Friday, July 10, 2015
IDF Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaacov Amidror- Distinguished Fellow for JINSA Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy and Anne and Greg Rosshandler Senior Fellow for the Begin-Sadat Center For Strategic Studies (BESA)
Over the past few years, particularly since it became apparent that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would be forced to fight an enemy intermingled with and almost indistinguishable from civilian populations, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has increased its appreciation for the cardinal importance of intelligence. The IDF learned the hard way that only precise intelligence is capable of identifying weapons caches, command centers and weapons production sites located within densely populated areas. The more precise the intelligence, the greater the ability of precise weapons systems – and to a certain extent maneuvering forces – to limit casualties among non-combatants and to strike terrorists and terrorist infrastructure. These experiences have confirmed that there is no substitute for precise intelligence in enabling strikes on appropriate targets while simultaneously preventing massive and indiscriminate harm to civilians. The quality of the intelligence possessed by the IDF in recent operations in Gaza saved the lives of many Palestinian civilians in combat zones, because the IDF could pinpoint fire and maneuvers towards specific locations, rather than having to disperse them over a broader area.
Recent visits by high-ranking active-duty and retired American military officers allowed them to study IDF maneuvers and targeting activities, and to conclude it would be impossible to expect the U.S. military to achieve similar results under similar circumstances. This is not due to the differences in professional skill between the officers of the two armies – both are modern armies, commanded by officers of the highest professional level – but rather the diverse needs of the two countries, particularly in the realm of intelligence. The IDF knows where it will fight future wars, namely Lebanon, Gaza and possibly the Golan Heights. Since these areas are just beyond Israel’s borders, Israeli intelligence can gather very detailed intelligence. At almost any moment, Israel can easily reach these areas with all of the available visual and signals (SIGINT) intelligence capabilities, recruit agents and constantly monitor large portions of the future battlefield, with occasional limitations due primarily to weather conditions. This gives the IDF a clear advantage in differentiating between military and civilian targets.
The state of the U.S. military is not nearly as convenient. It must be as prepared for combat in Somalia as in Crimea, in Afghanistan as much as in Korea. This means that a military force must travel to a new and unknown area of combat thousands of miles away, and within a few short weeks or even days be prepared to engage in warfare with an enemy that might be operating among dense civilian populations.
The main problem with this type of intelligence is its short shelf life. While certain targets against terrorist organizations are fairly static – command centers, for example – by and large terrorist organizations are flexible and can easily divert their assets to prevent Israel from locating and preparing lists of targets ahead of and during combat.
Hezbollah in Lebanon represents one of the biggest intelligence challenges to Israel. Though Israeli intelligence located many of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, almost all of these were identified only after having launched rockets at Israel (though few were able to launch a second time before being targeted). With seven times as many missiles and rockets – roughly 100,000 – placed in civilian infrastructure across a much larger swath of Lebanese territory today, Israeli intelligence must find creative solutions to these problems, old and new alike, as it prepares for the next war.
Quality Intelligence as a Facet of Combating Terrorism and Preventing Civilian Casualties by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaacov Amidror
6.What Politicians Say vs. What People Can See by Douglas Murray
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6137/politicians-isis-islamic July 10, 2015 at 5:00 am
§ Throughout a bombing-and-murder campaign lasting three decades, the BBC never referred to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as the “so-called IRA.” If you flatten ISIS’s military, the strong-horse appeal of ISIS would simply go away. If there is nothing to join, no one can join it.
§ Cameron’s and Obama’s tactic is to deny something that Muslims and non-Muslims can easily see and find out for themselves: that ISIS has a lot to do with Islam — the worst possible version, obviously, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but a version of Islam nevertheless.
A few days after the massacre of 30 British subjects on a Tunisian beach, the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, used an interview on the BBC to berate the broadcaster and others for using the term “Islamic State.” Mr. Cameron’s suggestion was that the broadcaster should either refer to the “so-called Islamic State,” use the acronym “ISIL,” or adopt the Arabic term, “Daesh.”
None of these suggestions is workable. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was never the “army” of the Irish Republic. It was instead a group of sectarian terrorists who claimed to fight for a community that was largely disgusted by their actions. Yet throughout a bombing and murder campaign lasting three decades, the BBC never referred to the IRA as the “so-called IRA.” The group called itself the IRA, and so broadcasters and others referred to it as such. One might wish to call such groups all sorts of things, but calling by the name its leaders adopt is the easiest option of presenting the facts and not getting bogged down in nomenclature.
The Prime Minister’s other suggestions — that the Islamic State should either be called “ISIL” or “Daesh” — are equally doomed to failure. For ISIL of course simply means “Islamic State of Iraq and Levant,” while “Daesh” is effectively an Arabic acronym of the same. If the aim of all this wordplay is that the general public dissociate “Islamic State” from Islam, there seems little hope that this will much help to break the connection. After all, what if someone — anyone — asks what ISIL or Daesh stand for? What should people then say in response?
