Israel as a Strategic Liability? ( Anthony H. Cordesman)

[Jefferson23]

Jun 2, 2010


America’s ties to Israel are not based primarily on U.S. strategic interests. At the best of times, an Israeli government that pursues the path to peace provides some intelligence, some minor advances in military technology, and a potential source of stabilizing military power that could help Arab states like Jordan. Even then, however, any actual Israeli military intervention in an Arab state could prove as destabilizing as beneficial. The fact is that the real motives behind America’s commitment to Israel are moral and ethical. They are a reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, to the entire history of Western anti-Semitism, and to the United States’ failure to help German and European Jews during the period before it entered World War II. They are a product of the fact that Israel is a democracy that shares virtually all of the same values as the United States.

The U.S. commitment to Israel is not one that will be abandoned. The United States has made this repeatedly clear since it first recognized Israel as a state, and it has steadily strengthened the scale of its commitments since 1967. The United States has provided Israel with massive amounts of economic aid and still provides enough military assistance to preserve Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors. The United States has made it clear that any U.S. support for Arab-Israeli peace efforts must be based on options that preserve Israel’s security, and its recent announcements that it will consider “extended regional deterrence” are code words for a U.S. commitment that could guard Israel, as well as its neighbors, against an Iranian nuclear threat.

At the same time, the depth of America’s moral commitment does not justify or excuse actions by an Israeli government that unnecessarily make Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset. It does not mean that the United States should extend support to an Israeli government when that government fails to credibly pursue peace with its neighbors. It does not mean that the United States has the slightest interest in supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or that the United States should take a hard-line position on Jerusalem that would effectively make it a Jewish rather than a mixed city. It does not mean that the United States should be passive when Israel makes a series of major strategic blunders--such as persisting in the strategic bombing of Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, escalating its attack on Gaza long after it had achieved its key objectives, embarrassing the U.S. president by announcing the expansion of Israeli building programs in east Jerusalem at a critical moment in U.S. efforts to put Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track, or sending commandos to seize a Turkish ship in a horribly mismanaged effort to halt the “peace flotilla” going to Gaza.

It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world.


remainder in full: http://csis.org/publication/israel-strategic-liability

On edit to add Cordesman' bio. He is not the guy who would typically ever speak as he does in this OP, another significant shift in opinion:


Cordesman has served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee and civilian assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. He was also the former director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, <1>

Cordesman also served in other government positions, including at the United States Department of State, Department of Energy, and director of International Staff at NATO. He has carried assignments posts in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, the United Kingdom, West Germany and has worked "extensively" in Saudi Arabia.<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Cordesman

[FBI_Un_Sub]

1. And our massive dependence on foreign oil

has nothing to do with it.

[The Magistrate]

2. Your Meaning is Unclear, Sir....

[FBI_Un_Sub]

3. Rhetorical question.

[The Magistrate]

4. Just Making Noise, Then, Sir, Is That It?

Nothing really to say on the matter....