CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – The US is not trying to signal Israel not to attack
Iran or to indicate distance between the two allies over how to handle Tehran,
former Pentagon officials close to the Obama administration told The Jerusalem
Post on the sidelines of the Democratic convention on Wednesday.
Earlier
this week, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, caused
waves in Israel when he was quoted as saying in reference to a possible Israeli
strike, “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do
it.”
He also said that such an attack would “clearly delay but probably
not destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” adding that the “international coalition”
pressuring Iran “could be undone if it was attacked
prematurely.”
“They’re not a message to Israel,” Michele Flournoy, who
served as the undersecretary of defense policy through February of this year,
said of Dempsey’s statements.
She described his comments as coming in a
context in which “it’s really the sense that the US respects that Israel will
have its own decisions to make and Israel respects that the US will have its own
decisions to make.”
Colin Kahl, who was the deputy assistant secretary of
defense for the Middle East until last December, said Dempsey was “entitled to
his professional military judgment” but was not someone who held a policy
role.
“The president of the United States is the one who shapes our
policy on Iran, and he’s made it clear that he’s in lockstep with Israel on the
goal of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran,” Kahl told the Post.
Flournoy
described US President Barack Obama as having been “very clear on the threats,
on his determination to stop it, the fact that all options are on the table,
that he doesn’t bluff.”
But she emphasized, “He’s also been very clear:
In his judgment, in our US judgment, now is not yet the time” for an
attack.
She also underscored the American belief that while each country
could act alone, coordinated action would be best.
“The US belief, the
administration’s belief, is that we will both be stronger if the international
community as a community deals with this in a unified way,” Flournoy said. “But
we recognize the sovereign nature of these decisions.”
Kahl, however, in
speaking at an event organized by the Truman National Security Project at the
convention Thursday, did note distinctions in US and Israeli considerations on
Iran.
“The difference between the United States and Israel is not in the
perception of the threat. The difference is, how long you can wait,” he said,
explaining that since the Israeli military lacked the US’s capabilities, “the
longer they wait, the less damage they might be able to do to the
program.”
When it came to assessing the timeframe, he said that
assessments on the months to year or more it would take for Iran to build a
nuclear weapon – based on its ability to enrich enough uranium and to militarize
its program – was not a countdown that had started yet.
“None of these
timelines actually kick in until the supreme leader [Ali Khamenei] says go,”
Kahl assessed. “There’s reason to believe that he hasn’t made that decision
yet.”
He continued, “There’s reason to believe that he’s not likely to
make that decision any time soon because he’s likely to get caught. And he
doesn’t want to get caught because if he did get caught, he fears military
action by the United States or other states.”
Kahl concluded, “Iran is
not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon. It’s very, very problematic, but
not on the verge.”