Writing in the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” former Israeli intelligence operative and strategic expert Yossi Alpher offers his thoughts on Israel’s offensive against Hamas targets (an 11-month old is reportedly among the civilian causalities) in the Gaza Strip today:

So why am I worried? First and foremost, because our leadership still has [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Writing in the Daily Beast’s “Open Zion” former Israeli intelligence operative and strategic expert Yossi Alpher offers his thoughts on Israel’s offensive against Hamas targets (an 11-month old is reportedly among the civilian causalities) in the Gaza Strip today:

via Arms Control Law

Colonel Libman was responding to my post from last Thursday regarding Steve Walt’s recent FP piece. However, I wanted to give Col. Libman’s comment, and my response to it, their own post.  I’ll first copy Col. Libman’s comment as a block quote, and then give [...]]]> By Dan Joyner

via Arms Control Law

Colonel Libman was responding to my post from last Thursday regarding Steve Walt’s recent FP piece. However, I wanted to give Col. Libman’s comment, and my response to it, their own post.  I’ll first copy Col. Libman’s comment as a block quote, and then give my response to it below:

Dear Mr. Joyner. I thought this is a blog about LEGAL issues relevant to arms control. This post does not contribute anything to the legal analysis, and seems more like another chapter of the “save Iran” campaign you seem to engage in persistently on this platform.

The first chapter was titled “Can the U.S. or Israel Lawfully Attack Iran’s Nuclear Facilities?” and, at least, had some fair legal arguments, although I had two comments on this discussion:
First, the whole discussion was planted in Jus Ad bellum, presuming that an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities will be the beginning of an armed conflict. This is overlooking the possibility that Iran and Israel are already in war. Just this morning Iran’s proxies in the Gaza strip launched Grad rockets to the Israeli city of Beer Sheva, causing a shutdown of all schools in the city (See this report: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4297621,00.html). And this is not a singular incident. Earlier this month, Iran’s northern proxy, the Hezbollah, sent a drone infiltrating Israeli territory. I need only quote Lebanese ex PM, Mr. Siniora (not a great fan of Israel) that said: “Sending the drone over Israel is not a Lebanese decision, however the move was made at an Iranian behest. Such act needs techniques only available in Iran”. Mr. Siniora further expressed the concern that such an act implicates Lebanon in possible military operations and Israeli reactions.
(The Daily Star, Lebanon News: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Oct-14/191353-siniora-hezbollah-drone-sent-over-israel-at-irans-behest.ashx#ixzz2Aa1suZtw )
It is interesting to note that Prof. Dinstein, in his book “War, Aggression and Self-Defence”, discusses the 1981 Israeli raid on a nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq. In his opinion, the attack is justifiable as a continuation of the state of war that had started as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Israel in 1948 and its subsequent pulling out without signing an armistice or a peace treaty. Of course, the situation between Israel and Iran is not identical, but perhaps a similar argument can be made.

Secondly, your comment in the discussion following this post that “We all know the lengths to which the U.S. and Israel have gone to argue that the Jus in Bello hasn’t applied in significant ways to, e.g., the war in Afghanistan; prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; predator drone strikes in Pakistan; military strikes in Gaza and in the West Bank” has no base in the facts, at least when it comes to Israel. Israel never denied the applicability of Jus In Bello to its armed conflict with Palestinian armed groups, ongoing since 2000. Just check the official Israeli government position paper “The Operation in Gaza – factual and legal aspects”, part III (available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/E89E699D-A435-491B-B2D0-017675DAFEF7/0/GazaOperationwLinks.pdf ). Indeed, Israel did deny the applicability of the IV Geneva Convention in the territories it occupied from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, but this had nothing to do with the rules on the conduct of hostilities.

The next chapter in this “save Iran” crusade was “The Myth of Surgical Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities”. I will presume, for the purpose of this discussion that the figures quoted of possible Iranian civilian casualties because of a strike are realistic, although they do not seem to come from impartial sources. However, one cannot draw such unequivocal conclusions about illegality of an attack in Jus in Bello just based on potential civilian casualties. The rule of proportionality is about the RELATION between civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects and the military advantage of the attack. Only when the civilian toll is excessive in relation to the military advantage, is the attack illegal. You have not considered the anticipated military advantage Israel or the US might see in such an attack. Maybe a hint can be found in the words of former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani . In a speech in 14 December 2001, he warned that if Muslims possessed nuclear weapons, “the attitude of global arrogance would have to change”. He added that “the use of even one nuclear bomb in Israel will destroy everything, whereas [a nuclear explosion] would only harm the Islamic world” (available at: http://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2011/wp513_eng_iran-1512.pdf ). And this is considered to be an Iranian “pragmatist” and “moderate” leader.
Just to clarify, I do not necessary think that a military strike on Iran’s military nuclear program, either by the US or by Israel is a good idea. In any case, it can only be a last resort. However, if your legal position is that Israel cannot act before an Iranian nuclear warhead is about to be launched against it in the name of holy Jihad, I suggest you check again your fundamental understanding of law. As the former president of the Israeli supreme court, Aharon Barak, once said : “A Constitution is not a prescription for national suicide” (“The Judge in a Democracy”, 2006, Princeton University press, p. 291). I think it is true for law in general and for international law, too.

