are long dead and buried.
If you were taking your medications the way you’re supposed to, you would know that.
A post by AzeriIran, to which mine was a reply, disappeared.
“President Mohamed Morsi is exposed not only as a Jew-hater (which surprised no-one)” – correction: which surprised no one but the clueless Obama administration, still holding out hope that Morsi will take it back because he didn’t really mean to say it
“Its retaliatory capacity will be limited to a few acts of terrorism.”
America’s elites are limited to a few thousand wealthy families. For all we know, modern wars don’t happen because every country is full of everyone else’s potential Nidal Hasan’s. America’s pacifying drugs and pornography won’t work on Iranians; they already have those problems, thus they have the means to easily screen for the fanatical true believers who aren’t affected. Iranian sleeper agents have a very big, diverse target in front of them.
Assassinations don’t work on homogenous cultures where everyone thinks the same way, and holds similar views. You can always find a replacement. The US in 300 years has had elite Dutch, WASPS, Jews, and soon Chinese in charge. The leaders change in every lifetime! They are vulnerable to being targeted and wiped out more than the Japanese or Polish or Israeli elite. America’s elites can be and are replaced just as easily, but they don’t want to be there when it happens.
Obama’s popularity among the most prestigious, upper class elites is largely because of self preservation. They understand that Israel supporting could be dangerous to their health. Note that the biggest Israel supporters by number are working class evangelical fundamentalist proles. Methinks they have interests in mind besides theology, even if they don’t consciously realize it.
“Iran cannot close the Straits of Hormuz, at least not for very long.”
There is a fundamental limit to how much armament a ship can realistically hold, that doesn’t apply to land. Ships exploit their mobility, not their muscle. But the lack of room for maneuver in that area simply favors defense too much.
Even a small potential for an oil panic would make the government have to cancel much of its welfare gimmedats, and that’s the last thing a president like Obama would ever want to do. There just aren’t enough working class whites anymore to hold the status quo, and the Arab Spring shows this more than anything.
I really doubt Israel will actually have to overtly bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. Look for another Stuxnet, or mysterious explosion in the next few months. If indeed they do bomb the facilities, they wont need approval from Obama but from the Putinaor. Damn right! Vlad the Muslim Impaler would never allow a bunch of crazy mullahs having nuclear weapons so close by. Russia will actually continue to benefit from any conflict with Iran, particularly closing the Straights of Hormuz. And if Spengler is right, and the closing of the Straights would be a short term blip, it might just work perfectly to the Putinators advantage. Just enough to spike oil prices, but not so much to kill the global economy! Either way, the Putinator wins! The Putinator is truly a genius! Unlike the US where just kiss ass to win favor from BOTH Jews and Muslims, the Putinator, in contrast has BOTH kissing HIS ass!
And furthermore, he might even be saving our butts in Syria too!
“Look for another Stuxnet, or mysterious explosion in the next few months.”
Not to blow my own horn but:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-minister-welcomes-report-of-huge-blast-at-iran-nuclear-plant/
I swear I had no prior info on this! Now tell me the Putinator didnt have a hand in this! Who else could get explosives 100 meters deep into the facility!
VIVA Vlad the Muslim Impaler…aka The Putinator (And may Pepe Escobar have a long slow miserable death)
OT but relevant to larger Spenglerian concerns:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-21/japans-deja-vu-chain-events-stagnation-monetization-devaluation-stabilization-retali
Ambrose Evans Pritchard points to Japan’s 1930s monetization that led to assassination of civilian government leader and military rule prior to WWII…the Japanese are attempting to make up for the inevitable deflation that accompanies aging by printing money. We don’t when they will fail but we know this will fail.
http://www.pravmir.com/villanova-pa-metropolitan-hilarion-blasts-anglicans-for-renouncing-the-faith/
Zerohedge, as usual, is peddling inflammatory nonsense. There’s a world of difference between Japan in the 1930s and today, including the fact that the fertility rate stood at nearly 5 in 1930 vs. 1.3 today. Aging is deflationary. Japan should be so lucky as to get a 2% inflation rate.
