Opinion

Obama's Nightmare in Middle East

Relations with Israel strain as threat of war with Iran looms. US must redefine its interests.

By Murray Dobbin, 5 Apr 2010, TheTyee.ca

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Obamascare: Hardliner Israel PM Netanyahu.

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There is a new theme developing in U.S.-Israeli relations, and while not a new one it is the first time U.S. officials have talked about it so openly: Israeli and U.S. interests in the Middle East are not identical. So far these words have not passed the lips of Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and have only been uttered by military brass. Whether the brass would have the jam to make these statements to pressure Obama on his Mid-East policy or they are simply playing their role in an Obama strategy is unclear.

But the reason the theme is now being talked about publicly is that with the extreme right in power in Israel, the potential for catastrophe in the Middle East has been ratcheted up exponentially. Israel now has a prime minister in Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to play chicken with its longtime sponsor, protector and financial backer.

The most obvious issue and the one bringing this theme out into the open is Israel's blatant rejection of any serious intention of negotiating with the Palestinians. That was the singular message of the announcement of 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem.

In effect, Netanyahu is calling Obama's bluff regarding his tougher talk on the issue, and making the assumption that Obama will not change his long held position: that the U.S. will not threaten to withhold any of the $2.7 billion in yearly aid to the country. Netanyahu knows that this is the only card Obama holds and he knows Obama has promised not to play it. There is nothing else in America's hand that can prevent Israel from doing whatever it wants.

That includes attacking Iran if there are not major moves by the U.S. and the European Union to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program. But few experts believe that new sanctions will be effective enough simply because there are too many dissident players, like China and Russia, who won't go along.

Such is the complex relationship between Israel and the U.S. -- made even more so by a liberal Democrat U.S. president and an extreme rightist Israeli prime minister -- that unless the U.S. plays its only trump card it could be convinced that attacking Iranian nuclear sites itself would be preferable to Israel trying to do so.

That this is a possibility got a major boost by reports two weeks ago about the movement of U.S.-made "bunker buster" bombs closer to the theatre of a future attack. In what it calls an exclusive story, the Sunday Herald of Scotland reported that "Hundreds of powerful U.S. 'bunker-buster' bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran." In 2007 the Herald reported that U.S. "...stealth bomber hangers on the island were being equipped to take bunker-buster bombs." The Herald's claim included very specific numbers, allegedly from the delivery manifest of a private shipper contracted by the Pentagon. Included were "...195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs."

The U.S. has issued no denials of the story nor made any other comments. Other recent stories, which received scant coverage in U.S. or Canadian media, detail a military build up that seems designed for one purpose: to strengthen America's Arab allies around Iran to assist in the aftermath of as U.S. attack. The Guardian reported in January: "The U.S. is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries -- Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait -- and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations."

All of this is designed to counter Iran's almost certain aggressive response to an attack. The Guardian quoted U.S. administration officials as saying that these move were meant to deter Iran, reassure friendly Arab states so they would not pursue nuclear weapons themselves, and also included "...an element of calming the Israelis as well."

But he did not comment on what would happen if Israel was not calmed. General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. central command, declared that the Gulf States are worried about Iran: "Iran is clearly seen as a very serious threat by those on the other side of the Gulf front." This is a convenient fabrication, as Iran has never indicated any aggressiveness towards its Arab neighbours. But it does help the U.S. build a case for an attack.

The key to the timetable of a potential attack is Israel's claim that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within a year -- at least five years earlier than the best estimate of U.S. intelligence agencies. Based on this false assessment of Iran's capability (and intentions), the clock really is ticking for the Obama administration.

Would the U.S. decide that attacking Iran's nuclear sites (and perhaps its air force) would be preferable to Israel doing so? The U.S. would face serious consequences if it attacked on its own. But the consequences would be far worse if Israel attacked. The nightmare scenario for the U.S. is an ongoing war between Israel and Iran in which Iran manages to inflict far greater casualties in Israel than expected. As the war gets out of hand, and Israel faces attacks from Iran's proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, what are the possibilities of Israel using some part of its 200 strong nuclear stockpile to bring a decisive halt to Iran's counter-offensive?

Iran is a long way from Israel, and the U.S. would have to decide early on whether to help or hinder Israel if it decided to attack -- for example by denying it authority to fly through Iraqi air space on the way to Iran or to end access to sophisticated U.S. radar. Once the first bomb is dropped events would move incredibly quickly creating the conditions for tragic errors in judgment.

This insane situation only seems normal because the U.S. seems incapable of deciding what its interests in the Middle East really are. Israel as always been seen to play the role as a sort of U.S. cop in the Middle East, but that was predicated on certain parameters of behaviour. At what point does the U.S. see Israel as the biggest problem it faces in the region?

