The US government has swept into action in the aftermath of the Palestinians’ overwhelming victory at the United Nations on Thursday. No less than three amendments were brought in the Senate, to be attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — a bill which has nothing to do [...]]]>
The US government has swept into action in the aftermath of the Palestinians’ overwhelming victory at the United Nations on Thursday. No less than three amendments were brought in the Senate, to be attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — a bill which has nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians, but is a high-priority bill that the Senate must pass, and as such is a perfect target for frivolous amendments).
Two of the amendments are purely partisan and with a Republican minority in the Senate, they are unlikely to pass. The third, however, is bipartisan and the leading Democrat sponsoring it is Charles Schumer (D-NY) whose position as the Democrats’ lead fundraiser means he gets his senate colleagues’ attention. The partisan amendments are somewhat more draconian than the bipartisan one, which will make the bipartisan amendment look relatively moderate, thereby increasing the chances of its passage.
Along with Schumer, the amendment is sponsored by Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Barrasso (R-WY) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ). It calls for the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) office in the US unless the Palestinians return to talks with Israel. No timeframe is given for the return to talks, nor is there any mention of anything Israel must do to make that return politically feasible for the Palestinians. This amounts to an attempt to force the Palestinians back into talks on Bibi Netanyahu’s terms, which, as I explain here, would be political suicide for the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The more important clause, however, would end all aid — with no provision for a presidential national security waiver — to the Palestinian Authority if it or any entity “that purports to represent the interests of the Palestinian people” should ever bring a case, or even support one brought by someone else, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) adjudicates. Access to the ICC is the biggest tangible gain the Palestinians got from their upgraded UN status, and this amendment is an attempt to ensure that it is useless. Significantly, according to the way the amendment is written, the aid cutoff would be automatically triggered even if the Palestinians support another case or if some other entity brings a case on the Palestinians’ behalf.
This may be only the beginning of legislative activism aimed at punishing the Palestinians for their UN move. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) also issued a memo that echoed the condemnation of the Palestinian action from US officials starting with President Obama; painted an extremely distorted picture of the circumstances around and meaning behind the PLO’s move; and made a list of “recommendations” for the US government to follow. These include pressuring Mahmoud Abbas to refrain from similar actions in the future, “…demonstrate to the PLO that unconstructive unilateral actions have consequences;” close the PLO office in DC; and threaten aid to the Palestinians.
It’s standard procedure for such bills that AIPAC be at least consulted on its contents and this certainly would have been the case for a response to the UN vote. The presence of AIPAC talking points in the bill leaves little doubt about its influence; the fact that AIPAC’s own statement is much broader implies this is not the end of such legislation. In announcing their memo, Ron Kampeas at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that AIPAC in fact called for a “full review” of the U.S. relationship with the PLO.
AIPAC tries to push a point frequently made in the run-up to the UN vote — that Congress will cut off all aid to the PA if the PLO pursues gains at the UN. In fact, Congress has only mandated such cut-off if Palestine becomes a full member state of the UN, something the US can easily prevent because it requires Security Council certification. Still, it is clear that AIPAC is determined to punish the Palestinians in some way. Whether or not they are willing to risk the PA’s collapse — something the Obama Administration certainly wants to avoid, as does, quite likely, the Netanyahu government (at least currently) – remains to be seen.
Even granting that there was a good deal of lead time before the UN vote, it’s still worth noting how quickly Congress jumped to respond. It would be nice if they were so quick to respond to matters that are far more pertinent to US citizens, like, oh, the “fiscal cliff” for example. Maybe we can get AIPAC to push them on that.
- Mitchell Plitnick is the former Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace and former Director of the US Office of B’Tselem. You can follow him on Twitter at @MitchellPlit or at his blog, The Third Way.
]]>Extended military strikes by the United States alone or conducted with Israel could destroy or damage Iran’s most important nuclear sites, but will only temporarily set back Iran’s nuclear program for up to four years, according to a detailed assessment of the costs and benefits of attacking Iran.