Dear Colonel Libman, I cannot help noting the profound irony of the chief international lawyer for Israel’s military – someone who is paid to convince the world that whatever Israel does is legal – accusing me of political bias in my legal analysis.

I certainly won’t apologize for bringing attention to Steve Walt’s article. Unlike you, I don’t see it as a part of a “save Iran” campaign, but as a part of a “let’s think about this rationally and not go to war” campaign. I recommend its reading, and its thinking, to you.

With regard to your legal arguments, I note that you use the non-technical term “state of war” when making your jus ad bellum arguments. I suspect this is because you know that trying to claim that there is an actual armed conflict – the only relevant legal term – in existence between Israel and Iran, would be unpersuasive according to the jus in bello and the relevant facts. There is no armed conflict in existence currently between Israel and Iran, and to claim that there is is just grasping at straws in an unpersuasive attempt to do your job – convince us that whatever Israel does is lawful.  Lawyers for the USG, particularly during the bad old Bush years, have similarly tried to argue that the US is in some kind of eternal state of war with a method of violence – terrorism – and with anyone (names to be continually added) that the USG thinks employs that method of violence against the US or its allies. That argument of a continuing legal war on terrorism, which is of course intended to legally justify anything the USG wants to do anywhere in the world that has any connection to terrorism, no matter how strained the connection – has been similarly unpersuasive to international legal scholars.

When I made the statement that you quote about Israel denying the applicability of the jus in bello to strikes in the West Bank and Gaza, I was indeed referring to Israel’s repeated erroneous denial that Geneva Convention IV applies to the West Bank and Gaza, and its continued argument that these are not occupied territories under the jus in bello. I understand the distinction you are making with regard to conduct of hostilities, and I concede that to be more correct I should have replaced the word “strikes” in that sentence with “occupation,” so that the sentence would have read “We all know the lengths to which the U.S. and Israel have gone to argue that the Jus in Bello hasn’t applied in significant ways to, e.g., the war in Afghanistan; prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; predator drone strikes in Pakistan; military occupation in Gaza and in the West Bank.” The overall point I was making in that sentence, in context, which was clarified by the hypothetical I spelled out in the next paragraph, is that, like the US, Israel has gone to great lengths whenever possible to try to limit its exposure to the law of the Geneva Conventions, and might be expected to do so again in the context of a strike against Iran. Israel’s repeated denials of the applicability of GC IV to the West Bank and Gaza, and denial that Israel has the legal duties of an occupying power – arguments that have been thoroughly discredited by the International Court of Justice and the vast majority of academic commentators – are certainly proof of these efforts.

Now with regard to your comments about the anticipated military advantage of attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, and the potential for this military advantage to outweigh, under proportionality analysis, the very significant civilian casualties that would be caused by the release of dangerous forces from these attacks, which as I and Marco noted in the post and comments, is the subject of both treaty and customary international law establishing an exceptionally high standard of care for the attacking force.

The question of military necessity is of course a complicated one, as is the question of actually applying the proportionality test as between military necessity and civilian protection. I tell my students that it’s kind of like comparing apples and anvils. As it happens, we are very honored here at Alabama right now to have President Aharon Barak visiting with us and teaching a short course. And I had the privilege today of having lunch with him. I mentioned our exchange to him, and we talked about questions surrounding this issue, including whether military necessity in IHL is essentially a subjective determination on the part of military officials, or alternatively whether it is essentially an objective determination that can be reviewed by courts of law and in other legal fora.  And even if it is an essentially objective determination, to what extent should the law defer to military officials’ determination of military necessity?  I found the conversation very enlightening. His view was that military necessity is essentially an objective determination that can be reviewed by courts and judges, and he said that as a judge he didn’t give any deference to military assessments of military necessity over others’ assessments of military necessity. And he said further – and I found this point particularly analytically helpful – that governments bear the burden of proof of military necessity. I think this principle has very useful application to IHL situations, and places the burden for establishing military necessity on the shoulders of the attacking military.

There is of course a long history of disconnect between Israeli military and civilian officials on the one hand, and the broader international legal community on the other, on questions of international humanitarian law, including the question of military necessity and proportionality balancing.

We have seen this disconnect play out so many times in the judgments of the International Court of Justice; in the assessments of investigating groups sanctioned by international organizations including the United Nations; and in the assessments of respected non-governmental organizations.  Israel will claim that military actions in the West Bank, Gaza, or Lebanon are justified by military necessity; but international jurists and other international investigators will subsequently assess these claims to be legally incorrect, in light of countervailing legal considerations of human rights, as protected by international humanitarian law, and embedded in the IHL principles of proportionality and discrimination. Examples of such occasions include the ICJ Wall Advisory Opinion, the Goldstone Report, the van Kappen Report on Qana, and Amnesty International’s reports on the Gaza Blockade and on the 2006 Lebanon campaign.

So often in these cases, Israeli officials’ subjective assessment of military necessity and its proportional relation to anticipated civilian casualties, simply doesn’t convince international jurists and investigators from other countries, who feel they are able to look at the facts and the law in a more objective light, and apply the law objectively to produce a correct result.

