The moral asymmetry between Israel and its enemies has been strikingly on display in the latest flare-up between Gaza terror groups and Israeli forces. By Monday afternoon the Israeli air force had reportedly killed 19 terrorists in pinpoint strikes on Gaza targets — mostly rocket-launching crews — and two Palestinian civilians as collateral damage, a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy. According to UN data cited by Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, the typical ratio when armies fight terror groups is 3:1 — three civilians killed per every terrorist killed by the military forces. By contrast, the over 200 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel since Friday have been aimed solely at civilian targets. Most have been lobbed at cities — Ashkelon, Ashdod, and (my own) Beersheva — in the hope of killing and maiming as many men, women, and children as possible. The far larger of the two groups doing the firing, Islamic Jihad, is, as noted by the Israeli army spokesman, “an arm of the Iranians. It is completely funded and supported by Tehran when it comes to weapons and resources.”
When President Obama meets Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu today, he will have only two goals. He may succeed in one and will certainly fail in the other. Obama’s goals are simple. First, to avoid a repeat of the televised lecture by Netanyahu immediately after the two met. Before Netanyahu’s arrival last year, Obama harshly criticized Israel and demanded peace talks based on the pre-1967 war borders with the Palestinians. In what was supposed to be a friendly televised chat after their Oval Office meeting, Netanyahu politely but firmly took Obama to school and bluntly rejected the 1967 baseline. It was a public relations disaster for Obama that he can prevent this time by just refusing another such event. He may even deny Netanyahu the side-by-side press conferences common to meetings with other nations’ leaders. Second, Obama wants Israel to commit that it will not attack Iran this year. His administration has been frantically trying to persuade Israel to delay any attack, and has been met with quiet opposition and growing silence from the Israeli side. Obama’s two goals are based only on avoiding damage to his campaign. If there is another public break with Israel or if — as is most likely — Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, Obama’s campaign will be distracted and damaged. Any resemblance between Obama’s goals and America’s national interest is purely coincidental. Obama is playing for time. He wants the world’s nuclear cauldron — Iran, North Korea, Pakistan et al. — not to boil over before his election. That is the primary reason that we’ve — again — filled the North Korean begging bowl to cease nuclear production. This is, what, the third or fourth time we’ve done this? And this time, like every time before, we’ll deliver the bribes (fuel oil, food, whatever) which will be used to prop up the Norks’ regime, their people will continue to starve, and they will go on with their nuke program. But nothing will be noisy until after the election. If only those noisy Israelis would go along and shut up for the rest of the year. But their interest in Obama’s campaign is less than their interest in national survival. Which is why, in Canada before coming here to meet Obama, Netanyahu warned against some new attempt at negotiations with Iran because they would just serve to give Iran more time to produce nuclear weapons. Building up to today’s meeting, Team Obama has puffed and fumed. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey went so far as to say Iran is a “rational actor.” Indeed it is, but only in the sense of the Iranian theological “rationale.” Iran is governed by Shia “twelvers,” believers in a mystical “twelfth imam” whose return to earth will create a global Islamic paradise. And the “twelvers” — unique among the world’s religions – believe that an act of man can bring about the deity’s return to earth. Unfortunately, they believe that an apocalyptic event is the way to bring the twelfth imam back. This is a rationality that makes nuclear war a career objective for the “twelvers.” Obama has been making noise about how tough and decisive he is on Iran. In a widely-reported interview with the Atlantic magazine, he said that we “have Israel’s back” and will destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program if economic sanctions don’t succeed. Obama also said that, “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” He went on, “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.” Obama’s formulations are artful. He says that we would destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program if economic sanctions fail. Obama’s “bluff” is open-ended. Sanctions have been tried against Iran for many years, and have had zero effect on its nuclear program. They can go on forever, giving Iran whatever time it needs to complete its nuclear development program. The regime has made its nuclear program a top national priority and isn’t going to give it up peacefully. Obama wants to sound tough without committing himself to anything. The Iranians understand this. For eight years, George W. Bush said the same things: that for Iran to have nuclear weapons is unacceptable and that all options are on the table. But saying those words and actually trying to effectuate them as a policy are two different things. Both Bush and Obama said the words and did nothing to deny Iran’s nuclear progress. By repetition of words, passage of time, and inaction, two presidents have proven that we are willing to do nothing to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran and that, whatever options may be “on the table,” none that will be exercised will be the only thing that can work: extensive and intense military interdiction of Iran’s nuclear weapons development. Obama now tells Iran not to call his bluff. What bluff? Obama has made no threat with a date certain for enforcement, only that someday, if economic sanctions “fail” will we take military action. That’s not a bluff, it’s barely a schoolyard taunt. It’s rhetorical, a campaign promise and nothing more. The only bluff Obama is running is to the American voters so that he can get through the election without doing anything about Iran (and a host of other war issues, especially Afghanistan). There’s no hope of anything better from Obama. Which makes an Israeli attack on Iran not just inevitable but essential. If Israel does not attack Iran soon, Obama — and Bush before him — will have gifted the mullahs with the time they needed to develop their nuclear arsenal. When they have done so, it is not only Israel that will be in mortal danger. So will we and every other nation that is a target Islamic terrorism.