Israeli and U.S. threats against Iran could become a self-fulfilling prophecy -- Iran knows (observing how carefully the U.S. handles North Korea) that having the bomb would be the ultimate protection against attack. The notion that Iran would use a bomb (it would take another year to build a second one) offensively against Israel and be vapourized in response is sheer stupidity. The Iranian leadership is not suicidal. But it smells the hypocrisy of the U.S. talking about halting nuclear proliferation without ever mentioning Israel's nuclear arsenal.

This is the situation the U.S. finds itself in. At the highest levels of its leadership it is paralyzed by a changing relationship with Israel, the petty demands of domestic politics, other (uncooperative) players like China and Russia, and the fact that having the largest military in world history tends to make it look at military solutions even when they promise disaster. If Obama cannot quickly come to grips with the consequences of failed leadership on this issue, history will not be highlighting his medicare bill. It will document how he dithered his way to a Middle East conflagration. [Tyee]

Murray Dobbin's "State of the Nation" column now appears every other Monday in The Tyee and on Rabble, and he also publishes articles on his blog.

18 Comments:

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  • max von smartt

    2 years ago

    blood for oil n gas

    Given that Saddam's weapons of mass distraction and Osama's role in 911 (a self inflicted black op) were both fabrications to justify imperial occupation of energy rich territories, why should we believe that Iran is about to develop nuclear weapons? And so what, Isarael has lots, US even more, Iran is not suicical and does not have a history of external aggression. Cut off military aid to the Zionazis!

  • doggone

    2 years ago

    Why I comment

    Murray Dobbin seems concerned (and informed) on topics that matter more to me than the choice of logos for "olympic" events.
    I was just on the phone with my mother and we were reading poetry to each other:
    "The best lack all conviction
    while the worst are filled with passionate intensity."
    W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" 1920
    I'm having trouble imagining how "the best - Obama and friends" are going to counter the "worst" - especially since they all seem to be immersed in a world view that is at least a century out of date

  • Worrywart

    2 years ago

    Viva Iran

    Israel and the USA not only threaten foreign countries, they go further and actually illegaly occupy them while committing untold murders and atrocities against defenseless civilians. Yet, we as citizens of the world are expected to believe Israel and the USA when they tell us that Iran posses a threat? This is just propaganda and we would be fools to believe their claims after witnessing the realities of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a problem, however it is not Iran.

  • GrumpyOgre

    2 years ago

    US Whack-A-Mole Policy

    It's almost laughable how the US fights its war on terror. Ok, I get that there was a fair reason to invade Afghanistan to attempt to bring about justice after 911. I can even support such a notion. However, the US then decided to turn it's guns on Iraq because they were creating "weapons of mass destruction." So they spend a few trillion dollars bombing the crap out of Iraq and found exactly nothing other than a huge pile of dead bodies. Now they might just be turning their attention to Iran to combat their nuclear program (and presumably support their allies in Israel). This is a Whack-A-Mole style approach to the war on terror. First they perceive a threat in one location and beat it down. Then the propaganda machine builds up a threat in another location and they whack that spot. Now they see a new location for terror in Iran. Guess who gets whacked next?

    This kind of foreign policy needs to stop. I agree with doggone ... the bully needs to find better ways of dealing with problems.

  • nonny moose

    2 years ago

    Middle east needs to stand on its own two feet

    It is not realistic for any of the countries in the Middle East to keep expecting Western (US) support, and in some cases tolerate their irresponsible behaviour.

    So what's wrong with letting them duke it out among themselves, while the major powers (US, Russia, China, and EU) just watch from the sidelines?

  • Fish-counter

    2 years ago

    The Israelis need to stop stealing arab land

    I can't say it too often; the construction of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for Israeli settlers is a provocation to every arab in the Middle East. Only the Israelis fail to see the similairity between what they are doing and what the Nazis did to Poland.

    True, the scale and pace is different, but the Israeli's own minister described it as providing "living space" for Israelis. The exact translation of "living space" in German is "lebensraum" the same word used by Nazis to build German settlements in the conquered lands.

    It is no exaggeration to compare the slow, steady creep of jews (sorry, I meant to say, Israelis) into East Jerusalen and the West Bank as slow, premeditated genocide. I have no sympathy for the arabs, but even less for the Israelis.

    None of the countries that border the Jordan River have any excuse for dewatering it and leaving the Dead Sea to fall by one metre per year. It is the supreme irony that so many religions regard the Jordan as a holy river, while the supposedly devout practitioners of these religions treat it with such demonic disregard. The Golem is gonna getcha!