Now, who is “right” in the context of these disagreements between Israeli officials and the international community is a complicated question, and one that I have thought a lot about. I was going to say something on this subject here, but I think I’ll have to save it for another day.  I’ll rather limit myself here to saying that I see this same phenomenon happening now in the case of threatened Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

From a military advantage perspective, attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities – including conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities – appears to most in the international legal community to offer no appreciable military advantage in itself. There is simply no real evidence that Iran is using these facilities for military purposes. This has been established over and over again by Western intelligence agencies. The idea that Iran might, at some indeterminate time in the future, take the decision to use these facilities as part of a military nuclear program, appears to be a suspicion in the minds of Israeli officials that has no real basis or support in the observed behavior of Iran (not just in the incendiary words of some of its leaders), or in any actual evidence regarding Iran’s nuclear program. With the burden of proof resting upon its shoulders for demonstrating military necessity, these facts will make satisfying this burden impossible for Israeli officials. I know very well that you will disagree with the assessment I have just made. But that is precisely my point. There is a longstanding, and continuing disconnect at work.

And even if one does look ahead to some possible military use of these nuclear facilities in the future to find a military necessity for attacking them now, it is well understood that destroying Iran’s known nuclear facilities now would only set Iran’s nuclear program, whatever its character, back a few years – it would not permanently destroy Iran’s program. And in terms of other factors that should also be influentially weighed in calculating military advantage, there is also an increasing awareness that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would actually likely work as a catalyst to Iran’s development and manufacture of a nuclear weapon, and to its withdrawal from the NPT.

All of these factors, taken together, appear to most in international legal community to produce no military advantage from an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Indeed quite the opposite. I think this is how the international legal community overwhelmingly views the prospect of such an attack, and how international jurists and investigators would assess the military advantage factor in a proportionality analysis under international humanitarian law.  You can see, then, how this assessment of military necessity wouldn’t even come close to the IHL standard necessary to legally justify such an attack on targets that would release dangerous forces, likely resulting in thousands of civilian deaths.  Thus, I am quite confident that the ICJ and other international jurists and investigators would concur with my and Marco’s view that such attacks would be unlawful.

Again, I know that this is not how you would view and assess the military advantage of such an attack, as you’ve said. And therein lies the disconnect that is my overall point here. And again, I’m sure we could go back and forth for hours about who, as between Israeli officials and international lawyers outside of Israel, is right in their assessments of the relevant criteria, and their proportionality with each other.

But I do think it is important to emphasize that the determinations and legal analysis under IHL must remain objectively applied by the international legal community.  If not, and if every attacking state is to be given deference in their subjective determinations of military necessity and the proportionality and discrimination tests, IHL would be rendered completely moot and incapable of fulfilling its primary purpose, which is to restrain the methods, means, and choice of targets of militaries during armed conflict, in order to impose a modicum of civility on this most uncivilized of human activities.

A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in [...]]]> via IPS News

A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in 2010.

Netanyahu backed down after Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad director Meir Dagan opposed the order, according to the reports.

But the details of the episode provided in a report by Israel’s Channel 2 investigative news programme “Truth”, which aired Monday night, show that the Netanyahu order was not meant to be a prelude to an imminent attack on Iran. The order to put Israeli forces on the highest alert status was rejected by Ashkenazi and Dagan primarily because Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak had not thought through the risk that raising the alert status to the highest level could provoke unintended war with Iran.

All the participants, moreover, understood that Israel had no realistic military option for an attack on Iran.

Most stories about the episode failed to highlight the distinction between an order for war and one for the highest state of readiness, thus creating the clear impression that Netanyahu was preparing for war with Iran. The stories had to be read very carefully to discern the real significance of the episode.

The Israeli Ynet News report on the story carried the headline, “Was Israel on verge of war in 2010?” and a teaser asking, “Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak try to drag Israel into a military operation in Iran without cabinet approval?”

AFP reported that Netanyahu and Barak “ordered the army to prepare an attack against Iranian nuclear installations.”

The Reuters story said Netanyahu and Barak “ordered Israeli defence chiefs in 2010 to prepare for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities but were rebuffed….”

And AP reported that the order from Netanyau was for a “high alert for a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program” and that the episode “indicated that Israel was much closer to carrying out a strike at that time than was previously known.”

Washington Post blogger Max Fisher certainly got the impression from the press coverage that Netanyahu and Barak had “attempted to order the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent strike on Iran but were thwarted by other senior officials….” Fisher concluded that Netanyahu was “more resolved than thought to strike Iran….”

The coverage of the story thus appears to have pumped new life into the idea that Netanyahu is serious about attacking Iran, despite clear evidence in recent weeks that he has climbed down from that posture.

The details of the episode in the original Channel 2 programme as reported by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth suggest that none of the participants in the meeting believed that Netanyahu had decided on actual war with Iran.

The incident occurred, according to the programme, after a meeting of seven top cabinet ministers at an unspecified time in 2010. As Dagan and Ashkanazi were about to leave the meeting room, the programme recalls, Netanyahu ordered them to prepare the military for “the possibility of a strike” against Iran by putting the IDF on the highest level of readiness.

Netanyahu used the code word “F Plus” for the alert status, according to the Channel 2 programme.

