Adding to a central point of David Remnick’s article in the New Yorker earlier this week — that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone too far with his pressure campaign against President Barak Obama and alienated allies in the process — are additional arguments in the National Interest, the [...]]]>
Adding to a central point of David Remnick’s article in the New Yorker earlier this week — that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone too far with his pressure campaign against President Barak Obama and alienated allies in the process — are additional arguments in the National Interest, the National Journal (print edition), Al-Monitor and the Atlantic:
Paul Pillar explains how “Netanyahu’s Arrogance” may contribute to the reshaping of US-Israel relations:
Maybe Netanyahu’s arrogance, greater than the norm even for Israeli prime ministers dealing with the United States, may be a force that eventually reshapes the relationship. It can do so by making it painfully clear to Americans what they are dealing with. M. J. Rosenberg evidently is talking about this when he goes so far as to say that Netanyahu “poses an existential threat to the Jewish state.” He is referring to the damage being done to the relations with the superpower patron—that “all Netanyahu is accomplishing with his ugly saber-rattling is threatening the survival of the US-Israel relationship.” That may well be the effect of Netanyahu’s behavior on the relationship, but perhaps we should not speak of this in terms of threats. Replacing the current pathological relationship with a more normal one certainly would be good for U.S. interests. Ultimately, however, it also would be good for the interests of Israel, which, in order to get off its current path of endless conflict and isolation, desperately needs the sort of tough love that it is not getting now.
James Kitfield argues that “by inserting himself into a U.S. presidential election, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has jeopardized the long-term health of the alliance”:
But more important, this pressure on a U.S. president waging a tough reelection campaign all but guarantees that the enmity between Obama and Netanyahu will only worsen, to the point where they, like Shamir and Bush, may not talk frankly or show their true cards. What if one country wants to strike and other isn’t ready? What if one country strikes and then both need to coordinate the aftermath? If the leaders aren’t on the same page, their countries aren’t likely to be either. Netanyahu’s gambit has lowered trust when the stakes–war and a nuclear-armed rogue–are highest.
Barbara Slavin says Netanyahu’s misreading of US attitudes is harming his own strategy:
Recent polls show that 70% of the American people do not think it is worth attacking Iran to try to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons — and a majority would not join an Israeli strike against Iran. For someone partly raised and educated in the United States, the Israeli prime minister is profoundly misreading the American mood.
Instead of pushing the US government to agree to “red lines” beyond which Iran cannot cross, Netanyahu is alienating US officials and many other Americans — including those who count themselves pro-Israel. The Israeli prime minister is repeating a pattern of ill-considered behavior that made the administration of Bill Clinton so furious at him that Clinton’s campaign advisers eagerly went to Israel in 1999 to work for Netanyahu’s then political rival, Ehud Barak.
And while being less daring than the others, even Jeffrey Goldberg is trying to explain why Netanyahu is taking the risk of “alienating” Obama:
]]>So why risk alienating the man who he believes will probably be president until January of 2017? Because Netanyahu genuinely believes that Obama, at the crucial moment (whether it is this year, next year or the year after), will flinch and allow Iran to cross the nuclear threshold. This is why he is pestering the President for red lines. I’ll get into the red line discussion later, but the nub of the issue now is Netanyahu’s view of Obama.
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a [...]]]>
News and views relevant to US foreign policy for Sept. 12
“U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack”: Reuters reports that the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, was killed yesterday along with three of his staff when protestors and heavily-armed Islamist militiamen stormed the embassy compound and a safehouse in the coastal city of Benghazi.
The attack, which occurred shortly after the US embassy in Cairo was stormed by a mob, was ostensibly staged over an anti-Islamic film that has been publicized in the US. It is also possible that the demonstration in Benghazi over the film served as “cover” for a pre-planned assault on the compound:
The attack was believed to have been carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-style Sunni Islamist group that has been active in Benghazi, a Libyan security official said. Witnesses said the mob also included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen.
The Islamist militia denied it had taken part in the assault on the compound, which AFP suggests was strangely well-coordinated given the fact that the film cited as the reason for the demonstration had not been publicized for very long. Unknown persons set up a firebase in a nearby farm to support the men who breached the walls and set fire to the buildings:
Ansar al-Sharia cars arrived at the start of the protest but left once fighting started, Hamam said. “The protesters were running around the compound just looking for Americans, they just wanted to find an American so they could catch one.”
