Will President Barack Obama again say to Israel “atem lo levad” (“you are not alone”), if Israel strikes Iran? Will the American administration commit to approve an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if Iran violates the agreement? In April, opposition leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union proposed just that in a position paper, according to Yediot Aharonot.
Despite the recent revelation by former defense minister Ehud Barak that both he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favored an Iranian strike, but were stymied by Yuval Steinitz, Moshe Ya’alon, Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi, an Israeli pre-emptive attack against Iranian nuclear facilities is theoretically still a reality.
(The rationale, of course, is that the Iranian leadership repeatedly calls for Israel to be “annihilated” or “wiped off the map.”) Whether this is wise or unwise in the post-Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action world is another story.
According to Norman Podhoretz writing in The Wall Street Journal: “With hardly an exception, all of Israel believes that the Iranians are deadly serious... to wipe the Jewish state off the map... once Iran acquires the means to make good on this genocidal commitment, each side will be faced with only two choices: ...rely on the fear of a retaliatory strike... or... launch a pre-emptive strike of its own.”
In light of this overwhelming Israeli sentiment, here are four questions: • If Israel decides, for self-preservation, to strike Iran after a deal is in place, what happens to the US-Israel relationship? • Would Israel choose not to strike to preserve that relationship, which in the eyes of many is of existential importance to Israel? • Are you confident that Iran won’t give Hezbollah a nuclear device? If not, are you confident Hezbollah would not put it on a missile headed for Tel Aviv? • Would the world be safer if Israel did strike, upending conventional wisdom? Just as the pre-emptive Israeli strikes on the Iraqi reactor in 1981 and (allegedly) the Syrian reactor in 2009 made the world a less dangerous place, a strike against Iran, even post-agreement, has the potential for many unintended consequences, not all of them necessarily bad. Imagine the apocalyptic scenarios we could be facing today if the Syrian reactor had not been struck in 2009. A nuclear weapon might now be in the hands of the Syrian regime or Islamic State – both of which have already used chemical weapons. When the US president tells Israeli supporters that he has Israel’s back, they should look at how he turned his back on the Kurds.
This may all be moot as it assumes Israel still has the capability to deliver a meaningful strike, setting the Iranian nuclear program back many years. But the recent Russian announcement that it will sell the advanced S-300 anti-missile system to Iran in defiance of existing sanctions may close Israel’s window of opportunity.
Those Russian missiles could actually force Israel to strike sooner rather than later.
President Obama believes American interests are best served by the nuclear deal. Yet the American people and an overwhelming majority of Israelis, from the Right to Left, think the nuclear deal is dangerous. This is because the agreement spared Iran the need to choose between its nuclear program and economic prosperity. Iran received both in the deal.
Read more:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/If-Iran-cheats-can-Israel-still-strike-416230