I am a regular reader of Zero Hedge. However, I respect your opinions, and will keep them in mind when I visit there.
Regards,
Robert
Some antagonism toward ZH noted. Nonetheless they’re in the top 1,000 websites visited daily in the U.S. And they did not say Japan would go to war again as in the 1930s, they merely said an inflationary monetary policy could create a more aggressive foreign policy turn. Nonetheless the Chinese have nukes and abundant manpower whereas the Japanese do not. Hence the Japanese will blink in the Diaoyu/Senkakus dispute.
Spengler wrote, “… the stakes for the United States are trivial today compared to the risks in 1967 at the height of the Cold War”.
I’m not so sure about that point. In 1967 the US faced a single rational nuclear power (plus the mini-nuclear power of China). The stakes over Iran are that it’s a defense on the one yard line against a future in numerous radical, desperate states and movements will have WMD. It’s too sad that Israel has to fight this battle for civilization alone.
Regarding Syria, I’m cautiously enjoying the irony of President BHO having spent the past several months supporting radial Sunni movements in Libya, Egypt and Syria and now having that Sunni tidal wave partly wash away Assad and Hizballah, two of the principal impediments to an Israeli strike on Iran, a possible COA which he seems to resent so . It reminds me Haman being ordered by the King to lead Mordechai’s horse … Haman with a Harvard law degree.
@MarcH
What makes you so certain that President Obama views what is happening in the Middle East as a failure. Au contraire, friend, he sees a Sunnis near-Caliphate as a positive achievement. From a strategic viewpoint, a radicalized Middle East will keep Russian and China from adventurism and America free of the need for involvement. The abandonment of Israel is a small price to pay for such a grand scheme.
Jerry,
Thanks for your response.
I think the Middle East is falling into chaos, radicalism and war, but a Sunni Caliphate? Caliphs need money and, as discussed in recent Spengler columns, the aggressive Sunni powers (Egypt and Turkey) don’t have it.
KSA is certainly Sunni but IMHO they will be happy to sit quietly on their oil money. They’ll pay who they have to resist Iran (a Shia power, as you know) but they know the MB hopes to take them to the gallows.
Another factor to consider is that the fracking and shale energy revolution is making the Persian Gulf region less significant to world energy markets. This also reduces the cost of turning a blind eye to the Israelis if they should choose to take out Iran’s nuclear program. It is worth considering that Israel has substantial hydrocarbon reserves of its own, in the form of shale oil underneath Israel itself and off-shore gas.
Incidentally, it is this energy revolution that Obama and the democrats are trying to strangle. Perhaps they are receiving money from the gulf Arabs to undertake this effort. We know that is was the gulf Arab’s who funded a Hollywood production of a movie that opposed the fracking technology.
It’s too soon to assess the “shale oil underneath Israel itself and off-shore gas”. Several of the early drillings have proven non-viable, and Israel’s bureaucracy and the country’s own NIMBY movement, have slowed progress. The gas was initially expected to start flowing in 2012, but only last week a new LNG buoy was announced to facilitate IMPORT of natural gas to tide them over until they can start relying on domestic sources. But at least they no longer need to rely on Egypt for said gas, which was officially cut off over a year ago.
As to the oil shale, the deposits are indeed substantial, but can they be exploited in an economic and environmentally responsible manner? That remains to be seen. The pilot drill site hasn’t yet begun its work, but the project at least survived an early legal challenge from environmentalists.
I would expect Israel to operate entirely outside the box.
I presumed that Suxnet or its like would be good policy years and years ago.
I gagged on my tongue rather than bring up such an obvious gambit.
I’m still gagging… since I have no desire to thwart the thwarting of the mad mullahs.
I will state, for the record, that Iran and Syria are in fulsome economic free-fall.
Thus, the Hez and Hamas have been strategically neutered.
Fanatical Sunnis will sweep the Hez out of Lebanon. This, alone, is a super-strategic reversal of events for Israel.
I also expect that the unity government will address the E-1 issue this Spring.