Of course, the problem that the Prime Minister got into on this occasion is the same problem he and all other world leaders get into whenever they adopt the “Islam is a religion of peace” line. What they are perfectly understandably trying to do is to disentangle more than a billion Muslims worldwide (and specifically the tens of millions of Muslims in Western democracies) from the violent jihadists in their religion. At the same time, they — again understandably — hope to give the message to their non-Muslim publics that they should not blame Muslims everywhere for the actions of this violent minority.
This is a laudable aim, but it is doomed to failure because members of the public no longer rely on either politicians or the mainstream media as their only sources of information or news. They can perfectly well get on the internet and find things out for themselves, and it is in this growing gulf between what politicians say and what the general public can perfectly easily find out for itself that a real long-term danger could emerge.
Why won’t the public believe them when they explain that the “so-called Islamic State” has nothing to do with Islam? Pictured left, UK Prime Minister David Cameron. At right, US President Barack Obama. |
All this is really a reminder that if we are in a war with ISIS, it is one in which we are performing very badly. Consider something said by Mr. Cameron’s American counterpart a week after Cameron’s statement. President Barack Obama gave a press conference at the Pentagon in which he, too, discussed the group that must not be named. On this occasion, the President said that the fight against ISIS was “not simply a military effort,” and went on to say, “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision.”
Of course suggesting that there are many people who think a military solution alone can solve the ISIS problem is to create a straw man argument. But it is surely almost undeniable that the best thing on ISIS’s side at the moment (and the cause of their current recruitment drive) is that they are seen to be not only on the offensive but on the way up — gaining ground both figuratively and literally. When they take over whole cities in what used to be Syria or Iraq, radicalized young men and women from across the world, who might have been vacillating on whether or not to jump on board with the group, get galvanized in its direction. But if you flatten ISIS’s military, the strong-horse appeal of ISIS would simply go away. If there is nothing to join, no one can join it.
President Obama is right to say that no ideology can be destroyed on the battlefield alone. The destruction of Nazi fascism in the 1940s was completed not only by its wholesale military defeat but by the world’s awareness of the evil of the Nazi ideology and its wholesale moral and ethical failure. If the destruction of ISIS’s ideology is to be complete, this too will have to be understood. But the U.S. and its allies ought to be wondering what is going wrong here. Although the numbers of citizens we are losing to ISIS constitute only tiny pockets of our own societies (if larger numbers across the Middle East and North Africa), we ought to consider how we are even losing people in ones and twos in a public relations war with this group.
While the Nazis tried to hide their worst crimes from the world, the followers of ISIS repeatedly record and distribute video footage of theirs. Between free and open democratic societies, and a society which beheads women for witchcraft, throws suspected gays off buildings, beheads other Muslims and Christians, burns people alive, and does us the favour of video-recording these atrocities and sending them round the globe for us, you would have thought that there would be no moral competition. But there is. And that is not because ISIS has “better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision,” but because its appeal comes from a specific ideological-religious worldview that we cannot hope to defeat if we refuse to understand it.
That is why David Cameron’s interjection was so important. The strategy Barack Obama and he seem to be hoping will work in persuading the general public that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is the same tactic they are adopting in the hope of persuading young Muslims not to join ISIS. Their tactic is to try to deny something that Muslims and non-Muslims can easily see and find out for themselves: that ISIS has a lot to do with Islam — the worst possible version, obviously, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but a version of Islam nevertheless.
ISIS can destroy its own credibility among advocates of human rights and liberal democracy. The question is how you destroy its credibility among people who want to be very Islamic, and think ISIS is their way of being so. Understand their claims and their appeal, and work out a way to undermine those, and ISIS will prove defeatable not only on the battlefield but in the field of ideas as well. But refuse to acknowledge what drives them, or from where they claim to get their legitimacy, and the problem will only have just started.
From: YMedad <yisrael.medad@gmail.com> Date: Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 10:24 AM
Subject: [My Right Word]
7. On Negotiating: HECK, ISRAEL WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
REMEMBER WHEN THE UNITED STATES PRESSED
ISRAEL AMONG WITH OTHER NATIONS
THAT WE NEED NEGOTIATE WITH OUR ENEMIES
TO REACH PEACE,
NO MATTER HOW BAD THEY ARE.
WELL, THE WAY THE TALKS ARE GOING IN VIENNA WITH IRAN,
AND ESPECIALLY THE AVOIDING OF IRAN’S HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
AND SUPPORT FOR TERROR,
AND THE TYPE OF AGREEMENT DEVELOPING,
HECK, ISRAEL WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG.
