We are told that President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel in late March will
focus on Syria and Iran.
So what does Israel want to tell Obama and what
is he likely to offer or do? While it’s a bit early to discuss this, it is
perhaps useful to prepare for various eventualities.
Syria
Presumably,
Israel’s leadership will express a consensus view that its main concern is not
who governs Syria but how they behave. There’s no sympathy in Israel for the
Bashar Assad dictatorship, which has long sponsored terrorism against Israel. In
addition, it is widely recognized that the regime’s fall means a defeat for
Iran, which would be losing its principal ally.
The situation has also
opened gaps between Iran and Turkey, which has been very friendly toward Iran (a
point the Obama administration has ignored). And if Israel ever did attack
Iranian nuclear installations, an anti-Iran Sunni-ruled Syrian regime is less
likely to do anything in response.
In addition to all that, a successful
Syrian revolution would weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon, which at the moment is the
biggest threat on Israel’s borders (Hamas is more likely to attack but less
capable of doing serious damage), and could well mean that the Lebanese
terrorist group will be too busy and insecure to renew the kind of attacks seen
in 2006 and earlier years.
Yet what will replace the current government
of Syria? Israel will stress that it worries about a Muslim Brotherhood regime
that will try to step up the conflict with Israel, including backing its own
terrorist clients in Lebanon and Gaza.
Another point – which the Obama
administration doesn’t seem to comprehend (though some of its officials worry
about this) – is that such a regime would be permissive toward Salafist groups
wanting to attack Israel across the border, along with a high degree of anarchy
in that part of southern Syria, with the same effect.
Israel will also
warn that lots of weapons, including some very advanced ones, are pouring into
Syria that will not be secured after the civil war ends and that will end in the
hands of terrorists to whom they will either be sold, or even given directly by
the American-Turkish- Qatari-Saudi strategy. They might point to Libya as an
example of this process. Perhaps some future US ambassador to Syria and other
operatives will be murdered trying to get some of those weapons back.
The
US government will talk about the prospects for democracy in Syria, how the
Muslim Brotherhood there is going to be moderate and pragmatic, and how the aim
of US policy is to use the Brotherhood to restrain the Salafists.
Israeli
officials will be very polite in discussions, and sarcastic when they talk among
themselves afterward. The two countries’ interests may not clash, but since the
Obama administration isn’t pursuing real American interests, that doesn’t help
matters. The United States will help install in Syria a regime that is likely to
be hard-line anti- Israel (as opposed to soft-line anti-Israel) that might well
form an alliance with Egypt and Hamas, try to destabilize Jordan, and give help
and weapons to anti-Israel terrorists.
That might be an improvement over
what exists now but if America would help the Syrian moderates that would be far
preferable.
Iran
Presumably, the US delegation and Obama will emphasize
their optimism about negotiations with Teheran and express wishful thinking that
the June election will result in a more moderate government after President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad leaves office. In other words, they will preach hope and
patience.
In addition, they will stress that all options are being kept
open and that the United States will never accept Iran having nuclear weapons.
How the US government is going to stop this is quite unclear. Personally, I
don’t believe that Obama will ever attack Iranian nuclear facilities or support
such an Israeli operation.
I’m not saying he should do so; I’m just
predicting he won’t do so.
There might also be talk about covert
operations, perhaps even based on US-Israel cooperation, and intelligence-
gathering efforts on Iran’s drive to obtain nuclear weapons.
What’s not
clear is how much Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will emphasize the idea of
an attack on Iranian facilities. Presumably, he will say that he is happy to
give the United States and other Western countries time to try non-military
means, including sanctions. He will warn them that negotiations won’t work. He
might say something to the effect that Israel will wait out 2013 but when 2014
comes and Iran’s drive continues, that would be the moment for a military
response.
The reality is, however, that Obama will continue to deny that
his strategy is one of containment. That will go on until Iran gets nuclear
weapons and Obama switches to an open containment strategy. It might be too
early to discuss – and Israel might not want to do so lest it reduce potential
US support for an attack – but it is important to understand that there’s “good
containment” and “bad containment.”
On that point I need say only two
words: Chuck Hagel.
He will likely be US secretary of defense. Want four
more words? John Kerry, John Brennan. They will be secretary of state and CIA
chief. The problem of terrible ideas meeting terrible incompetence.
If
the United States is going to end up focusing on containing Iran – stopping it
from using nuclear weapons or giving them to terrorists – it better be done
well. As for containing Iran strategically, the Egyptian and Syrian revolutions
are largely doing that job.
At the end of the meeting, everyone will then
state publicly that the talks show the continued strength of the US-Israel
alliance and that Obama is a great president and a wonderful friend of Israel.
Then Obama will return to Washington to get back to the business of installing
or helping anti-Israel Islamist governments in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Syria
and Turkey; making sure Israel is never too tough against Hamas in the Gaza
Strip; and losing credibility with America’s anti-Islamist Arab and other
friends.
The author is director of the Global Research in International
Affairs (GLORIA) Center (www.gloria-center.org) and blogs at The Rubin Report
(rubinreports.blogspot.com)
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