Iranian events will provide media chaff to overawe the nattering class, kicking local real estate developments near the Jewish capital out of the news hole.
Two Rubicons will have been crossed — without anyone’s feet getting wet.
The thought occurs that the Israelis, “thinking outside of the box,” could simply take out the Abadan oil fields. The sheer economic trouble that would cause Iran might prostrate them in their efforts for some time to come, and with the added benefit of placing the Iranian people into economic hard times – which are the wellspring of Revolution.
Do you really think Israel wants to invite flack from India, China and South Korea – all of whom have good relations with Israel but depend on that oil – or blame from the entire world from a spike in oil prices after such an action?
Israel doesn’t have to “sign its name” to a series of explosions destroying the oil field. Iran has enough other enemies to spread the blame around should something like that happen.
It must have escaped your notice — and the MSM — but KSA notified ALL of Iran’s counter-parties that she would step up and supply any Persian short-falls.
Accordingly, Iran’s exports of heavy, sour crude have collapsed 50% already…
And are headed still lower…
To less than 2,000,000 bbl/day.
Red China, Japan, Korea and India have all assured Washington that they’d continue to trim their imports — with every passing ninety-days.
==========
Of note: KSA’s crude exports have been trimmed by 300,000 bbl/day in December.
Lost in the MSM story: KSA is getting into the refining business in a major, major way. It is the King’s policy to upgrade their heavy, sour crude into light, sweet refined products. Such exports are not normally tabulated by the MSM.
The new Yanbu facility is expected to ‘internally’ consume 400,000 bbl/day — to produce 400,000 bbl/day of middle distillate (Diesel #2) and other products. (kerosene and gasoline)
==========
Globally, the world is awash in heavy, sour grades of crude. It is uneconomic unless it’s processed by a world-scale refinery. As for light, sweet grades — they’re as tight as a drum. Hence, the Libyan oil-war.
Fracking produces only light oil – inherent due to tight sands. So far, they’ve all been sweet grades, too.
Canadian tar sands are preprocessed enough to ship as light and sweet synthetic crude.
As a result, North America is becoming a fount of the good stuff.
OPEC, in contrast, is a fading factor — at that end of the market.
David Goldman underestimates the animus of President Obama towards Israel. With the US radar installation in Israel, the US will have immediate knowledge of any Israeli aircraft movement and my well inform Iran or take more direct action by either limiting access to the radar’s consequential information or God forbid, taking hostile action against Israel’s forces. At the peril of your life, never minimize the potential actions of a psychopath.
Question: Exactly why did we gift Morsi 20 F-16s and 200 M1A Abrams tanks?? Who is threatening the Egyptians?
Pure corporate welfare; the armaments are part of the foreign aid budget, but instead of providing any real aid to Egyptians the money is transferred directly to US arms manufacturers. Another word for it is corruption.
I’m still amazed that there is anybody left in Washington that thinks Iran will willingly give up their nuclear ambitions. Iran has been trying to build a nuclear bomb for roughly a decade now (perhaps even longer), and if economic sanctions, political isolation, and military threats have not made them stop, I don’t really know what the United States could “offer” that would stop them now? And what is it that the United States could “offer” Iran? Is it the selling-out of Israel? Would Obama throw Israel under the bus for an elusive promise from the Iranians to not build a nuclear bomb? How far is Obama willing to crawl on his belly to have his Chamberlain moment where he can declare “Peace in our time?”
Well gang, we’re about to see. Netanyahu will probably win the election and Iran will probably have enough plutonium for a bomb this year. Then we’ll see how far Obama and his anti-semitic troll Hagel will go to support Israel. My guess is not far at all.
Obama simply does not want Israel to exist. Only political considerations have so far slowed his moves to subvert Israel.
Remember that the Los Angeles Times is still sitting on a video of Obama’s send-off speech for Palestinian activist “scholar” Rashid Khalidi. Apparently, the speech would cause embarrassment even on the Left.
Remember also that Obama publicly vowed that the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza should be given a CONTIGUOUS state.