8. TELL AMNESTY: STOP LYING ABOUT ISRAEL. RETRACT YOUR SMEARS
Dear Gail & Emanuel,
Israel’s army is the most moral army in the world. Last summer, it put its soldiers lives in danger while taking extra precautions to save civilians in Gaza.
But Amnesty International is demonizing Israel for the very measures it took to save civilian lives. Amnesty International has been caught telling “a complete, provable lie”— manipulating a video to make Israel’s act of compassion look like an act of murder.
CLICK HERE to tell Amnesty: Stop lying about Israel. Retract your smears.
The video published by Amnesty International attacks Israel’s policy of “roof knocking” (firing a warning shot at a target to warn civilians and allow them to flee before a larger missile is fired). Amnesty clocks the time between the two missiles at 1 minute and 9 seconds.
Amnesty’s “lie”? The source video from a Gaza-based news agency is edited. The agency admits the larger missile was fired FIVE minutes after the “roof knocking” and the IDF even called 15 minutes prior to tell civilians to clear the area.
Amnesty is telling a “blood libel” to demonize Israel. And isn’t it outrageous that Amnesty is attacking the very actions by Israel meant to SAVE civilian lives? To Amnesty, demonizing Israel is more important than the truth or their credibility.
Amnesty International can’t be allowed to slander Israel’s efforts to save civilian lives and sabotage her ability to defend civilians.
CLICK HERE to tell Amnesty: Stop lying about Israel. Retract your smears.
Thank you for your support. Tip=The Israel Project
Michael Makovsky, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer of JINSA & Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy
Testimony for Hearing,
9.“Implications of a Nuclear Agreement with Iran” House Committee on Foreign Relations July 9, 2015 Introduction Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for inviting me this morning to discuss the emerging deal on Iran’s nuclear program and the implications of the Obama Administration’s policy. In April 2011, in the early days of the Arab Awakening, I testified before your Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia that “preventing a nuclear Iran should remain our paramount goal and guide our policies amid the fog of events.“ I feel that even more so today. The Iran nuclear talks in Vienna have been extended till tomorrow, July 10, with a chance of further extension.
Any day the emerging deal isn’t completed is a good day, because I believe it to be deeply flawed, with historically severe implications for American standing and national security. It would align ourselves closer with the Islamic Republic of Iran–the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism and a fierce ideologically enemy of the United States and our Arab and Israeli allies – and grant it international legitimacy to become a threshold nuclear power in 10-15 years, even if it observes the deal. Iran would be enriched with tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and increased exports, thereby strengthening its radical regime and supercharging its nefarious activities.
The deal would spur and accelerate other regional countries’ pursuit of nuclear weapons. This will regionalize the issue, so that in subsequent years we won’t only need to assess what Iran is doing in its nuclear program, but we’ll also need to monitor what Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and our other traditional regional allies might doing on the nuclear front. All this will make serious conventional or nuclear military conflict in the Middle East, whether sparked intentionally or through miscalculation, far more likely—unless Israel or a new U.S. president steps in with military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities to stop this nuclear contagion. Either way, war could well be a consequence of this deal, and not the alternative to it.
I urge Members of Congress to reject this deal and restore and reinvigorate American leverage to achieve an acceptable deal to prevent a nuclear Iran and reduce the chances of a nuclear contagion cascade and war. I will focus my remarks on highlighting fatal flaws of the emerging deal, addressing the Obama Administration’s arguments on the deal’s behalf, and raising the strategic implications of such a deal being agreed and implemented. My remarks are based on information available as of July 8, when this testimony was submitted.
Deal’s Flaws: Mr. Chairman, you and your Committee, as well as the Gemunder Center Iran Task Force at JINSA, of which I am CEO, have raised many of the shortcomings of the prospective agreement being finalized in Vienna. I highlight below a few, but not all, of the pivotal ones.
First, rather than forcing Iran’s leaders to choose between guns and butter, it gives them much more of both. Sanctions relief will give Iran tens of billions of dollars from released funds and increased oil exports over the next year, which will strengthen this radical and repressive regime and supercharge its support for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorism, regional mischief-making, as well as its spending on its own military buildup.
Second, in 10-15 years Iran will be permitted to expand its already robust nuclear program as it wishes. It will legally be treated like Japan.
Third, the deal might provide for greater inspections, but these will not be robust enough to detect or deter Iranian cheating. The deal apparently would at most require 3 Iran to adhere to the “Additional Protocol,” but no Additional Protocol contains the required “anytime, anywhere” inspections, including access to military sites, which is most likely where Iran would construct a nuclear weapon. Complicating proper and full inspections, Iran hasn’t yet come clean on the possible military dimensions (PMD) of its nuclear program.
