Although a month old, this article is more relevant than ever. Since it was written, things have gotten rather testy between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama. Netanyahu is tired of waiting for the preference of the international community, led by the U.S., to talk Iran’s nuclear ambitions to death.
It remains to be seen what Obama meant when he assured Jews that he’s got Israel’s back. Does he meant he will back up Israel in a military confrontation with Iran and its allies or does he intend to stab the Jewish state in the back?
TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE
Israel’s debate over Iran
The Economist
August 17, 2012
JERUSALEM – With the weekend in sight, Israelis are congratulating each other: there has not been a war here this week after all. Seven days ago, they were less sanguine.
But the more circumspect among them are keeping their congratulations low-key. They know that next week could be just as tense and worrying. As could the weeks after that. Although economic sanctions are starting to pinch, Iran's nuclear program spins on. And despite increasingly strident American admonishments, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, remains resolutely determined to stop it, by force if necessary.
This weirdest of weeks began with an unequivocal headline in the weekend edition of Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. "Netanyahu and Barak are resolved to attack Iran in the autumn", it read. Inside the paper, and in Haaretz, the country’s leading left-leaning paper, the defense minister, Ehud Barak, explained in chilling detail why he and Mr Netanyahu were resolved to attack even though the preponderance of opinion in the defense establishment opposes unilateral Israeli action.
Ten days earlier Mr Netanyahu had appeared on prime-time television to remind the nation that, as in every democracy, the final decision on war was the elected government's to make, and the army's obediently to carry out. He had not yet decided, he said. But he would not shrink from the decision. The prime minister also held a series of unattributable briefings with key opinion-makers arguing the case for a last-resort Israeli attack.
That was the backdrop to Mr Barak's public assertions that despite all the rational, political, military, strategic arguments which could be marshaled against a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran—Israel might have to strike nevertheless. Basically, Mr Barak contended, Israel could not afford to rely on American commitment to preventing Iran attaining a nuclear bomb: "Ronald Reagan did not want to see a nuclear Pakistan, but Pakistan did go nuclear. Bill Clinton did not want to see a nuclear North Korea, but North Korea went nuclear."
Moreover, America was far more likely to act, Mr Barak argued, if it felt Israel was on the brink of exercising its own, albeit more modest, option of military action. That option, Mr Barak believes, will soon disappear as Iran comes closer to producing weapon-grade uranium and buries its nuclear facilities deeper under the ground. "If Israel forgoes the chance to act and it becomes clear that it no longer has the power to act, the likelihood of an American action will decrease... We cannot wait to discover one morning that we relied on the Americans but were fooled because the Americans didn't act in the end…. Israel will do what it has to do."
Unlike Mr Netanyahu, Mr Barak is not suspected of favoring the Republican contender to the Democratic incumbent in America’s upcoming presidential election. That made his weekend interviews sound all the more credible, and all the more ominous. People naturally set to sweeping out their air-raid shelters and queuing to upgrade their gas masks at civil defense stations.
Israeli defense sources let it be known meanwhile, that recent intelligence material, familiar to the Americans, showed that Iran had advanced much farther and faster in its nuclear program than America had previously thought. This produced—as was presumably intended—more apocalyptic headlines in the Israeli media, which were duly relayed across the Atlantic.
The atmosphere has been somewhat cooled by a rare and stern public appearance by America’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, at the Pentagon on August 14th. He dwelt on the huge disparity between his country’s strike capacity and Israel’s. In Jerusalem his message seemed clear: “Don't do it! If it becomes necessary, we will do it and do it much more effectively”. But the point of contention between the two countries remains unresolved: who decides when it becomes necessary?
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, says it should be the Americans. He went on television on August 16th to assure Israelis that they can rely on President Obama. In a direct—and constitutionally questionable—interference in policymaking, the 89-year-old president warned against a unilateral Israeli strike. The prime minister's office lashed back at him: "He has forgotten what his job is", officials there said.
As the week wound down and the tension eased, the “they're just bluffing” punditry got into gear again, in Israel and in Washington, DC. Western intelligence sources do not think the Israelis are bluffing, but nor do they think there is much more than a one in five likelihood of a strike this year. Yet unless the Iranians return pretty soon to the negotiating table with a good deal more seriousness than before, those odds could begin to fall quite quickly.
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