“U.S. Suspects Libya Attack Was Planned”: The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration has reason to believe the attack in Libya was preplanned – it is not clear if the assault in Egypt is also being investigated for premeditated actions – by al Qaeda sympathizers. The US announced it was pursuing an investigation but had no firm evidence yet:
If it were established that the deaths of the American diplomats resulted not from the spontaneous anger of a crowd about an insult to Islam but from a long-planned Qaeda plot, that might sharply shift perceptions of the events. But officials cautioned that the issue was still under urgent study.
The White House would not comment. “At this stage, it would be premature to ascribe any motive to this reprehensible act,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.
But according to comments reported by the Christian Science Monitor, Libya’s Deputy Minister of the Interior Wanis al-Sharif has suggested that there was a link between the attack and the announcement yesterday –posted on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 by al Qaeda’s official As-Sahab news outlet – that Ayman al-Zawahri’s deputy, the Libyan national Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed by a US drone strike in Pakistan.
Al-Zawahri, the Associated Press reports, “urged Libyans — al-Libi was born in the north African country — to attack Americans to avenge the late militant’s death, saying his ‘blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill the Crusaders.’”
The Deputy Minister of the Interior has subsequently blamed the American government for not taking precautions over this announcement. The US government has yet to respond to this apparent attempt by al-Sharif to deflect blame for the attack’s successful penetration of the embassy grounds after the outnumbered and outgunned Libyan guards stationed there abandoned their posts.
“Romney Campaign Denies Acting Rashly on Libyan Situation”: The National Journal reports that the Republican Party is deflecting criticism from both parties over their presidential nominee’s assertions that Obama was “sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions.”
Romney’s comments referred to a statement, now since walked back, by the US embassy in Cairo condemning the anti-Islamic film for inciting hate. The statement was released shortly before a mob converged on the compound and scaled the wall, but at a press conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Mitt Romney painted the embassy’s statement as a response to the attack after it happened rather than to the film before the protest took place.
Ben Smith reports that in addition to cited condemnations coming from Democrats, Republican foreign policy experts have voiced dismay over Romney making his remarks before more reports were available to judge what had happened in Cairo.
But the campaign has hit back on the criticism of its actions, with Romney not retracting his initial remarks and instead telling reporters that “it’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”
Statements published by Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post – whose editorial board strongly criticized Romney’s remarks – show that several of Romney’s hawkish advisors, most notably former UN ambassador John Bolton, are rallying to his defense and blaming the media for mischaracterizing their candidate’s remarks.
And according to the National Journal, other “senior Romney advisers, who would not speak on the record,” are practicing damage control by presenting the remarks as part of:
]]>“[t]he larger point of Romney’s statement, which accused the administration of initially siding with protesters in Cairo, was that Obama is misreading the violent underbelly of the Arab Spring and jeopardizing U.S. interests in the region.
“This was a story that was building the entire day,” a senior Romney official said of the developments that took place late on Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. …. [a]nd the statement was about the consistent failure of this administration to engage constructively with the aftermath of the Arab Spring.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reminded Congress earlier this week that U.S. intelligence estimates indicate that Iran has not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, U.N. nuclear inspectors report that their recent talks in Tehran made for a “good trip” and scheduled
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reminded Congress earlier this week that U.S. intelligence estimates indicate that Iran has not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, U.N. nuclear inspectors report that their recent talks in Tehran made for a “good trip” and scheduled a second round of talks for later this month, and a flurry of recent articles from experts have cast doubt on the effectiveness of a U.S. or Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear program.
While some of the more hawkish rhetoric and efforts to drive forward on unilateral sanctions continue to come out of Congress, the new United Technologies/National Journal “Congressional Connection Poll,” found that public support for a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is extremely low.
Forty-seven percent of respondents favored economic sanctions against Iran, only 13 percent said the U.S. should “go farther and take covert action against Iran such as sabotage and assassination of scientists working on their nuclear program,” and 17 percent would support “tak[ing] military action against Iran, including bombing weapons facilities inside the country.”
The combination of E.U. sanctions banning oil purchases from Iran and tighter U.S. sanctions led 60 percent of National Journal’s “National Security Insiders,” in a separate poll, to conclude that the new sanctions regime will stave off the need for military action.
]]>His take was that results were mixed, but it’s the responses to his query — addressing the pressure to attack, what is the threat of Iran and what the [...]]]>
His take was that results were mixed, but it’s the responses to his query — addressing the pressure to attack, what is the threat of Iran and what the U.S. should do next — that are of note.