Ashkenazi and Dagan reacted strongly to the order, and Netanyahu and Barak eventually backed down. But both Ashkenazi and Barak appear to agree that the issue was not whether Israel would actually attack Iran but the alert itself. Ashkenazi’s response indicated that he did not interpret it as a sign that Netanyahu intended to carry out an attack on Iran. “It’s not something you do if you’re not sure you want to follow through with it,” Ashkenazi was quoted as saying.

Barak sought to downplay the order for the high alert status, asserting that raising the alert level “did not necessarily mean war”.

“It is not true that creating a situation in which the IDF are on alert for a few hours or a few days to carry out certain operations forces Israel to go through with them,” the defence minister said.

Ashkenazi was not asserting, however, that Netanyahu would be forced to attack. Rather, he feared it would have the unintended consequence of convincing Iran that Israel did intend to attack and thus trigger a war.

The former IDF chief highlighted that danger in commenting, “This accordion produces music when you play with it,” according to “sources close to” Ashkenazi – the formula usually used when an official or ex-official does not wish to be quoted directly.

Barak also said Ashkenazi had responded that the IDF did not have the ability to carry out a strike against Iran. “Eventually, at the moment of truth, the answer that was given was that, in fact, the ability did not exist,” Barak is quoted as saying on the programme.

Significantly, Barak made no effort to deny the reality that the Israeli Air Force did not have the capability to carry out a successful attack against Iran. Instead he is blaming Ashkenazi for having failed to prepare Israeli forces for a possible attack.

Ashkenazi angrily denied that obviously political charge. “I prepared the option, the army was ready for a strike but I also said that a strike now would be a strategic mistake,” he is quoted as saying.

Israeli military leaders are still saying publicly that the IDF can carry out a strike. But while Ashkenazi is quoted as saying the army was “ready for a strike”, that is not the same as claiming that Israel had a military option that had any chance of success in derailing Iran’s enrichment programme. And in February 2011, he told then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that references to such a military option were “empty words”, because “Israel has no military option,” according to an earlier report by Yedioth Ahronoth.

Despite the public political feud between them, both Barak and Ashkenazi implied that the purpose of the high alert was to achieve a political effect rather than to prepare for an actual attack.

Both Ashkenazi and former Mossad director Dagan were apparently shocked that Netanyahu and Barak would be so irresponsible as to run the obvious risks of feigning preparations for a war with Iran. Dagan concluded that Netanyahu is unfit for leadership of the country – a point that he had made repeatedly since leaving his Mossad post in 2011.

Netanyahu sought to manipulate the supposed threat of military force against Iran to put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to adopt harsh sanctions against Iran and even get him to pledge to use force if Iran did not yield on its nuclear programme. The firm rebuff to that ploy by Obama last summer brought that phase of the Netanyahu military option ploy to an end, as indicated by his failure to include any implicit threat in his U.N. address in late August.

Netanyahu continues to insist publicly, however, that he is considering the military option against Iran. In an interview for the Channel 2 programme, he said, “We are serious, this is not a show. If there is no other way to stop Iran, Israel is ready to act.”

Israeli political observers have suggested that Netanyahu’s belligerent posture has now become primarily a theme of his campaign for reelection as prime minister. But as the coverage of the 2010 episode indicates, the news media have not yet abandoned the story of Netanyahu’s readiness to go to war against Iran.

*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

The different language used in the latest public row between Israeli and US officials is actually quite telling. The notion of a “deadline” rejected by Hillary Clinton suggests a time frame beyond which the Iran talks are declared useless, kicking into gear a shift to the attack mode. A “red [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The different language used in the latest public row between Israeli and US officials is actually quite telling. The notion of a “deadline” rejected by Hillary Clinton suggests a time frame beyond which the Iran talks are declared useless, kicking into gear a shift to the attack mode. A “red line”, on the other hand, requires the specification of a point in technological advances, the crossing of which would elicit an attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from his government have used the term “red line” several times. It was inspired by Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s rather vague notion of the “zone of immunity,” which presumably has to do with circumstances under which Israel would judge Iran’s key nuclear facilities so fortified as to make the country’s “capability” to build a bomb immune to attacks. In other words, a red line is when a military attack on the country would become ineffective or impossible.

But, true to form, Israeli officials have been quite vague in terms of exactly what would constitute nuclear capability. Indeed, despite all the talk regarding red lines, no one really knows what the Israeli threshold is. Meanwhile this vagueness is critical to the argument that Obama is not doing enough to assure Israel. Just take a look at this exchange between two hard line supporters of Israel:

Goldberg: Come back to red lines. What would your red line be if you were the Israeli prime minister, and what would your red line be if you were the American president?

Satloff: Thankfully, I am neither, just a humble think-tank director. The rub is that America and Israel have similar and complementary interests but not identical interests; the threshold for risk to be borne by a great power thousands of miles away and a small though potent regional power in the neighborhood are different; and therefore the red lines the Israeli prime minister and American president will lay down will necessarily be different. Especially at this hyper-politicized moment, when President Obama is allergic to the idea of deepening foreign entanglements, it is highly unlikely that he could begin to approach the sort of commitment-to-use-military-force-when-Iran-crosses-a-certain-enrichment-threshold that PM Netanyahu would like to hear.