Fourth, even if inspections did detect Iranian violations, there’s serious reason to doubt that the Obama Administration would challenge Tehran over them. The Administration claims Iran has adhered to the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) interim deal of November 2013, yet Iran has violated it on several occasions. Most recently, Iran has been caught not converting enough enriched fuel to a form that would make it harder to be processed into nuclear weapon. Instead of challenging Iran, the Administration has acted as its defense attorney and attacked the independent American organization that made the finding. A Washington Post editorial this week referred to the White House’s “warped” “proclivity to respond to questions about Iran’s performance by attacking those who raise them.” 1
Fifth, and perhaps most puzzling, this deal would not require Iran to comply with legally binding U.N. Security Council resolutions against its ballistic missile programs.
Countering President Obama’s Arguments The Obama Administration and its supporters have made five basic, somewhat conflicting, arguments on behalf of the deal: 1) it will prevent a nuclear Iran; 2) it will postpone a nuclear Iran; 3) it will set back Iran’s nuclear program longer than would military action; 4) the alternative is U.S. diplomatic isolation and a nuclear Iran; and 5) the alternative is war.
Prevent a Nuclear Iran? President Obama stated on April 2, 2015, when announcing the Lausanne framework agreement, “This framework would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon.” Yet, five days later, on April 7, Obama undermined that
1 Washington Post, editorial, “The U.S. response to Iran’s cheating is a worrying omen.” July 7, 2015. 4 claim when he acknowledged in an NPR interview “in year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”
2 Still, since then the Administration has insisted that the emerging deal will block all pathways to a nuclear Iran. Just this week, a Washington Post editorial noted, “Iran’s emergence as a threshold nuclear power, with the ability to produce a weapon quickly, will not be prevented; it will be postponed, by 10 to 15 years.”
3 Indeed, this trajectory was already spelled out in the November 2013 interim deal: “Following successful implementation of the final step of the comprehensive solution for its full duration, the Iranian nuclear programme will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT.”
4 The only question was how many years for those restrictions to sunset, even if Iran adheres to a deal. As Obama acknowledged on April 7, it would be only 10-15 years. Therefore, it does not matter whether Iran has signed onto the Additional Protocol, how often international inspectors visit, or what facilities they have access to, when Iran will have a breakout time that is, in the president’s words, “almost down to zero.”
By then, the United States and other countries will not have any time to react to any possible breakout, and Iran will become, with international blessing, a nuclear power. Postpones a Nuclear Iran? The more persuasive, yet still flawed, argument of the Administration and other deal supporters is that the deal will delay a nuclear Iran for over a decade. Delay certainly has real strategic value. If a deal truly froze Iran’s nuclear program without any significant negative consequences, and was conducted within the context of a policy of restricting and containing Iran, which had been our policy the two
2 NPR, “Transcript: President Obama’s Full NPR Interview On Iran Nuclear Deal.” http://www.npr.org/2015/04/07/397933577/transcript-president-obamas-full-npr-interview-on-irannuclear-deal
3 Washington Post, editorial, “The U.S. response to Iran’s cheating is a worrying omen.” July 7, 2015.
4 A public version of the JPA is available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/statements/docs/2013/131124_03_en.pdf
5 decades prior to the JPA, then such a deal could be valuable and welcomed. But that is not this deal. This deal, instead, seems part of a broader policy to embrace Iran and effectively nourish its regime with tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and rejuvenated trade and exports. The result will not be greater Iranian moderation, as the Administration hopes, but will be a strengthening of its regime internally and a more aggressive posture abroad. A regime guilty of some of the world’s worst human rights abuses – jailing political opponents and journalists, executing the most people per capita of any country, denying the Holocaust and threatening to annihilate Israel – and reeling from the pain of tough sanctions, will be taken out of intensive care and made healthy and immune to attack by this deal. Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program Further than a Military Strike? President Obama argued on April 2 that a military strike would delay “Iran’s program by a few years … a fraction of the time that this deal will set it back. Meanwhile we’d ensure Iran would race ahead to try and build a bomb.”
5 Such expressions of certainty seem out of place. Israeli security experts have suggested an Israeli military strike could push back Iran’s nuclear program three or so years. U.S. military action, with our greater capability and easier access, would likely push it back further. The brief history of strikes against nuclear facilities suggest the delay could be longer. Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osirak’s reactor in 1981 was intended to set Iraq’s program back only 1-3 years, and yet the program had not been completed a decade later by the time of the first Iraq War. (The 1981 attack did drive the Iraqi program underground, and it progressed a great deal by the time of its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War.)
Syria had not reconstituted a nuclear program when its civil war broke out in 2011 – four years after Israel’s strike on a suspected reactor in 2007. 5 White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on the Framework to Prevent Iran from Obtaining a Nuclear Weapon,” April 2, 2015.
