The world’s best-known secret has finally been revealed: the United States and Israel do not see eye-to-eye on Iran’s nuclear program.
In an unusually public ping-pong, the Obama administration rebuffed an Israeli effort to clarify America’s Iranian “red lines,” the point at which it would agree that its negotiations-cum-sanctions strategy has failed and it would take military action to stop the Iranian nuclear project.
Rather than attempt to resolve the issue behind closed doors, Secretary Clinton brushed off the Israeli salvo, saying "we’re not setting deadlines," a message reiterated by her spokesperson, who called the setting of any redlines "not useful." Prime Minister Netanyahu was irate, implying that the United States didn’t "have a moral right to place a red light before Israel" if it was unwilling to set red lines. Israeli ambassador Michael Oren seemingly wondered if the administration thought Iranians were color-blind. On the dais of the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu actually brandished a Sharpie pen and literally drew a red line through a cartoon diagram of an Iranian bomb. The most Obama would muster was that "time is not unlimited."
The Persian gulf between Obama and Netanyahu, however, is unrelated to their different personal convictions, political ideologies or domestic situations. Instead, the United States and Israel historically have had vastly different nuclear-proliferation policies.
Whereas the United States has never taken preemptive military action to end a country’s nuclear program, Israel always has done what was necessary to stop nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of enemy states. From Truman to Bush, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have had opportunities to prevent hostile states from acquiring nuclear weapons and yet each time did not order military action. Meanwhile, Israeli leaders, from across the political spectrum, have often taken unilateral military action to forestall regional nuclear proliferation. Regardless of who occupies the White House in 2013, the United States is unlikely to veer from over six decades of nonaction in the face of nuclear proliferation.
Over the course of the Cold War, U.S. presidents considered using hard power to stem the spread of the atomic bomb but each time recoiled at the thought of preventive military action. In the years after World War II, when the United States had a nuclear monopoly, General Douglas MacArthur, among others, advocated for a strike on Soviet nuclear installations before the Soviet Union achieved nuclear parity. Two decades later, as the United States learned of the Chinese bomb program, presidents Kennedy and Johnson seriously considered preventive military action—including joint action with the Soviet Union—before ultimately acquiescing to Chinese nuclear status in 1964. And while the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations have played a two-decade cat-and-mouse game with Pyongyang, the ultimate result is that North Korea remains a nuclear state.
Recent history further underlines U.S. nonaction in the face of proliferation threats. When Israeli prime minister Olmert approached Washington with evidence of Syrian nuclear proliferation and asked that the United States take out the reactor, President Bush declined, offering to bring the matter to the attention of the IAEA instead. Despite having diplomatically and economically isolated the Assad regime for its support for terrorism in Lebanon and Israel as well as the insurgency in Iraq, President Bush, perhaps feeling burned by the faulty intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program, was unwilling to use U.S. military power to uphold his nonproliferation policy’s central tenet.
On the other hand, Israel’s nonproliferation policy has been clear and unequivocal: no hostile state is permitted to acquire nuclear weapons. Despite heavy opposition from the Reagan administration, Israel, under a right-wing government, bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, only to be lauded by Secretary of Defense Cheney a decade later during the Gulf War. Similarly, five years ago, after President Bush demurred from attacking the Syrian reactor at al-Kibar, Prime Minister Olmert, leading a Center-Left coalition, ordered an aerial assault on the facility. (Imagine nuclear weapons in the hands of the Assad regime today.) Today, there is no Left-Right Israeli divide on Iran. At one point or another, every large political party has been part of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition, and Israelis are united in their belief that they cannot live with an Iranian bomb.