In short, the only clues we have are that the Israeli red line is “necessarily” lower than the US’s red line and that it entails Iran crossing into a “certain enrichment threshold.” To boot, instead of answering the question about the Israeli red line, the onus is placed on the Obama administration since it “has not drawn a red line based on a clear definition of what preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon really means in practice”.

The bottom line: the Israelis have a red line that is lower than the US’ and this red line has something to do with nuclear capability and enrichment. But it is the Obama Administration that is faulted for not clearly defining what “acquiring a nuclear weapon” means!

It is easy to see how the framing of the game in terms of red lines has the making of a very bad marriage for the Obama Administration, which Robert Satloff condescendingly concedes is “allergic to deepening foreign entanglements” as though it is not also the mood of the country. By remaining deliberately ambiguous about the Israeli red line, the stage is set for a rather bad relationship in which one side is always the needy and nagging party while the other cannot stop the nagging no matter how much it gives, short of a military attack on Iran.

It is in this context that Clinton’s clever switch of language to deadlines becomes significant. No more rhetorical maneuvers regarding conflicting thresholds that no one is willing to define. The red line Netanyahu wants is actually a time frame for US military action and this is not what the Obama Administration, or any US administration for that matter, should be willing to give to anyone; not even to its highly insecure and demanding partner.

via IPS News

President Barack Obama’s explicit warning that he will not accept a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran may force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from his ostensible threat of war.

Netanyahu had hoped that the Obama administration could be put under domestic [...]]]> By Jim Lobe and Gareth Porter

via IPS News

President Barack Obama’s explicit warning that he will not accept a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran may force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from his ostensible threat of war.

Netanyahu had hoped that the Obama administration could be put under domestic political pressure during the election campaign to shift its policy on Iran to the much more confrontational stance that Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have been demanding.

But that political pressure has not materialised, and Obama has gone further than ever before in warning Netanyahu not to expect U.S. backing in any war with Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters in Britain Aug. 30 that an Israeli strike would be ineffective, and then said, “I don’t want to be complicit if they (the Israelis) choose to do it.”

It was the first time that a senior U.S. official had made such an explicit public statement indicating the administration’s unwillingness to be a party to a war provoked by a unilateral Israeli attack.

Dempsey had conveyed such a warning during meetings with Israeli leaders last January, as IPS reported Feb. 1, but a series of moves by the administration over the next several months, including the adoption of Israeli demands during two rounds of negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue in May and June, appeared to represent a retreat from that private warning.

Dempsey’s warning was followed by an as-yet unconfirmed report by Time magazine that the Pentagon has decided to sharply cut back on its participation in the largest-ever joint military exercise with Israel designed to test the two countries’ missile-defence systems in late October.

Originally scheduled for last spring, the exercise was delayed in January following an earlier round of Israeli sabre-rattling and the apparent Israeli assassination of an Iranian scientist, which had further increased tensions between Netanyahu and President Obama.

Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland suggested in an interview with Reuters Tuesday that the Dempsey statement had changed the political and policy calculus in Jerusalem. “Israeli leaders cannot do anything in the face of a very explicit ‘no’ from the U.S. president,” Eiland said. “So they are exploring what space is left to operate.”

Eiland explained that Netanyahu had previously maintained that the U.S. “might not like (an Israeli attack) but they will accept it the day after. However, such a public, bold statement meant the situation had to be reassessed.”

Netanyahu and Barak have never explicitly threatened to attack Iran but have instead used news leaks and other means to create the impression that they are seriously considering a unilateral air strike.

The Netanyahu campaign, aimed at leveraging a shift in U.S. policy toward confrontation with Iran, appeared to climax during the first two weeks of August amid a torrent of stories in the Israeli press suggesting that Netanyahu and Barak were getting closer to a decision on war.

An unnamed senior official – almost certainly Barak – indicated in an interview that the Israeli leader would reconsider the unilateral military option if Obama were to adopt the Israeli red line – in effect an ultimatum to Iran to end all enrichment or face war.

As Eiland suggests, however, Netanyahu may no longer feel that he is in a position to make such a demand when he meets Obama later this month. Not only has Obama drawn a clear line against unilateral Israeli action, but the Republican Party and its presidential candidate Mitt Romney have failed to signal that Obama’s rejection of Netanyahu’s belligerence on Iran will be a central issue in the presidential campaign.

Although the party platform said the threshold for military action should be Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons “capability” rather than the construction of an actual weapon, Romney did not embrace the threat to go to war unless Iran agrees to shut down its nuclear programme, as Netanyahu would have hoped.

That omission appeared to reflect the growing influence in his campaign of the “realist” faction of the Republican Party which opposed the radical post-9/11 trajectory of George W. Bush’s first presidential term in office and re-asserted itself in the second term.

The party’s marquee speaker on foreign policy was not a neoconservative but former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, whom the neo-conservatives viewed with disdain, not least because of her effort to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran.

Rice mentioned Iran only in connection with its crackdown against dissidents during her prime-time speech.

Until recently, prominent neo-conservatives, such as Dan Senor, Elliott Abrams, and Eric Edelman, as well as aggressive pro-Israel nationalists such as former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, had appeared dominant among Romney’s foreign policy advisers.