6 Iran, of course, has a much more extensive and hidden nuclear program than Iraq or Syria did. Still, a U.S. military strike on it could follow the same pattern. It has taken Tehran several decades and tens of billions of dollars to get this far with its nuclear program, and the government might well be reluctant to invest billions and decades more to recreate a program that could be destroyed again in a matter of days. Nuclear scientists – those who survived military action, and prospective new ones – might be reluctant to work in facilities that will be attacked again. This would especially be the case if it was clear U.S. military action wasn’t confined to a few days or weeks, but was could be carried out over a period of time necessary to ensure all relevant facilities were disabled or destroyed. Military action would likely also serve as a warning to other countries not to pursue nuclear weapons.
6 We should be careful in definitively predicting the possible outcomes of military action, recognizing the chances of various consequences. Most likely, military action would set back Iran’s program for some significant period of time, and deter other countries from pursuing their own programs. The ultimate solution, though, is regime change. Alternative is U.S. Diplomatic Isolation and a Nuclear Iran? President Obama claimed on April 2, “we could pull out of negotiations … and hope for the best – knowing that every time we have done so, Iran has not capitulated but instead has advanced its program, and that in very short order, the breakout timeline would be eliminated and a nuclear arms race in the region could be triggered because of that uncertainty.”
7 The argument is defeatist, and ignores the importance of U.S. leadership should we choose to exercise it. Indeed, it was the United States that took the lead on passing effective U.N. and unilateral sanctions against Iran, including the banking sanctions devised and passed by this body (which Obama initially opposed).
For analysis of the benefits and costs of U.S. military action, see: Bipartisan Policy Center, Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock (February 2012); Wilson Center Weighing the Benefits and Costs of Military Action Against Iran (September 2012). 7 White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Statement by the President on the Framework to Prevent Iran from Obtaining a Nuclear Weapon,” April 2, 2015.
Indeed, an inconsistency of President Obama’s argument is that in his April 2 speech he also claimed that “sanctions … did help bring Iran to the negotiating table.” We have far more options for influencing Iranian behavior than the Administration has been willing to exercise. Iran’s leaders clearly want sanctions relief, which contributed to their agreeing to restrict elements of the nuclear program under the JPA. Since then oil prices collapsed, and remain about half of where they were a year ago. New sanctions that completely cut off Iranian oil exports would have little impact on the oil market, and could serve to pressure Iran into a better deal (and could boost American energy sector jobs). But tougher sanctions alone will not suffice to get us an acceptable outcome.
Alternative is War? Nor are economic sanctions the only leverage the Administration has been ignoring. President Obama declared early in his first term that he would use “all elements of American power” to prevent a nuclear Iran, and he has asserted repeatedly that “all options are on the table.”
8 Now the Administration and its supporters claim the alternative is war. In his second term, the Administration weakened virtually all elements of American power and took off almost all options off the table. It threatened to veto new sanctions, even though sanctions helped bring Iran to the table. It dismissed the military option, even though it was fear of U.S. military action that led Iran in 2003-4 to suspend crucial parts of its nuclear program. It distanced us from our regional allies, even though that has emboldened Tehran. And it has effectively aligned the United States strategically with the Islamic Republic, instead of supporting the internal opposition and confronting the regime and its terrorist proxies in the region. The Administration left itself only diplomacy, which without any credible levers has simply become pleading. And that in turn has only encouraged Iranian intransigence. This “empty holster,” has made war not the alternative but possibly the consequence of this deal. Strategic Implications of a Bad Deal The strategic implications of how the Obama Administration has handled the Iran talks so far are already significant, and if this emerging deal is concluded that will make the consequences far more damaging to America’s national security interests and standing in the world. President Obama came into office seeking to reverse traditional U.S. foreign policy, which he saw often to be wrong, counterproductive to our interests, and a diversion from tending to needs at home. That led him, in the Middle East, to reach out to and eventually embracing Iran. Since at least the presidency of Jimmy Carter, administrations from both sides of the aisle have identified and focused on three main U.S. interests in the Middle East: a secure Israel; a secure flow of oil from the Persian Gulf; and a weakening of Islamic radicalism. Those interests converged in containing the Islamic Republic of Iran since its inception in 1979. Iran threatens Israel and our Sunni Arab allies, especially those which produce oil, and is a global leader of Islamic radicalism – not only Shia extremism, but Hamas and other radical Sunnis groups as well. As negotiations for a final nuclear deal have played out, the Obama Administration increasingly has aligned itself with Iran’s interests in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. The result has been anger and dismay from our Arab and Israeli allies, who have increasingly questioned U.S. reliability and credibility, especially after we sympathized with the demonstrators and against allied regimes during the early days of the “Arab Spring” (after not supporting the uprising in Iran in 2009) and the non-enforcement of the Syrian red line. After two decades of American presidents, including this president, declaring that Iran needs to dismantle its nuclear program and that the United States will use all means to accomplish this, the Obama Administration initiated the last two- year stage of nuclear talks with Iran without even informing Saudi Arabia, Israel and our other close allies, and currently is advancing a deal to legitimize their arch-rival’s nuclear program.