In his speech before AIPAC this morning, President Obama spent a lot of time asserting that he’s always had Israel’s back, ignoring the past three years of friction with the Israeli government with Orwellian brazenness. On Iran, the issue on everyone’s mind, Obama insisted that he is committed to stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons: I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power. A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort to impose crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency. Iran’s leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I’ve made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests. This is explicit, but not specific — he still hasn’t quite done
Every once and a while I have to hit myself over the head and remember that whomever receives the Republican nomination – vices and all – must be supported over Obama. Even though a Republican-controlled Congress can stop much of Obama’s domestic policy agenda (although they tend to cave), the president has wide latitude to act unilaterally on foreign policy. His foreign policy is naive, dangerous, and downright un-American. It’s even worse than his domestic policy. Consequently, whenever we become disillusioned with the current crop of GOP candidates, we must remember Obama’s policies on defense and national security. Yesterday, we heard the news that Obama would like to reduce our tactical nuclear weapons arsenal from 5,000 warheads to just a few hundred. This would decrease our nuclear arsenal to a level smaller than that of China. The news percolated into the media during the visit of China’s Vice President Xi Jinping. What sort of message does that send to our chief conventional strategic threat in the world? The sad thing is that Obama mistakenly believes that nuclear weapons are just as dangerous in the hands of Americans as they are in the hands of China, Russia, or even Iran. Today, we discover even worse news on the nuclear weapons front. In 2010, Obama convinced the Senate to ratify the New START Treaty with Russia, an agreement that ostensibly committed us to unilaterally disarm and cut our nuclear weapons arsenal. In order to win the 67 requisite votes, Obama swindled several credulous Republicans into voting for the treaty on condition that he would commit to investing more than $4 billion into modernizing our nuclear weapons and facilities. Well, it turns out that Obama lied. This, from CQ : Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, who negotiated with the administration to secure more than $4 billion in nuclear forces, and weapons and facilities modernization over five years, said Thursday that plans to reduce spending over the next 10 years effectively eliminate the funding President Obama promised to use for modernization. “What the budget does is throw away all that work,” said Kyl, who ultimately voted against ratification of the treaty despite the funding deal with the White House. Kyl suggested that Republicans would fight to add back the $372 million taken from nuclear modernization in the fiscal 2013 defense budget request. As Tripp Baird of Heritage Action notes , Kyl’s negotiation with Obama regarding weapons modernization helped secure the support of Republicans like Lamar Alexander. While Kyl personally voted against ratification of START, 13 Republicans supported it, granting Obama more than enough votes to ratify the treaty. If for no other reason than the nuclear weapons issue, we must get Obama out of the White House. Oh, and it would help if we elect Republicans to the Senate who won’t get suckered into supporting the next suicidal treaty in case Obama does remain in office. Cross-posted from The Madison Project
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Obama’s Un-American Nuclear Weapons Policy
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May, or June. This is according to a 2 February Washington Post column by David Ignatius, apparently relying on a conversation with Panetta. Ignatius’s column came out at the same time as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s speech in which Barak declared that Iran would soon enter a stage where its nuclear program would be immune from attack. In his speech, according to a report in the Financial Times , Barak said, ” The world today has no doubt that the Iranian military nuclear program is slowly but surely reaching the final stages, and will enter the immunity stage from which point the Iranian regime will be able to complete the program without any effective intervention and at its convenience.” He added, “Dealing with a nuclearized Iran will be far more complex, far more dangerous and far more costly in blood and money than stopping it today. In other words, those who say ‘later’ may find that later is too late.” Had statements like these come during the Cold War from, for example, America and Britain, it would be suspected as a ruse. Such ploys were a commonplace then, each side trying to maneuver against the other to draw wavering nations to their side in the dispute du jour . This is different. Since Obama took office, Israel has learned to suspect America, not trust it. Obama’s Islam-centric foreign policy has broken the link between Israel and the United States. There is no common policy on Iran that could have resulted in coordinated statements by Barak and Panetta. The personal hostility between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the public face of deep disagreements. Their enmity became open after Obama had demanded Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based on the pre-1967 war borders. Last May, Netanyahu schooled Obama before the television cameras after a rocky private White House meeting. A visibly angry Obama shifted uncomfortably