The fact that the billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a strong supporter of Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, has pledged up to 100 million dollars to support the Republican campaign seemed to assure them of the upper hand on Israel and Iran.

But neo-conservatives may have lost influence to the realists as a result of Romney’s ill-fated trip in July to Britain, Israel and Poland – all neo-conservative favourites – as well as recent polling showing ever-growing war-weariness, if not isolationism, among both Republicans and the all-important independents in the electorate.

On the convention’s eve, Lee Smith, a neo-conservative scribe based at the Standard, published an article in Tablet Magazine entitled “Why Romney Won’t Strike Iran”.

One of Romney’s senior advisers, former CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, has even partially echoed Dempsey, telling the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Thursday that an Israeli raid against Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely be counter-productive.

Both Hayden’s and Dempsey’s remarks about the futility or counter-productivity of an Israeli attack on Iran echoed those of a broad range of Israel’s national-security elite, including President Shimon Peres and the former chiefs of Israel’s intelligence agencies and armed forces, who, provoked by Netanyahu’s and Barak’s war talk, have come out more strongly than ever against the idea.

In addition to publicly casting doubt on whether an attack would be effective, many of the national-security critics have warned that a unilateral strike could seriously damage relations with the U.S.

That argument, which resonates strongly in Israeli politics, was given much greater weight by Dempsey’s warning last week.

Further eroding Israeli tolerance of Netanyahu’s talk of war was a blog post on the Atlantic Magazine’s website by Jeffrey Goldberg, an influential advocate of Israeli interests who has helped propagate the notion that Israel would indeed act unilaterally in the past. As the Netanyahu campaign reached its climax last month, Goldberg offered “7 Reasons Why Israel Should Not Attack Iran’s Nuclear facilities”.

Goldberg worried that an Israeli “strike could be a disaster for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” especially if Iran retaliated against U.S. targets. “Americans are tired of the Middle East, and I’m not sure how they would feel if they believed that Israeli action brought harm to Americans,” he wrote.

By Gary Sick

Every few months there is a concocted “crisis” involving suggestions that Israel is just on the verge of attacking Iran. This cycle started almost a decade ago, and it has repeated itself roughly annually, though sometimes more frequently.

In the early days, these alarms typically began with [...]]]> via Gary’s Choices

By Gary Sick

Every few months there is a concocted “crisis” involving suggestions that Israel is just on the verge of attacking Iran. This cycle started almost a decade ago, and it has repeated itself roughly annually, though sometimes more frequently.

In the early days, these alarms typically began with a series of “leaks” by anonymous sources, usually to well connected Israeli or pro-Israeli reporters. For years it appeared that the US and world media would bite every time, with no apparent recollection that they had heard that tune before.

But when you have cried wolf so many times, even the main stream media, which loves an exciting story, begins to wonder if it is not being led by the nose. More important, over the past two years, as the veiled threats of an attack became ever more shrill, virtually the entire Israeli security establishment came out in opposition to such an operation. For a good summary, click here. Their reasoning was simple:

• Israel could not finish the job by itself; it could launch an attack by aircraft and cruise missile, which might do damage to the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Israel could not finish the job. For that, they needed the United States.
• A unilateral Israel strike would very likely speed up Iran’s nuclear weapon development; Iran might well withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, kick out the IAEA inspectors who are our eyes and ears on the ground, and announce that, since they had been attacked by a nuclear weapons state, they were no longer bound by their pledge not to produce a weapon.
• The entire Persian Gulf region would be thrown into chaos and the price of oil would probably go sky high for some time. The costs to delicate world economies, still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, would be severe.
• The Iranian people, at least initially, would probably rally around their hard line leadership, as they have in the past when their national sovereignty was challenged. The Green reform movement would be undercut, since they would not dare associate themselves with external invaders.
• The United States would be blamed (and not only by Iran) for complicity in the attack, regardless of whether it was true. Iran and its allies might well retaliate against US military and civilian targets, in addition to Israel, thus sparking a much wider regional conflict.
• If an air strike did not work, the logical next step would be to go after the leadership. And, as we learned in Iraq, that means boots on the ground.

In short, an Israeli (or American) attack would very likely leave the situation much worse than it was before taking military action. Israel’s security would not be improved; in fact, it might be imperiled by the negative response of even Israel’s closest allies. And Iran’s creeping approach to nuclear capability might turn into a sprint.

This awareness of the “day after” effect has persuaded many security specialists that an Israeli attack would be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

It is worth remembering that Israel acquires significant leverage from this constant perception of imminent war. By keeping the Iranian nuclear case at the forefront  of the world’s media, political leaders everywhere are more likely to pay a price in the form of lost revenues and political sparring with Iran, rather than facing the calamity of an outright war.

The problem is that economic sanctions and covert interference with Iran’s nuclear program have been pushed to such a level that they are morphing into outright economic and political warfare. Iran has lost roughly fifty percent of its national income in the past six months, in addition to a series of assassinations and cyber attacks on its infrastructure. Inflation and unemployment are soaring — affecting all levels of society, especially the poor. There is no longer even the pretense that these are “smart” sanctions directed only at Iran’s political and military leadership.