The United States has kept them at a distance and not taken seriously enough their grave security concerns, and has been overeager to accommodate Iran, a second- or third-rate power. Our adversaries have observed this as well, which has only emboldened Russian actions in Ukraine and China’s in the South China Sea. While the United States still possesses the capability of a superpower, many legitimately question whether we retain the will and credibility of one. The price to pay for this erosion of credibility and departure from established U.S. policy and interests will be grave. If this deal is completed, it will: guarantee the emergence of Iran as a nuclear power; place Israel in existential danger from Iran and the aggression of its terrorist proxies; set off a proliferation cascade that will raise the potential for conflict in the Persian Gulf, which incidentally act as bullish factor for oil prices; and empower and inspire radical Islamists across the region. With its credibility severely eroded, the United States – even if led by a new, determined president – will have significant difficulty restoring order to the region. The most immediate consequence of a deal will be a realignment of interests in the region. It widely perceived that we have aligned ourselves with Iran, and our regional allies will continue to seek closer relations with Russia and China and distance themselves from us. Some of our allies in the region and outside it – such as India and South Korea, which are heavily dependent on oil imports – will also seek closer ties with Iran. On the positive side, our Israeli and Arab allies, who share a sense of abandonment by the United States, will intensify their quiet collaboration with one another on regional matters. But, more consequential, some of our traditional Arab allies will seek other means of ensuring their security, and will develop nuclear programs or acquire nuclear weapons of their own. President Obama recognized with much confidence this consequence in 2012: “It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons.”
But now he dismisses it, stating in May about the Gulf Arabs, “They understand that ultimately their own security and defense is much better served by working with us.” In reality, Riyadh has good reason to question our reliability in defending them, as explained above. Though Obama warned the Saudis, “Their covert – presumably – pursuit of a nuclear program would greatly strain the relationship they’ve got with the United States,” It is simply implausible to suggest the United States would punish the Saudis if they develop a nuclear program. As former U.S. secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz asked in their superb Wall Street Journal op-ed on April 8: “Do we now envision an interlocking series of rivalries, with each new nuclear program counterbalancing others in the region?”
In fact, this nuclear contagion will regionalize the challenge, so that we’ll have to monitor not just what Iran is doing on the nuclear front, but also Saudi Arabia and other countries. This will increase the chances of a nuclear conflict, whether through intent or miscalculation, among the countries that acquire the capability, and could well draw in the United States. The radicals, such as Hezb’Allah, Hamas, ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name a few, will feel emboldened by this Iranian victory and what will be perceived as an American capitulation. Hezb’Allah could effectively become protected by an Iranian nuclear umbrella, severely limiting Israel’s freedom of maneuver in Lebanon and Syria. In the lead-up to this deal, the United States has already felt compelled to deepen our commitments to our regional allies, perhaps move more troops and other assets to the region, and sell our allies more weaponry. The Obama Administration has already begun taking some of these steps – an interesting twist of fate, since the President entered office determined to reduce our commitments in the Middle East. Nevertheless,
10.Jeffrey Goldberg, “Obama to Iran and Israel: ‘As President of the United States, I Don’t Bluff,’” The Atlantic, March 2, 2012. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iranand-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/
11 Jeffrey Goldberg, “‘Look … It’s My Name on This’: Obama Defends the Iran Nuclear Deal,” The Atlantic, May 21,21, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israelas-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/
12 Henry Kissinger and George P. Schultz, “The Iran Deal and its Consequences,” Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2015. 11 some have argued that such renewed engagement might allow the United States to contain a nuclear Iran – and the potential cascade of instability in its wake – much like the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In reality, the challenges would be manifold and intractable, and the costs and risks prohibitive.
First, successful containment is premised on deterrence, which in turn demands credibility. The United States by definition would have minimal credibility after having spent years declaring a nuclear Iran was unacceptable.
Second, containment is innately reactive – it draws a line in the sand and waits for the adversary to try crossing it. This would allow Iran to try to challenge the United States and its allies over time, by engaging in slightly and steadily more provocative behavior piecemeal.
Third, even when successful, containment is an indefinite, long-term obligation, based on a willingness to prevail in a contest of wills over some indeterminate period, and there is little indication so far that we wish to prepared to endure this contest and pay the price in blood and treasure.