A completely wrong-headed analysis. First, there is no militarily feasible option to physically destroy Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Even if you damage partly, you can not destroy the knowledge and knowhow attained thus far. If US (not Israel) is perceived by Iran to be charting a military course, that will simply hasten Iran to go all the way and abandon NPT. Israel does not have the means, military, diplomatic to wage a war against Iran: It will itself be destroyed. So, what is left to “convince” Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions? Obama is already employing a two pronged approach: a) diplomacy by way of P5+Germany to offer carrots and sticks that would stop Iran short of going all the way; b) militarily and economically rolling back Iranian influence in Iraq and Syria. A grand bargain with Iran will include Iraq and Syria as well. Israel has no role in this endeavor except as a spoiler.
“So, what is left to “convince” Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions? ”
See the discussion after comment 21.
The notion of convincing Iran to abandon its nuclear (weapon) ambitions seems ludicrous to me.
Such ambitions are tied up with the Mahdi & necessary chaos to said Mahdi’s “return”, all tied up with Iran wanting to be the supreme Middle East honcho, all tied up with the endlessly ridiculous focus on the necessity of eradicating the state of Israel.
Getting a functioning and deliverable nuclear weapon is the central driving force of the régime.
Only the death of Khamenei (his demise has been anticipated for some time due to health) and some kind of power struggle resulting in the installation of a saner crowd will deter these morons from their current path.
“Iran to go all the way and abandon NPT.”
Iran abandoned its obligations and promises under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty decades ago.
Since said abandonment, Iran has been dancing “with the international community” on the question of its nukes and its intentions in the same way North Korea has been dancing.
Both countries getting away with it.
I have far more admiration for Israel’s Prime Minister than I do for America’s President
Then AND now.
It seems to me Iran is be forced to do something as Japan did on Dec 7th and i like to think we can keep young handsome stud Netanyahu and wild west hipster looking Obama not lose their innocence but we dream big dreams and The 12th CHOSEN Iman come and he be just like the Emperor of Japan after world war two called the Tenno “heavenly sovereign” just like me in USA with big big dreams and as Iran becomes rich like Japan after their chastisment I show the 12th Iman the great Robust joy of slaughtering the demons cutting off their tails and heads and we both have a great thirst for the demonic black blood spray never making mistake of carrying human head as our nations enjoy peace and property and we do heaven’s work in secret leaping with swords in our hands smashing away at demonic strong holds
WOW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khc9Bv8h3m4
Don’t forget to factor in that the Syrian condition is likely to only get worse as the radicals take power, despite the hopes of Washington. The window of opportunity for Israel is closing in more ways than one.
Dear Mr. Goldman,
Thank you for your excellent commentary and insights.
On this point, though, I believe you are mistaken: “everything the Obama administration has undertaken in the region has failed.”
Abu Hussain Obama is succeeding to a really amazing degree; he is succeeding in advancing Islamism and especially the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region and here in America too.
And his domestic policies are succeeding equally well. They are bringing America down–where he thinks America belongs.
Isreal should go on ahead. Hit the targets most likely to set iran back a few yrs. Hopefully by then Obama will have ruined the American economy enough that a friendly US prez will be elected…and we can together do the job right.
I do not mean to belittle a lot of analysis here, but to a large point it is beside the point. Between a friendly US admin and Isreal, there is no power on the planet even close. Bulletts kill, but everyone gives too much credit to arab/muslim armies (even the soviets). Like Saddaam’s boys, they will not fight long for a regime and ideology they know is backwards. The same logic that says if you resist as much as possible in Quantanamo…you can then surrender and spill the beans.
The Obama administration will do its best 1) to let Iran get their nuclear toy 2) to prevent israel from neutralizing it . I do not see Israel going alone and succeeeding that huge feat.Only a covert alliance with the Saudi can achieve a good result.That’s the key ; both Saudis and Israelis perceive the iranian theocracy armed with nukes as an existential threat.
Two words…..Yair Lapid! Hope & change is here. Sorry Adina and PJmedia retards!