Comments
Gabriel Scheinman wrote:
(A) Note what an absolutely blatant, malignant lie this is, and Scheinmann's lack of mentioning it. Just because the U.S. refuses to act doesn't mean it is placing *any* red light in front of Israel, and all the reporting shows that the U.S. has not. It has merely said to Israel "if you go, you are going it alone right now." So right there, as blatant as can be, is the evidence of what kind of "ally" we are dealing with in Netanyahu: At the drop of a hat—almost literally at the drop of a hat when he doesn't get us to do what he wants, which is sending us to *war* for him—he lies. To slander our President, make us look bad/weak, try to shame us into a war for him. (B) Also note the perfectly good reason for the difference between Israel's history of attacking nuke-wanting powers around it and the United States' history. Unlike Israel, the United States doesn't have a Big Brother looking out for it after such attacks, nor has it had a guardian angel arming us to the teeth conventionally so that Russia or China wouldn't think of attacking us if we had taken out their nukes. In short, we play in the Big Boys arena, with big stakes, not in the little sandbox that *we* have made Israel invulnerable in.(C) Moreover, all this is a sham on the part of Israel. If it wanted to be free of the threat of nuke annihilation it would take Iran up on its offer to sign a Nuke Free Mideast Accord, but it refuses. And that's because it knows it can deter any Iran nukes, but in the end wants to just be the *only* power to threaten *others* with nuke annihilation. Pure, 100% sham on the part of Israel, demanding that the world permanently squat on all its neighbors just so it can continue to steal and ethnically cleanse Palestinian land, period.
A) Did you actually read the NYT piece? "Several analysts and experts here attributed Mr. Netanyahu’s outburst to deep frustration with the United States for telling Israel to hold off on a military strike against Iran, and to a feeling in Israel that time is running out for any unilateral action." Note that several "analysts and experts" (probably not all Israeli) think the US has told Israel to hold off (aka 'red light'), and that the NYT considers this credible (based on their own sources as well?). The 'do this if you want, but you are on your own' would be an improvement over the current position. B) The stakes for Israel has always been higher. Implying the other way around is a bad joke given, say, disparities in land size (not to mention everything else too). C) Israel will never enter any such agreement, period. After all, it wouldn't cover all the states presenting a threat to Israel (e.g. Pakistan), and it would be ridiculous to enter a new agreement if or when the Arab states and/or Iran don't honour the existing NPT. Btw, Israel has never threatened anyone else with nuclear annihilation.
(A) I certainly *did* read the NYT article and in the first place even *if* those "analysts and experts" know the truth the U.S. merely telling Israel to "hold off" to let our sanctions work hardly amounts to setting "red lights" in front of Israel. Clearly that implies an affirmative warning/statement *telling* Israel what to do, and then in the second and most important place what does the *Times* say about what actually prompted Netanyahu's lie? That he "was apparently responding to a weekend statement by [Clinton] that the United States was 'not setting deadlines' [with Iran]." Netanyahu was lying, period, as usual so as to make Israel appear to be the victim, and smearing the U.S. in the process. (B) The statement "[t]he stakes for Israel has always been higher" does no violence to my thesis, even assuming it's a typo and you meant the opposite. (C) I agree that, as you say, Israel will "never" enter into any regional Nuke-Free Accord, as this accords perfectly with what I said earlier and what is evident to everyone: Israel isn't acting out of fear of nuclear annihilation, (always implied by a state simply having such weapons), it's acting out of fear of no long being the *sole* threatener of nuke annihilation.
Of course the US has no right to stand in Israel's way to do whatever it feels is right. Conversely, Israel should be left to twist in the wind if a "preemptive" act of aggression unleashes an unanticipated response from both Iran and possibly some of its Arab neighbors.The US doesn't need to trade 20 years of wars of choice for ones we are dragged into.
The differences between the US and Israel are minimal, and they amount to tactics only. To the extent that differences have existed between the present White House - not the Congress and not the American public, mind you!! - and the Israeli government have amount in the past to appeasement vs. activism; the first has been characteristic of the Obama administration when it comes to the Muslim world. The latter, characteristic ot all Israeli governemtns since 1948. It appears that now, after Israel drew the red line, the US along with other European and Arab governments will go along. This, hopefully, will spell Iran's stopping its illicit activity. But, if not, a coalition of North Americans, Erupeans, Australia, Japan and Arab countires, along with Israel, will face Iran together through other than diplomatic means.