A final concern is whether the nature of the regime in Tehran – and other regimes or entities that might acquire nuclear weapons – would even render it containable with nuclear capability. To again cite Kissinger and Schultz: “Previous thinking on nuclear strategy also assumed the existence of stable state actors. Among the original nuclear powers, geographic distances and the relatively large size of programs combined with moral revulsion to make surprise attack all but inconceivable. How will these doctrines translate into a region where sponsorship of non-state proxies is common, the state structure is under assault, and death on behalf of jihad is a kind of fulfillment?”
13 Given these challenges and threats, many have assumed that Israel would attack the nuclear facilities of Iran, as it did in Iraq and Syria. Very few now believe Israel will do so. I still believe Israel will, more likely than not, will feel compelled to act militarily – as it will feel no alternative – at the last feasible moment. If Israel doesn’t act, it will suffer a huge blow to its deterrent posture, after decades of warning it would not permit a nuclear Iran, and leave its fate to others.
13 Henry Kissinger and George P. Schultz, “The Iran Deal and its Consequences,” Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2015.
12 Conclusion Winston Churchill famously said in the House of Commons to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain about the Munich agreement in 1938, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.” This is not to compare President Obama to Chamberlain, and Iran to the Nazis, but to conclude by stressing two points.
First, that the consequence to this deal, however well-intentioned, would be much greater and longstanding Middle Eastern and global tension and higher risk of conventional war and even nuclear conflict that could draw in the United States.
Second, that this issue transcends any administration or party. It is often forgotten that Churchill was then a Conservative and he was defying his own Conservative Party and party leader in his gutsy stand, which has been celebrated over the decades by American leaders across the political spectrum. Therefore, I urge an overwhelming bipartisan coalition in Congress to reject the emerging deal if it gets concluded. If that happens, there could still be hope of an acceptable diplomatic solution, which is what we all seek. It would be predicated on, as JINSA’s Gemunder Center Task Force has long argued, Iran believing it stands to lose the most from the failure of negotiations.
14 And it would require fully, and truly, employing, in President Obama’s words of 2009, “all elements of American power.”
JINSA Gemunder Center Iran Task Force, Principles for Diplomacy with Iran, October 2013.
“Implications of a Nuclear Agreement with Iran” by Dr. Michael Makovsky, JINSA Gemunder Center Iran Task Force July 9, 2015
The founders of Israel were mostly secular and atheist, seeing themselves as a people, rather than a religion, returning to their homeland.
Michael Oren Barack Obama
(photo credit:REUTERS,JPOST STAFF)
“The fact Obama linked the State of Israel’s legitimization to the Holocaust in that speech [Cairo 2009] was him adopting the Arab narrative: We’re here because of the Holocaust, not because of Jewish roots and 3,000 years of history.” – Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, June 27, 2015
Michael Oren’s new book, Ally, has generated lots of attention. The mild mannered historian turned diplomat turned politician is now in the cross-hairs of the Obama administration, his political rivals at home and progressive Jewish figures. What has drawn such animus to Oren from the administration are some unpleasant truths about the US-Israel relationship under President Barack Obama that he reveals. As Newsweek reported, “Oren blames President Barack Obama for the sorry state of US-Israel relations and most of what’s wrong in the Middle East.”
As I have said for several years, I believe the president thinks of Israel as more a strategic liability than a strategic asset, and that his goal since day one of his administration has been to change the relationship with Israel and turn toward the Muslim world, particularly favoring the fundamentalist regime controlling Iran. Or, as Oren put it, to create some daylight between the two long-time allies. The White House has indeed supported some important military aid to Israel during these years, but meanwhile has jeopardized Israel and America’s foreign policy interests in pursuit of a friendship with the reliably unreliable mullahs of Iran.
One revelation that is not entirely new but is essential to address if your vision is a two-state solution based on a respect for both parties’ narratives is Oren’s assertion that the president believes Israel’s raison d’être is the Holocaust, with only incidental incorporation of other Jewish history. This is very important, because if it becomes part of the mainstream narrative regarding Israel’s founding, Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state can be challenged, making it the only state in the world required to kneel and beg for its right to exist.
The charge that Israel exists only as a consequence of the Shoah has created both a firestorm and confusion among both American Jewry and the wider Jewish Diaspora. This is particularly relevant as the Palestinian Authority is currently attempting to delegitimize Israel by going to the ICC (International Criminal Court) seeking support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to question Israel’s right to exist.
Therefore it is imperative to understand and educate America about what Zionism really is, and how the two most pivotal events of the 20th century affecting world Jewry relate to one another. In an era when much of the world, and many on American academic campuses, see Zionism as racism and colonialism it is incumbent upon pro-Israel supporters to communicate the truth clearly.