Ensuring that [...]]]>
Extended military strikes by the United States alone or conducted with Israel could destroy or damage Iran’s most important nuclear sites, but will only temporarily set back Iran’s nuclear program for up to four years, according to a detailed assessment of the costs and benefits of attacking Iran.
Ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon would require an “expanded air and sea war over a prolonged period of time, likely several years,” argues the report, which has been authored, signed and endorsed by a bipartisan group of high-profile senior national security advisers, experts and diplomats. Unilateral action by Israel is unlikely to substantially set back Iran’s nuclear program or destroy all of Iran’s nuclear sites, states the paper, which is based on a “wide range of expert opinion”.
If Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon (something which it has yet to do according to all reputable official assessments), it would require up to two years to produce a reliable, deliverable device and would almost certainly be detected before that time:
After deciding to “dash” for a bomb, Iran would need from one to four months to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a single nuclear device. Additional time—up to two years, according to conservative estimates—would be required for Iran to build a nuclear warhead that would be reliably deliverable by a missile. Given extensive monitoring and surveillance of Iranian activities, signs of an Iranian decision to build a nuclear weapon would likely be detected, and the U.S. would have at least a month to implement a course of action
A benefit of militarily striking Iran’s nuclear sites would be a disruption of Iranian government control, but the reports authors doubt that regime change, collapse or capitulation would result from lone military action. Seeking these “ambitious” results would require a greater commitment than what the US has given to Iraq and Afghanistan over the past years combined and would include the occupation of all or part of the country, the report said.
The reports’ authors note that military operations seldom led to regime change without ground forces used to occupy the country. The case of Libya suggests that “even with local rebel forces active on the ground, air strikes would need to be sustained for an extended period and supplemented by on the ground support from other nations’ professional militaries in order to produce a change in leadership,” according to the paper.
Would military action against Iran increase or undermine support for the regime among Iran’s population? The former seems more likely, judging by the strong support showed by the Iranian public for their leaders after the Iraqi attack in 1982 and throughout the grueling, eight-year war that followed.
Even if regime collapse could be produced by a prolonged campaign of air attacks combined with covert and cyber attacks, and drone activity (an outcome that we view as unlikely), it is not necessarily the case that Iran or the region would be more stable as a result.
The cost of Iranian retaliation would be “felt over the longer term” by the US and could result in a regional war:
In addition to the financial costs of conducting military attacks against Iran, which would be significant (particularly if the U.S. had to carry out thousands of sorties and if it had to return to the use of force periodically for years to come), there would likely be near-term costs associated with Iranian retaliation, through both direct and surrogate asymmetrical attacks. Serious costs to U.S. interests would also be felt over the longer term, we believe, with problematic consequences for global and regional stability, including economic stability. A dynamic of escalation, action, and counteraction could produce serious unintended consequences that would significantly increase all of these costs and lead, potentially, to all-out regional war.
The paper offers no final conclusions or recommendations. Instead it seeks to supplement the “lack of consensus and clarity in Washington about what the U.S. should aim to achieve through any military action against Iran” by offering an objective assessment of the costs and benefits of attacking Iran and evaluating the capacity of the US to achieve certain objectives and plan an exit strategy.
Despite the absence of recommendations, the paper’s list of the costs of military action against Iran outnumber the benefits; the benefits are listed in two and a half pages while the costs take up over 9 pages. Indeed, the suggestion that the “initiation of preventive military action against Iran, even with limited objectives, could be the beginning of a war entailing all of the uncertainties and unanticipated consequences so familiar to those who have experienced or studied military conflicts,” seems to be a fundamental assessment of the report.
Lobe Log was provided an advance copy of this paper which was drafted by Columbia University’s Austin Long and William Luers, Director of the nonpartisan Iran Project and advised by by Colin Kahl of Georgetown University and contributed to by Thomas R. Pickering, Jim Walsh of MIT, and Stephen Heintz of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. We will post it in full when it is officially released later today.
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