Mr. Goldman:
I oonsider your commentary to be generally in the first rank. However, in this instance, first, I have to concur with “grrr”, “TPM”, and Menacham Ben Yakov, that Israel really is not so free to make a decision to strike Iran’s nuke sites.
Israel likely has the means to carry out an effective strike that would set Iran back several years or more, enough to wait for a potentially friendly “post Obama” administration (more on that in a moment). While I have no inside information – and would not discuss it here even if I did – suffice it to say that through educated guesswork based on my own personal background in military affairs, run past some knowledgeable people in Israel, I have at least come up with a plausible scenario for an effective Israeli strike with resources she likely has. It is not impossible.
However, for any strike to succeed, Israel will almost certainly need to achieve tactical surprise. And this is what Obama will most surely deny Israel, in the way of tipping off Iran to an impending Israeli strike given the massive amount of resources the U.S. under Obama devotes to keeping tabs on the Israeli military (our much-touted “close relationship” with Israel militarily is mostly for this purpose). For this reason, given the extremely unfortunate circumstance of Obama’s re-election, I just don’t see Israel carrying out an overt strike. Obama’s likely betrayal of Israel would present too great a risk of a failed strike, which would be worse than no strike at all.
Obama needs the threat of a nuclear Iran in order to coerce Israel into capitulate to a Saudi-style “peace” [read: surrender] plan. This is the only real leverage he has over Israel to achieve this. While Obama may very well be the product of the Saudi-funded Arab lobby and associateda allies on the far left, he has become their “Frankestein monster” of sorts, rather like the HAL computer of “2001″, out of reach of his programmers, who now have different priorities. Obama – unlike the cynical Saudis – really does believe this b.s. sob story of the Palestinians, and this – per his programming – is his highest priority, not Iran. It is too late for the Saudis to convince him otherwise, even as they tremble at the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
Obama and his cronies, in their knee-jerk anti-Semitism, also have convinced themselves that Iran is primarily Israel’s problem, and that if Israel won’t cry “uncle” on the Palestinian issue, then leaving them twisting in the wind vis-a-vis Iran is not going to be a very big disaster for the U.S. We can “contain” Iran, so the logic goes, and even if we can’t, by feeding them Israel on a platter, they’ll leave us alone. Classic appeasement logic. You’d think we’d know better by now, but especially when it involves Jews, collectively, in the West, we just refuse to learn. It is an incredibly persistent disease, this anti-Semitism, which, as it did in the case of Hitler, always prevents rational thinking.
“11bravo” (I was one of those, too, long ago) is right, in theory, about the unbeatable combination of Israel and the U.S. But alas, it IS being beaten, FROM WITHIN.
Our media, academe, and many segments of our national level government have been massively corrupted by Arab and in some cases, even Iranian interests. To a great extent, since the Vietnam-era debacle, our leadership class has sold out to these barbarians. From where we stand right now, I see no light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t see how we recover from this.
Despite widespread street-level support – and not just among Evangelicals – at the state level, Israel is now largely without an ally in the U.S. If she can survive the threat posed by Iran – and she is totally alone in this for now – she will have to distance herself from dependence on the U.S. for her own good.
To the extent that Israel must have a solid strategic partnership with a major world power, I expect that as a result of what Obama represents going forward, this will likely take the form of China.
China poses problems of her own with respect to Israel, obviously. But at least the Chinese are not anti-Semites, and that is very, very important. The Arab/Moslem PR/media war against Israel, so successfully pursued in Europe and now even here in the U.S., would not have got nearly as far without indigenous anti-Semitism to work from as a base. Think of what the Arabs have done in this regard as analogous to a passive night vision device, which takes a small amount of ambient light and magnifies this so that one can see.