After President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech in which he reached out to the Muslim world, his comparison of the plight of Palestinians to the survivors of the Shoah outraged many people.
Anne Bayefsky, who directs the Touro College Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, challenged the president’s assertion that, “The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied,” for, she said, “around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries. A Jewish homeland in Israel is not rooted in tragedy or in centuries of persecution around the world. It is rooted in a wondrous, unbroken, and spiritual relationship to the land of Israel and to Jerusalem for thousands of years.”
Former ADL leader and Holocaust survivor Abe Foxman responded that the president was implicitly asserting that Israel’s legitimacy is based on the “suffering of the Jewish people’s “tragic history” and not on their historic ties to the Land of Israel. Obama’s choice of words and his decision to mention only the Holocaust as a reason for the creation of the State of Israel “gave fodder to the many in the Arab world who argue against the legitimacy of Israel.”
So if the Holocaust had not occurred, would there be an Israel? According to Tom Segev, a center-left historian and a reliable critic of Israel who has written extensively on the issue, “The State of Israel would have come to being even without the Holocaust. It was a result of 30 years of intensive work by the Zionist movement.”
But rooted in the Muslim world is the irrational contradiction of both denying the Holocaust while perpetuating the narrative that the Arabs were unfairly made to pay the price for the Holocaust in the creation of Israel, with the forced imposition of a non-indigenous Jewish people on the region.
SO DID nations of the UN vote in 1947 to create Israel only out of guilt at their complicity in the genocide of the Shoah? Is Zionism simply a reaction to the Shoah? If, as President Obama and others contend, the creation of Israel is solely due to the Holocaust, then the Palestinians have an argument. It then follows that Zionism is not a many-centuries’ yearning to return to ancient land, but was a simply spur-of-the moment land grab.
Modern Zionism is not a reaction to the Shoah. It began well before WWII and the Holocaust, only partially motivated by the anti-Semitism that preceded the Shoah; recall Herzl’s reactions to the Dreyfus Affair. On the one hand, Zionism is an affirmation of the Jewish people’s 2,000-year-long yearning to return to their ancestral homeland, manifested in the daily prayers of the Jewish people.
On the other hand, the founders of Israel were mostly secular and atheist, seeing themselves as a people, rather than a religion, returning to their homeland.
Jews learned that without a national homeland, nations and communities infected with anti-Semitism offered at best temporary shelter, all too often as tides shifted offering only humiliation, expropriation and expulsion. The horrors experienced over the centuries in the Diaspora, punctuated by pogroms, inquisitions, crusades and culminating in humanity’s descent to its lowest level in the Shoah, made the prayers and hopes for salvation and return to Zion more desperate and poignant, but the yearning to return, “next year in Jerusalem,” was always there, in good times and bad.
Zionism is a modern word to describe an ancient desire to return to the Land of Israel. Necessity and modernity played a part, but the desire for a Jewish homeland started in earnest in the 19th century, and culminated in the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate for a Jewish national home in Palestine. The European and Russian anti-Semitism of the Kishinev pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and WWI all occurred years before the Shoah.
As Israeli statesman, former defense minister and Haaretz columnist Moshe Arens said, “In the minds of some, the establishment of the State of Israel is linked to the Holocaust, or even seen as a direct result of the Holocaust.” [Gail Sez: The headline of the Ha’aretz article by Moshe Arens was: [“It’s wrong to suggest Israel was direct result of the Holocaust” Google his article] Which is precisely why the writers of Israel’s declaration of Independence purposely omitted any reference to the Shoah.
International organizations and governments did write the international law to help create the modern state of Israel, but shrugged their shoulders when the state was immediately attacked at its birth by five Arab armies. As Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer said, “Israel didn’t come into being because of the Shoah, Israel exists in spite of it.”
It was Israelis who fought back and saved the country from extinction. It was a Jewish desire for millennia to return to the Jewish homeland that preserved the dream.
On the Jewish Agency for Israel’s website they ask the question: “Did the State of Israel come about because of the Holocaust? Imagine the Holocaust happening before a single kibbutz was built, before a flourishing Jewish culture had been reestablished in Israel, and without armed Jews fighting to defend themselves in the Land. Would any one have supported Jewish sovereignty in that situation? Surely not!” The Holocaust was a contributing factor to the timing and circumstances of the struggle for independence. It certainly affected the kind of Jewish state that was created, its population mix, its self-perception and its worldview. But the events that underpin its creation are located elsewhere.
The author is the director of MEPIN (Middle East Political and Information Network), a Middle East research analysis read by members of Congress, their foreign policy advisers, members of the Knesset, journalists and organizational leaders. He regularly briefs members of Congress on issues related to the Middle East
Does an ‘ally’ have the right to redefine Zionism?