Obama distances US from Iran
attack By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - United States President
Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu are engaged in intense maneuvering over
Netanyahu's aim of entangling the United States in
an Israeli war against Iran.
Netanyahu is
exploiting the extraordinary influence his
right-wing Likud Party exercises over the
Republican Party and the US Congress on matters
related to Israel in order to maximize the
likelihood that the US would participate in an
attack on Iran.
Obama, meanwhile, appears
to be hoping that he can avoid being caught up in
a regional war started by Israel if he distances
the United States from any Israeli attack.
New evidence surfaced in 2011 that
Netanyahu had been serious
about dealing a military blow
to the Iranian nuclear program, which is suspected
in some circles of being designed to produce
nuclear weapons - something Tehran denies.
Former Mossad (Israeli intelligence) chief
Meir Dagan, who left his job in September 2010,
revealed in his first public appearance after
Mossad on June 2 that he, Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) chief Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief
Yuval Diskin had been able to "block any dangerous
adventure" by Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud
Barak.
The Hebrew language daily Maariv
reported that those three, along with President
Shimon Peres and IDF senior commander Gadi
Eisenkrot, had vetoed a 2010 proposal by Netanyahu
to attack Iran.
Dagan said he was going
public because he was "afraid there is no one to
stop Bibi and Barak". Dagan also said an Israeli
attack on Iran could trigger a war that would
"endanger the [Israeli] state's existence",
indicating that his revelation was not part of a
psy-war campaign.
It is generally agreed
that an Israeli attack could only temporarily set
back the Iranian nuclear program, at significant
risk to Israel. But Netanyahu and Barak hope to
draw the US into the war to create much greater
destruction and perhaps the overthrow of the
Islamic regime.
In a sign that the Obama
administration is worried that Netanyahu is
contemplating an attack on Iran's nuclear
facilities, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tried
and failed in early October to get a commitment
from Netanyahu and Barak that Israel would not
launch an attack on Iran without consulting
Washington first, according to both Israeli and US
sources cited by The Telegraph and by veteran
intelligence reporter Richard Sale.
At a
meeting with Obama a few weeks later, the new
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Martin Dempsey, and the new head of CENTCOM,
General James N Mattis, expressed their
disappointment that he had not been firm enough in
opposing an Israeli attack, according to Sale.
Obama responded that he "had no say over
Israel" because "it is a sovereign country".
Obama's remark seemed to indicate a desire
to distance his administration from an Israeli
attack on Iran. But it also made it clear that he
was not going to tell Netanyahu that he would not
countenance such an attack.
Trita Parsi,
executive director of the National Iranian
American Council, who has analyzed the history of
the triangular relationship involving the United
States, Israel and Iran in his book Treacherous
Alliance, says knowledgeable sources tell him
Obama believes he can credibly distance himself
from an Israeli attack.
In a December 2
talk at the Brookings Institution, while
discussing the dangers of the regional conflict
that would result from such an attack, Panetta
said the US "would obviously be blamed and we
could possibly be the target of retaliation from
Iran, sinking our ships, striking our military
bases".
Panetta's statement could be
interpreted as an effort to convince Iran that the
Obama administration is opposed to an Israeli
strike and should not be targeted by Iran in
retaliation if Israel does launch an attack.
Parsi believes Obama's calculation that he
can convince Iran that the US has no leverage on
Israel without being much tougher with Israel is
not realistic.
"Iran most likely would
decide not to target US forces in the region in
retaliation for an Israeli strike only if the
damage from the strike were relatively limited,"
Parsi told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an e-mail.
The Obama administration considers the
newest phase of sanctions against Iran, aimed at
reducing global imports of Iranian crude oil, as
an alternative to an unprovoked attack by Israel.
But what Netanyahu had in mind in proposing such
an initiative was much more radical than the Obama
administration or the European Union (EU) could
accept.
When Mark Dubowitz, executive
director of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, which is closely aligned with
Netanyahu's Likud Party, pushed the idea of
sanctions against any financial institution that
did business with Iran's central bank, the aim was
to make it impossible for countries that import
Iranian crude to continue to be able to make
payments for the oil.
Dubowitz wanted
virtually every country importing Iranian crude
except China and India to cut off their imports.
He argued that reducing the number of buyers to
mainly China and India would not result in a rise
in the price of oil, because Iran would have to
offer discounted prices to the remaining buyers.
Global oil analysts warned, however, that
such a sanctions regime could not avoid creating a
spike in oil prices.
United States
officials told Reuters on November 8 that
sanctions on Iran's central bank were "not on the
table". The Obama administration was warning that
such sanctions would risk a steep rise in oil
prices worldwide and a worsening global recession,
while actually increasing Iranian oil revenues.
But Netanyahu used the power of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee over
congressional action related to Israel to override
Obama's opposition. The senate unanimously passed
an amendment representing Netanyahu's position on
sanctions focused on Iran's oil sector and the
central bank, despite a letter from Secretary of
Treasury Tim Geithner opposing it. A similar
amendment was passed by the House on December 15.
The Obama administration acquiesced and
entered into negotiations with its European
allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
on reducing imports of Iranian crude oil while
trying to fill the gaps with other sources. But a
number of countries, including Japan and Korea,
are begging off, and the EU is insisting on
protecting Greece and other vulnerable economies.
The result is likely to be a sanctions
regime that reduces Iranian exports only
marginally - not the "crippling sanctions"
demanded by Netanyahu and Barak. Any hike in oil
prices generated by sanctions against Iran's oil
sector, moreover, would only hurt Obama's re-
election chances.
In an interview with CNN
in November, Barak warned the international
community that Israel might have to make a
decision on war within as little as six months,
because Iran's efforts to "disperse and fortify"
its nuclear facilities would soon render a strike
against facilities ineffective.
Barak said
he "couldn't predict" whether that point would be
reached in "two quarters or three quarters or a
year". The new Israeli "red line" would place the
timing of an Israeli decision on whether to strike
Iran right in the middle of the US presidential
election campaign.
Netanyahu, who makes no
secret of his dislike and distrust of Obama, may
hope to put Obama under maximum pressure to
support Israel militarily in a war with Iran by
striking during a campaign in which the Republican
candidate would be accusing him of being soft on
the Iranian nuclear threat.
If the
Republican candidate is in a strong position to
win the election, on the other hand, Netanyahu
would want to wait for a new administration
aligned with his belligerent posture toward Iran.
Meanwhile, the end of US Air Force control
over Iraqi airspace with the final US military
withdrawal from Iraq has eliminated what had long
been regarded as a significant deterrent to an
Israeli attack on Iran using the shortest route.
Gareth Porter is an
investigative historian and journalist
specializing in US national security policy. The
paperback edition of his latest book, Perils
of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to
War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
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