  • Arbor

    2 years ago

    Middle East

    Two sides to every story....in the Middle East, there are a multitude of 'sides'...too bad Murray only has one vision with regard to that part of the world. To state that Iran knows that to use the bomb 'would be sheer stupidity' does not reassure me or many of Iran's neighbours that it things would be perfectly 'okay' with that reality. Ahmadinejad is a frightening dictator, and I'm more afraid of the power he has than any Israeli leader.

  • straightshooter

    2 years ago

    A new era is dawning

    In his Farewell Address, George Washington admonished his fellow citizens to steer clear of a “passionate attachment” to another nation, as it could create “the illusion of a common interest...where no common interest exists.” Inevitably, America will have no option other than to abide by the wisdom of its founding father. All great powers must eventually act in their own best interests and it is becoming increasingly obvious what America's best interests are and are not, especially in the Middle East. In 20-25 years: at least 3 billion Muslims worldwide (now 1.75 billion) with an average age under 20; 700 million Arabs, including 12-15 million Palestinians between the River Jordan and the Med. Sea. (Palestinian Muslims and Christians already outnumber Jews in former mandated Palestine.) The implications for US and western foreign policy in general - especially regarding Israel, an expansionist/occupier/ethnic-cleanser/oppressor state - should be obvious to any thinking person. A new era of geopolitics and international economic reality is upon us. The handwriting is on the wall. Unfortunately, Israel refuses to read it.

  • straightshooter

    2 years ago

    Arbor

    I remind you that neither Ahmadinejad nor any other Iranian leader has threatened to attack Israel. Israel, however, has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran. Frankly, I am most worried about the fact that Israel (an occupier state) possesses at least 200 nuclear warheads (according to the expert, Janes, in London) along with missiles capable of launching them at any city in the ME and far beyond. I also remind you that Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and will not permit inspections at its Dimona reactor. Nor should we forget that during the 1973 war Israel threatened to excercise its nuclear option unless Nixon replaced the weaponry Egypt destroyed in the occupied Sinai. Nixon was forced to comply - nuclear blackmail.

  • Des

    2 years ago

    The Middle East Situation

    may be Obama's nightmare, but the Rest Of The World, including Canada of course, is going to wake up one morning with the shivering fits when that situation reaches the point of no return and the nuclear chain reaction begins to explode into irreversible collapse.

  • doggone

    2 years ago

    I'm somewhat surprised Thetyee is ignoring this

    Not totally on topic but;
    The Attack on Climate-Change Science

    ________________________________

    Why It's the O.J. Moment of the Twenty-First Century

    By Bill Mckibben

    Saturday, February 27, 2010

  • doggone

    2 years ago

    Oh for crying out loud!

    I thought I was putting up a link to Alexandra Morton's "Migration"
    Why is this "Big Fish"
    Thetyee ignoring this Lady?

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Dobbin Right On Point

    Murray Dobbin comes through with clarity and accuracy yet again. For all those who follow the incredible injustices being perpetrated on the Palestinian population by the neocon Israeli regime, Dobbin's point is well taken. Israel is potentially willing to launch an attack if the US doesn't.

    Is this is how WWIII begins?

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Never mind how it begins

    Here's how it'll look. On your TV every night, til they come for you too.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik&annotation_id=annotation_516797&feature=iv

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Uri Averny said it best

    In a column for Counterpunch, he notes how Israeli funding depends on the demonization of so many enemies that whole departments of the ISraeli state are employed to think up new ones as well as to harvest the spin of old ones.

    "True, Ahmadinejad is a repulsive leader. I hope that the Iranians will get rid of him, and assume that this will happen sooner or later. But our relations with Iran do not depend on one single person, whoever he may be. They go back to ancient times and were always friendly – from the time of Cyrus until the time of Khomeini (whom we provided with arms to fight the Iraqis.)

    In Israel, the portrayal of Iran nowadays is a caricature: a primitive, crazy country, with nothing on its mind but the destruction of the Zionist state. But it suffices to read a few good books about Iran (I would recommend William Polk’s “Understanding Iran”) which describe one of the oldest civilized countries in the world, which has given birth to several great empires and made a remarkable contribution to human culture. It has an old and proud tradition. Some scholars believe that the Jewish religion was profoundly influenced by the ethical teachings of Zoroaster (Zarathustra).

    Whatever the rantings of Ahmadinejad, the real rulers of the country, the clerics, conduct a cautious and sober policy, and have never attacked another country. They have many important interests, and Israel is not among them. The idea that they would sacrifice their own glorious homeland in order to destroy Israel is ludicrous."

    Writing as clean and clear as the logic employed.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery04052010.html

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    Say what?

    "..which has given birth to several great empires and.."