in his chair during Netanyahu’s compelling lecture. Netanyahu’s subsequent speech before a joint session of Congress amplified the clear break between the two men. Since then, Obama, Panetta, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey have attempted to dissuade Israel from any military action against Iran. But the only result has been that Israel’s distrust of the Obama administration has grown to the point that Israel will not tell Obama what it plans. Panetta himself has worked to heighten that distrust. Last December, he blamed Israel for the lack of talks with the Palestinians, admonishing Israel to “Just get to the damn table.” In effect, by its feckless actions and pressure on Israel but not Israel’s enemies, Obama has deprived Israel of options other than war. Continued sanctions against Iran have been met with defiance from Iran and dissembling from its allies. Iraq is apparently planning to help Iran avoid a pending embargo on Iranian oil by shipping Iranian oil from its ports, hiding its origin. (That plan may be only symbolic, because the construction of planned pipelines delivering oil and gas from Iran to Iraq’s export center are not scheduled to be finished until 2014.) The European embargo of Iranian oil is months away, and may never happen. Obama’s actions have made the Middle East and Southwest Asia vastly more unstable. Our actions to encourage rebellion in Egypt and military action in support of the Libyan rebellion have only propelled the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood movement to power in both nations. Panetta’s announcement that we may withdraw from Afghanistan a year early relieves pressure on Iran and encourages both Iran and Pakistan to continue their strong support for the Taliban. Obama’s plan to release five top Taliban commanders from Gitmo is a major boost to the Taliban. According to a leaked NATO classified report, the Taliban are confident that they will return to power quickly after our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist action inside the United States. Iran was greatly emboldened when, in 2009, Obama’s “hands off Iran” policy failed to support the nascent rebellion against the mullahs. Last December, a New York court held that Iran had helped al Qaeda mount the 9/11 attacks. The sad fact is that, since 1979, Iran has paid no price for its central role in terrorism against the United States. Obama’s preference for passive sanctions — rather than overt or covert measures that can deprive Iran from its ability to produce nuclear weapons — has granted Iran more time to reach what Ehud Barak called the “immunity stage.” What is that? Immunity for Iran means that its nuclear weapons program would be so deeply buried and dispersed that only a nuclear attack on it could delay or destroy it. Israel can’t afford to wait for Iran’s nuclear weapons program to become immune. Israel would certainly use nuclear weapons in response to such an attack against it, but it isn’t about to wait until a preemptive nuclear attack on Iran is its only option. The Israeli calculus is complex. Attacking Iran will certainly provoke Iranian attacks, using missiles and terrorist proxies, which could result in massive Israeli casualties. Hizballah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, will launch its thousands of missiles into Israel. The Hamas terrorists in Gaza will do the same and other Iran-connected terrorists — including al Qaeda — will probably attack U.S. and other western targets. If Israel suffers massive casualties, it’s entirely possible that its Arab neighbors would try to mount another 1967-like attack. But in 1967 and again in 1973, Israel had clear American support. When Israel appeared to be losing the 1973 war, U.S. Air Force aircraft were being armed and fueled to fly into the fight. That possibility still exists, but the Israelis’ distrust of Obama is so great that they aren’t including that in their war planning. Israel believes it is alone, and in that it’s probably right. As I wrote about eighteen months ago in a quasi-fictional forecast , Israel’s military will be stretched to the limit in attacking Iranian targets that are a long flying distance from Israel, and are both dispersed and — in many cases — deep underground. If it chooses to attack, it should also judge that suppression missions against Hizballah in Lebanon and against Syrian missile forces are an essential part of the plan. Such an attack will ignite a theater-wide war that Israel may not survive. Obama isn’t serious about preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons. In the three decades since the Iranian regime came to power, no diplomatic effort has ever changed its behavior. The only option for us, for Israel, and for the shopkeepers of Europe is to strike at Iran’s nuclear program to dismantle it. But that option, despite what Obama and Panetta say, isn’t one we are seriously considering. Left with no other choice, Israel will have to do what we lack the resolve to do. If Secretary Panetta’s belief is as the Washington Post reported, and if we are to take Ehud Barak’s statements at face value, Obama’s inaction would mean that Israel has concluded that it cannot rely on American action in its defense. By continuing inaction against Iran, going beyond ineffectual sanctions, Obama is pushing Israel toward war. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the U.S. for a major speech to the AIPAC group next month. It may be the last opportunity for him and Obama to come to an understanding on decisive action against Iran. Soon after Netanyahu returns home, the Israelis will have to risk their nation’s existence in a war that is as much ours as theirs.
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Pushing Israel to War