“No, of course not,” Steven Metz answered. “Does this mean that the United States should launch military strikes when sanctions and political pressure fail? Absolutely not. It is hard to imagine a greater strategic folly. There is no reason to believe that a nuclear armed Iran cannot be deterred in the same way the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China were.”
In a later response, Metz writes, “One should either kill a dangerous animal or leave it alone–wounding it is normally the worst available option” — though he notes that the “kill” option here (full-scale invasion and regime change) is unlikely.
Col. Pat Lang, who keeps the excellent Sic Semper Tyrannis blog, wonders if, once Iran gets the bomb (in the cards), whether it can be deterred. “This remains an open question,” writes Lang,
but the argument that Iran’s revolution has entered a phase in which the country now answers to state interests and the particular interests of the nomenklatura has great appeal. If that hopeful view has merit, then the eventual Iranian nuclear force will be unusable and will merely serve to make Iran a major player in international geopolitics.
And that, friends and neighbors is what the Israelis really fear.
In a follow-up entry, Lang riffs on Metz’s animal analogy:
Before we decide to slay the dragon, we should understand what the dragon is. Is the dragon merely the Iranian state nuclear program or is the dragon really a herd of dragons, unknown in number, and located across all the parts of the world in which Muslims live?
He goes on to rip neocons for pushing a simplistic view of Gulf Arab support for an attack on Iran. He warns of another potential dire consequence: Pakistan, already upset over U.S. strikes on its soil, may join Iran in retaliation.
“They Don’t Believe Our Threats,” replies Loren Thompson, the head of the Lexington Institute. Thompson takes a much more hawkish path. He observes that even after watching Saddam Hussein’s defiance and eventual downfall, Iranian leaders seem unbowed. “The fact they aren’t tells you America is not feared in Teheran, and we either need to walk away or do something more concrete — something more military — to get their attention,” he recommends.
But the most succinct answer to the question comes from Joseph Collins, a professor at the National War College:
]]>Neither sabre rattling nor sabre cuts will work on Iran. The Iranian nuclear program is not stoppable by sanction or military action. Sanctions are too weak and military efforts are likely to be technically ineffective and politically dysfunctional.
[...]
In the end, we can’t stop Iran from going nuclear, but we can deter its use of a nuclear weapon. Iran is unlikely to give a nuclear device to a terrorist movement, esp. a sunni group like Al Qaeda. Like most nuclear powers, Iran will learn that a nuclear weapon might add to your deterrent, but that it can’t create legitimacy or cure massive unemployment.
- New York Times: Though details are not available, William Yong writes that Iranian authorities have arrested an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” in connection with the Stuxnet virus infecting computers at Iran’s nuclear operations. In his announcement, Iranian intelligence minister Heydar Moslehi said: “The intelligence Ministry is aware of a range of activities being carried out against the Islamic Republic by enemy spy services.” Separately, the head of Iran’s state-run information technology company hopes to clear the virus out of Iranian systems in the next “one to two months.”
- Washington Post: Former peace process negotiator and State Department advisor Aaron David Miller lays out “Five Myths about Middle East Peace.” The Wilson Center public policy scholar attempts to debunk the myth that Arab-Israel peace is critical to securing U.S. interests in the Middle East with an anti-linkage argument: White “[i]t would help [regional issues... Arab-Israeli peace] will not stop Iran from acquiring enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon.” Writing on her Commentary blog, neocon and reverse-linkage crusader Jennifer Rubin gets Miller’s name wrong and gives him a back-handed complement in her select reading of his analysis. But Think Progress’s Matt Duss dissents, writing that “no one has ever claimed that Arab-Israeli peace would do any of these things,” but rather peace will “make addressing those problems easier, by sealing up a well of resentment from which demagogues and violent extremists have for decades drawn freely and profitably.”
- National Journal: At the magazine’s National Security blog, editor Richard Sia poses a question: “Will Saber Rattling And Sanctions Work Against Iran?” Steven Metz of the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, responds, “No, of course not.” But of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, he writes: “It is hard to imagine a greater strategic folly.” Metz lists a myriad of disastrous likely consequences of such a strike, and argues for Soviet-style containment of a nuclear Iran. “There is absolutely no evidence that a nuclear armed Iran would undertake conventional aggression,” he writes. “However repulsive the Iranian regime, there is no evidence that it is suicidal.” He writes that in a cost-benefit analysis, the costs of attacking Iran are too high for the U.S.: [A]s the United States develops its approach, the the focus must remain on AMERICAN national interests (Are you listening, Senator Lieberman?).”