Iran has responded to this onslaught by entering into negotiations and offering some compromise positions, such as potentially terminating its uranium enrichment to the 20 percent level and eliminating its stockpile of such uranium. But the US and its allies have taken a hard line position that Iran must cease ALL enrichment if they want to see any relief from the sanctions.

It is doubtful that the US can make any significant concessions during an election year, and Iran has shown little willingness to yield to the pressure by terminating all uranium enrichment.

That is the context for the latest crisis about a possible Israeli attack.

Based on the experience of a decade of such crises, all of which faded away with no military action, I can only be skeptical. I am aware that “This is the Middle East…” i.e. that nations are capable of acting against their own interests in the hysteria of the moment.

My only concern is that Prime Minister Netanyahu, having made the case so often and so publicly for Israel’s right and even duty to attack, will have painted himself into a corner where there is no escape without actually risking national catastrophe.

Yes, that is a possibility. But I have sufficient confidence in the operation of Israeli democracy and the instinct for self preservation of its leaders to regard that possibility as vanishingly small.

Headlines today featured news of a spike in oil prices based on fears of an Israeli strike on Iran. That fear is based on last week’s major uptick in Israeli rhetoric — mostly from Defense Minister Ehud Barak — which was geared toward goading the United States into military action [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Headlines today featured news of a spike in oil prices based on fears of an Israeli strike on Iran. That fear is based on last week’s major uptick in Israeli rhetoric — mostly from Defense Minister Ehud Barak — which was geared toward goading the United States into military action against Iran. While tension has indeed risen, Israel’s tactics could backfire.

The most recent surge of tension began with an “anonymous” leak, widely believed to have come from Barak, stating that the US had a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that showed Iran to be a greater threat than previously believed. Barak then told Israeli Radio that there was a new report, perhaps not a NIE, which brought the US assessment closer to “ours.”

The “ours” Barak referred to was that of himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose assessment differs not only from the Obama Administration’s, but also from Israel’s own military and intelligence establishment. Netanyahu and Barak’s take also differs from Israeli public opinion about the threat Iran poses. In a poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 10 and announced earlier today (Hebrew only), only 23% of Israelis support a strike on Iran, while 46% oppose it.

But Netanyahu and Barak had indeed attempted to sway public opinion. The day after Barak’s statements, Israeli headlines were devoted to a possible strike on Iran. Netanyahu also proceeded to rekindle Holocaust fears and another article appeared in the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz, with an anonymous “decision maker” — almost certainly Barak again — warning about the unspeakable consequences of a nuclear Iran and urging action.

It’s no surprise that markets are reacting with fear to all of this, but what can we make of recent events with a more sober eye? For one, Netanyahu and Barak are growing more concerned about the potential for an attack on Iran — something they want very badly. They are also now playing a much higher-stakes political game in order to get Iran attacked.

As Ha’aretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn points out, Netanyahu and Barak have been screaming hysterically about Iran while other world leaders haven’t been all that concerned about their complaints. Israeli rhetoric has been escalating steadily for years now, but there are good reasons to believe that there will not be an Israeli attack. First, there is serious internal opposition. Second, Israel isn’t likely to strike Iran because it doesn’t have, by itself, the capacity to destroy or substantially set back the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, Israel can’t make the minimal gains required to justify the risks and consequences of taking on Iran alone.

Many analysts have believed for a long time that the Israeli strategy has been more about pushing the US into an attack on Iran rather than actually setting the stage for an Israeli one and this past week seems to support that theory. The election season has been widely viewed as one where President Obama — who is very dependent on pro-Israel donations but who is viewed as a less-than passionate supporter of Israel despite having done far more to support Israeli security than any US president in history — would be particularly vulnerable to pressure to act on Israel’s behalf with regard to Iran.

But Israel’s game of political pressure can be a tricky one. Desperation seems to have taken hold of Barak and Netanyahu, despite the fact that both the US and Europe have imposed unprecedented sanctions on the Iranian regime. They seem to fear that all that pressure is simply not enough. Meanwhile, the fact that both US and Israeli intelligence cannot be persuaded to back their claims about an imminent Iranian threat has caused them to turn to the public arena.

But even the grounds of public opinion are not proving terribly fertile. Israelis oppose an Israeli strike on Iran. Polls conducted in Israel have consistently shown support for Israel to take part in an American or joint operation instead. And, despite the level of anxiety in the US, support for a strike on Iran is lukewarm, except under the most dire conditions, and even then it is far from overwhelming. As an absolute last resort, about half of US citizens would support an attack on Iran, but far less support it otherwise, with 13% being the last reliable figure derived from polling.

Even the sudden rise in oil prices may be a double-edged sword. High gas prices will certainly work against Obama in November, but will that really push him toward a more aggressive stance, or an outright attack, when that would also result in an even bigger jump in gas prices? On the other hand, the looming election may make the Obama administration more conservative with its Iran policy. Would Obama seriously consider potentially involving the US in a whole new military engagement at a time when most Americans are tired of seeing US troops injured and killed in MidEast wars?

Netanyahu and Barak are meanwhile painting themselves into a tightening corner. Their heightened rhetoric and stronger push toward war will leave them with egg on their faces if no attack comes and if Iran continues — as US and Israeli intelligence suggests — to refrain from taking the steps necessary to actually build a nuclear weapon and simply continues to increase its ability to do so.