    Please tell me, what makes imperial aspirations respectable, or not? It seems it's not the notion in itself. I am wondering if the Greeks at Thermopylae saw what they were up against as the epitome of civilized approach to others? Is it whether it's our friends or our not-friends that determine? If the clerics don't want Ahmadinejad to be read as the voice of Iran, they should do something about it. is it not rather that they have him do the dirty work, so they can look god and 'civilised'? The idea of destroying Israel is not so ludicrous, as it's the only thing in the way for re-establishing the Grand Caliphate. On the ground, the aspiration has been bandied about for years and years. Some completely unintended reference such as the travelbooks of David Hatcher Childress, when describing the Middle East, Pakistan etc., have these now eerie blips about 'killing all the westerners'in due course. These books are written before the jihadists showed on the radar in any major way, so it's creepy. We should not be naive and should certainly not hang in this sycophantic nonsense about 'the light' coming out of the Middle East. It's every bit as likely it came from Siberia! Why do a contingency of Westerners hate their own culture so much? It's not the culture there is a problem with, it's the flattening of it that comes of the notion that one thing can be as good as another, so there's room for everybody - also those who are not our friends. We must not be tribal, for that gets in the way of them being tribal, and for some reason we owe them more than they owe us. Go figure. I think people should get rid of these last vestiges of religious fog in their heads.

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Imperial aspirations? Wrong question.

    There will be empire - everywhere and in every time. The question is, does it benefit only the rulers, or does it benefit the ruled as well? Cyrus' rebellion and eventual empire was against feudal overlords whose goals were merely the enrichment of the existing order at the expense of the feudal serfs around them.

    Cyrus ended that with an administration and rule of law that went considerably further than any empire before and for some thousand years hence to guarantee distributed government accountable to a central authority, religious freedom for all, freedome of conscience for all, and in some vassal states, the abolishment of slavery and serfdom. Not a bad record for an empire, consider the times and the limitations. Certainly a far better record than his successor Alexander the Great.

    These are not laurels to rest on, and Avnery does not suggest so, if you read the whole article. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Zionist state, which attempts to rest its validity on a brief period of 70 years of independent kingship some 3000 years ago, and one that was also marked by inequities in rule of law, religious bigotry and slaughter, and a centralization of power in the hereditary kingship and the priestly class at the expense of the citizenry. Not an enviable record to stand on.

    There's a nasty tone and some false suppositions in the rest of your diatribe that aren't born out by facts. I think I'll ignore the rest of what you said.

  • dorothy

    2 years ago

    Just ignore me, but you should name those false suppositions...

    OK, so there is nothing wrong with aspiring to establish an empire, and no dumping on those who do so using a bit of butchery and putting their foot on the neck of any wishes for national self-determination. It’s all about having God on your side and knowing you’re a better sort and therefore entitled to make choices for those of different cultures etc., etc.

    It is actually not the Zionist realm I would compare to, as it cannot really aspire to become an empire, but rather that beleaguered neighbor of ours, the US, who always gets dumped on because of its ‘imperialistic’ tendencies. This will now stop, I take it.

    As for the Persian Empire in its various incarnations, I am not sure it compares to modern Iran either, whether you wish to consider the empire a good thing in itself or not. I don’t see the Zoroastrians call the shots in Iran today, but rather the Muslims, and whichever way we twist it, they have ever been on the expansionist road. I don’t know about you, but I have always subscribed to the philosophy that I am not a free person, if I simply get a choice between managing busybodies and ‘rulers’ of various ilks, but only if the supposed rights and freedoms I should enjoy as well as the obligations I have incurred of my own free wil are subject to being ‘managed’ by none other than me, be they benevolent or otherwise. I am not terribly receptive to notions that start with ‘whether we like it or not’, or end with ‘that’s the way it is, get it?’. Natural reality and Life pushes us around enough. I'll be damned if I'll let people line up, too.

    I am certainly willing to take ownership of the nasty tone. You can ascribe it to the political correctness we are so choking on collectively, and which is beginning to tire me good. I am an adherent of the creed of calling them as I see them, and I don’t see the greatness of empires telling those under their heels that they should be grateful it ain’t worse. I see the CV of Cyrus filled with ‘conquered’, ‘annexed’, ‘involved himself in military conflict with’, and so on. Not saying it wasn’t the mores of the day, but don’t glorify the fellow now. We wouldn’t want to meet him or his minions in a dark alley, at least not if we lived on turf he considered ‘ripe for conquest’.

    Have you really never heard of this idea that the people of the North and West were all murderous and ale-swilling barbarians, who got hit with shock and awe, when the man from Nazareth shone his light in their direction in the form of some of those brothers we are hearing so much about these days, and fell to their knees in recognition of having met ‘real people’?? That can make you tired, too. When you know they got decapitated by the thousands for not swearing off their ancestral, time-tested faith.

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