If Israel made the effort, I’d bet that at least the Chinese would give Israel a fair hearing, which is way more than Israel will ever get from Europe, and perhaps more than she can ever hope for again even from the U.S. There is much that China wants from Israel, in many spheres, including military. Talk about an “unbeatable combination”.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. But the U.S. under Obama is clearly on a path aimed at trading in the diamond of the Middle East in terms of technology, economic power, democratic institutions, internal stability, intel capabilities, etc., for the camel dung that surrounds said diamond. It is perverse in the extreme but that is what Obama is doing. I don’t see how he is to be stopped at this point.
Red China is a corrupt reed to rely on.
Bibi is better off just outlasting the Wan.
There is no chance that the Arabs will ever sign on to ANY deal.
And, time wounds all heels.
It appears that Barry is already pulling back from the desert lands.
As to spoofing the Americans — that’d be old school for the IDF.
Not to worry.
Red China is a corrupt reed to rely on.
Bibi is better off just outlasting the Wan.
There is no chance that the Arabs will ever sign on to ANY deal.
And, time wounds all heels.
It appears that Barry is already pulling back from the desert lands.
As to spoofing the Americans — that’d be old school for the IDF.
Not to worry.
http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/aramco-yanbu/
“The Yanbu refinery is one of four refineries that Aramco plans to build in the near future. The refineries are expected to bolster the country’s domestic refining capacity from 2.1 million bpd to 3.8 million bpd. Heavy crude oil is not a feasible option for most importing nations because it is difficult to transport and expensive to refine.
The production of heavy crude oil is expected to increase as oil-producing fields in Saudi Arabia start to age. Saudi Arabia is, therefore, focusing on improving its refining capacities to ensure flexibility of its export prices.”
The Yanbu refinery, #2, will start up in 2014.
As you can read, KSA has given up on directly exporting any more heavy, sour crude. The market demands too much of a discount. It’s to the kingdom’s advantage to just upgrade the crude — all the way — within the kingdom.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/sabotage-key-iranian-nuclear-facility-hit/
If this is more than a bogus rumor….
It would appear that Iran has troubles.
===========
“Iran, to avoid alarm, had converted part of the stockpile to fuel plates for use in the Tehran Research Reactor.”
From the above link. ^^^^
The dunces in the media fail to recognize that converting enriched uranium into research reactor fuel is EXACTLY the path to a plutonium bomb.
That’s the bomb type that Tehran has been designing for from the outset. Duh.
So, rather than decreasing one’s alarm, the news ought to make one frantic.
Elsewhere in the Web post there are other massive errors in chemical engineering calculation.
That’s to be expected.
“Despite widespread street-level support – and not just among Evangelicals – at the state level, Israel is now largely without an ally in the U.S. If she can survive the threat posed by Iran – and she is totally alone in this for now – she will have to distance herself from dependence on the U.S. for her own good.”
I have been telling all Spengler readers this for a long time, pointing in particular to Russia emerging as the ‘back office’ for the vital Israeli tech sector, including military technology. This sounds crazy but consider that the two nations have more in common than Israel will ever have with China, in terms of common long term adversaries. And it’s the logical consequence of Washington drowning in its own solipsism and crazyness as a decaying empire, both on the ‘Left’ which thinks it can e-print dollars forever and the so-called pro-Israel ‘Right’ led by the likes of Sens. McCain and Graham that embraced the Arab Spring and the Muslim Brotherhood conquest of Damascus. Both sides have betrayed Israel, and whether or not they did it at the behest of globalist string pullers is almost beside the point. The fact is they’ve done it and Israel is going to have to make alternate plans, though none of the arrangements can be called ‘alliances’.
Watch for it — as the dollar continues to circle the toilet bowl, the Bank of Israel will start buying yuan in preparation for the Chinese to switch to a soft gold standard and there will be some major consultations with the Germans too (Israel’s perhaps second closest ally after the U.S., soon to be the first?). Frankfurt has already asked for Germany’s gold back and the German press is bemused that it’s taking the Federal Reserve Bank of New York a whopping SEVEN YEARS to cough up 120 billion euros worth of bulleon (a tacit admission if ever that they don’t have even 10% of it sitting under Manhattan). The Anglo-American lapdog media is of course, not interested in covering any of these distressing (to D.C. and London) facts.