Netanyahu and Barak no doubt fear that after the US election their task will be even more difficult. Obama will be somewhat less vulnerable to political pressure in a second term, and even if the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney wins, he may well be less eager to actually attack Iran as President. Romney has a much better relationship with and similar worldview to Netanyahu and his current foreign policy advisory staff is stacked with neoconservatives, but the political realities of being in the Oval Office often differ from those projected on the campaign trail. Romney also wouldn’t actually assume office until mid-January and a lame duck President Obama would be extremely unlikely to launch an attack on Iran.

In their desperation, Bibi and Barak are straining US-Israeli ties in the long term. For the first time in its history, Israel is being perceived as not just pushing for US support, which is popular among US citizens, but for the US to go to war for Israel, a concept which is highly unpopular. This is why the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), while pushing hard for tougher stances and for maintaining the “military option”, has steered very clear of anything that could be interpreted as an open call for war on Iran, however much they might like to make one. It is also why so many of their efforts have been geared toward trying to sell the US public on the idea that Iran poses a much graver threat to US security than it actually does.

Barak’s attempt to use leaked US intelligence to pressure Obama into action also broke a cardinal rule of intelligence sharing among allies —  you just don’t go public with such things. This breakage of trust will likely be forgiven like so many other incidents where Israel acts like a less than loyal friend to the US. But this incident will likely affect Barak’s relationship with US officials and, given his long-standing diplomatic relationships with non-elected US diplomats and Bibi’s lack of popularity among those same folks, turn into a loss for Israel, at least in the near term.

In fact, it’s hard to see any ground gained toward war with Iran from Netanyahu and Barak’s maneuvers apart from the general heightening of tensions. Indeed, Obama remains committed to diplomacy and sanctions, the US and Israeli military and intelligence communities still contend that it’s a bad idea to attack Iran, and Netanyahu’s own cabinet remains deeply divided on the issue. For its part Congress has continued to beat the sort of drums Bibi wants them to, but they do not, in the end, want to send US troops or fighter planes into another battle in the Middle East.

In the end, it is the President who makes the decision to go to war and despite Israel’s upping of the stakes, the only clear result from Netanyahu’s efforts so far is that people have become more nervous about the prospect of war.

Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, states the obvious — brilliantly:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are threatening to attack Iran, and the world does not seem concerned. Israel warns that its face is turned in the direction of a war that will bump up the price [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, states the obvious — brilliantly:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are threatening to attack Iran, and the world does not seem concerned. Israel warns that its face is turned in the direction of a war that will bump up the price of oil and cause many deaths and much damage, and the world does nothing to prevent the tragedy. No emergency meetings of the UN Security Council, no dramatic diplomatic delegations, no live coverage on CNN and Al-Jazeera. There aren’t even any sharp fluctuations in the price of oil and natural gas. Or in Israel’s credit rating. The scene is quiet. Even Iranian counter-threats to hit Israel don’t seem to worry anybody.

At the same time, the “international community” has “created the ideological grounds for an Israeli operation against Iran” and the “public position” of the United States has been “vague”:

U.S. President Barack Obama is considered a sharp opponent to the idea of an Israeli strike against Iran. But his actions say the opposite. Obama once again is leading from behind, as he did in Libya and Syria. This is his doctrine: Instead of complicating America with a new Mideast war, he is outsourcing the fighting to an external agent. In Libya, it was the French, the British and the anti-Gadhafi rebels. In Syria, it is the Free Syrian Army. In Iran, it is the IDF.

If Israel does strike, the planes and the arms will be made in the U.S.A. The Home Front Command will receive early warnings of missile landings from the American radar in the Negev in southern Israel. The financial aid and state support for the day after the strike will probably also come from Washington.

The public position of the U.S. regime is vague. Officials talk about the “unity of the international community,” “tough sanctions” and say things that they will use all available options to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons (as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did on his recent visit to Israel). There is no warning here against an Israeli strike. No one is saying, “If you strike, you will put Israel-U.S. relations at risk, and you will remain isolated.”

Read more.

Laura Rozen clears up the cloud of confusion over Ehud Barak’s comments last week implying that a new U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran that shares Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program had been released:

Several American former officials told Al-Monitor Thursday that they believed what Israeli officials may [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Laura Rozen clears up the cloud of confusion over Ehud Barak’s comments last week implying that a new U.S. intelligence assessment on Iran that shares Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program had been released:

Several American former officials told Al-Monitor Thursday that they believed what Israeli officials may have been briefed on is not an NIE, but a  smaller, more focused report on certain aspects of Iran’s nuclear program.

Non-proliferation analysts speculated that the new U.S. report could focus on one of the categories of continuing research activities listed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its November 2011 report on Iran.

However, “carrying on scattered research activities does not amount to a full-fledged restart of an integrated weapons program,” Greg Thielmann, a former US intelligence analyst and senior fellow at the Arms Control Association, wrote in an ACA Iran Nuclear Threat Assessment brief (.pdf).

Almost immediately after the bombing of a Bulgarian bus filled with Israeli tourists in the resort city of Burgas that killed at least 5 Israelis and injured dozens of people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu identified the perpetrator(s) as having carried out the attack at the behest of Iran.