Analysis: US thwarting Israeli strike on Iran

[Scurrilous]

Obama betraying Israel? US making deliberate effort to hinder Iran strike by leaking classified info, intelligence assessments, says Ron Ben-Yishai in special Ynet report

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4209836,00.html

<snip>

"The US Administration recently shifted into high gear in its efforts to avert an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the end of the year. The flood of reports in the American media in recent weeks attests not only to the genuine US fear that Israel intends to realize its threats; moreover, it indicates that the Obama Administration has decided to take its gloves off.

Indeed, in recent weeks the Administration shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel’s public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran. This “surgical strike” is undertaken via reports in the American and British media, but the campaign’s aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties."




The Increasingly Transparent U.S.-Israeli Conflict of Interest

<snip>

"We have a comparative lull at the moment in what has been saturation attention to Iran and its nuclear program. The lull comes after the concentrated war-mongering rhetoric associated with the recent visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the AIPAC conference in Washington, and before the opening in mid-April of the only channel offering a way out of the impasse associated with the Iranian nuclear issue: direct negotiations between Iran and the powers known as the P5+1. It is a good time to reflect on how much the handling of this issue underscores the gulf between Israeli policies and U.S. interests. The gulf exists for two reasons. One is that the Netanyahu government's policies reflect only a rightist slice of the Israeli political spectrum, with which many Israelis disagree and which is contrary to broader and longer term interests of Israel itself. The other reason is that even broadly defined Israeli interests will never be congruent with U.S. interests. This should hardly be surprising. There is no reason to expect the interests of the world superpower to align with those of any of the parties to a regional dispute involving old ethnically or religiously based claims to land.

An article this week by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times addresses one of the drivers behind the Israeli policy: a historically based obsession of Mr. Netanyahu, for whom an Iranian nuclear weapon would be, as Bronner puts it, “the 21st-century equivalent of the Nazi war machine and the Spanish Inquisition.” The extent to which the issue is a personal compulsion of Netanyahu is reflected in estimates that even within his own cabinet (and even with the support of Defense Minister Ehud Barak), a vote in favor of war with Iran might be as close as eight to six. A former Likud activist who has become a critic of Netanyahu explains, “Bibi is a messianist. He believes with all his soul and every last molecule of his being that he—I don't quite know how to express it—is King David.” It is not in a superpower's interest to get sucked into projects of someone with a King David complex.

Given—as several Israelis who have been senior figures in the country's security establishment have noted—that an Iranian nuclear weapon would not pose an existential threat to Israel, one has to look to other reasons for the Israeli agitation about the Iranian nuclear program. Besides Netanyahu's personal obsession there are the broader Israeli fears and emotions, the desire to maintain a regional nuclear weapons monopoly, and the distraction that the Iran issue provides from outside attention to the Palestinians' lack of popular sovereignty. Columnist Richard Cohen, in a piece last week that is clearly sympathetic to Israel, mentions one more reason: a desire to stem a brain drain to the United States of Israelis who would rather live in a more secure place. Clearly there is no congruence with U.S. interests here. In fact, taking in the talent that is found among the Israeli emigrés is a net plus for the United States and the U.S. economy.

The Iranian nuclear issue only reconfirms the non-congruence of U.S. and Israeli interests that should have been apparent from other issues. Most of those issues revolve around the continued Israeli occupation and colonization of disputed land inhabited by Palestinians. The United States has no positive interest in Israel clinging to that land—only the negative interest involving the opprobrium and anger directed at it for being so closely associated with Israeli policies and actions. Another reminder of the lonely position in which the United States finds itself almost every time it automatically condones Israeli behavior came last week, when the United Nations Human Rights Council voted for an inquiry into how Israeli settlements in the occupied territories affect the rights of Palestinians. Initiation of the inquiry was approved with 36 votes in favor, 10 abstentions, and a single no vote by the United States."

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-increasingly-transparent-us-israeli-conflict-interest-6712

"It is not in a superpower's interest to get sucked into projects of someone with a King David complex."

[Hawkowl]

1. Fuck Israel

It is essential that the tail stop wagging the dog! Israel needs to have their foreign aid threatened if they don't stop the war talk and start seriously working towards peace with the Palestinians.

[jimmie]

6. Good to know how you feel

and whats acceptable

[bahrbearian]

8. "If they don't stop the war talk and start seriously working towards peace with the Palestinians."

That would be acceptable. Oh' and park the bulldozers, stop the blockade......

[bahrbearian]

7. +1

[King_David]

9. 'Fuck Israel' ?

I guess that is what The Jewish State is trying to prevent .

[Hawkowl]

10. Ironic isn't it? nt

[teddy51]

2. Good. Lets hope the Obama Administration stands firmly behind a non attack on Iran!

The Israeli people do not want an attack, and most certainly neither do the Iranian people. These extreme right wing war mongers need to be voted out in all countries.

[leveymg]

3. A war is contrary to US national interest; therefore, an attack by either is an attack on the U.S.

and should be dealt with as such.

[bahrbearian]

5. +1

[bemildred]

4. Seems sort of obvious, to be expected.

Though most of what I see looks more like incoherent flopping around than the carrying out of some plan. I suppose there is a media plan, talking points and schedules and whatnot.