Israel Matzav: US trying to restrain Israel on Iran

US trying to restrain Israel on Iran

Israel Radio reported this morning that the reason why the gaffemeister is coming here in March is to retract the green light he seemingly gave us in July to go after Iran. In fact, the analyst claimed that this is why it is specifically Joe Biden that is coming here and not the Obumbler himself.

While I have little doubt that the reason Biden is coming is to seek to stop us from attacking Iran, my guess is that Obama is not coming because his presence here now would provoke massive demonstrations in the streets against him, and he's not willing to have his image further tarnished.

And that's why Admiral Michael Mullen - who is also known to be at least somewhat sympathetic to Israel's concerns about Iran - was sent here to wave a red flag at the Netanyahu government. Will it stop the IDF from attacking Iran? Fortunately, it probably won't stop anything if our government decides that we are in immediate danger and there is no other choice.

The thinking within the Israeli military community is that when the chips are down, at the precise moment when Israel believes it has no choice but to attack Iran and no better operational window within which to do it, the US cannot stand in Israel’s way, cannot give Jerusalem a red light.

As so many observers of Israeli drivers’ traffic habits can attest to, a red light does not always mean you can’t drive through it. There are terrible risks involved, there may be collisions, pileups and casualties, but if you need to get to the other side, then nobody is going to stop you. In some parts of the world, you can even turn at red lights if there is no oncoming traffic.

There are some lines allies don’t cross with each other, and there are others that simply need to be crossed, with all the genuine sadness and acceptance of consequences that comes with crossing them. America won’t want Israel to fly through its red light all the way to Natanz, Isfahan and other such sites, placing its troops in the region in danger of Iranian retaliation, and scuttling President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world.

Some say that even if America gave Israel an explicit red light against attacking Iran, and Israel drove through it, nobody would believe that the US hadn’t given Jerusalem a green light, or even a yellow light.

Russia won’t want Israel to fly through its red light to Bushehr, which it is currently building at an enormous profit. Israel won’t want Russia to cross a red light and deliver the fearsome S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to the Iranians. But if the Russians feel that they simply must cross that red light (the Iranians have already paid for the system, at enormous profit to Moscow) then they’ll cross it, and Israel will have to find a way around the S-300, which will be, at the end of the day, just another technical puzzle to solve, like so many others.

But what would happen to US-Israel ties if Israel flew through a US red light to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities? Not much, according to one school of thought. While officials in the US administration would cry foul and may even impose some penalties, some experts argue that popular American opinion would be understanding of Israel, even sympathetic.

I think that's right. I also think that it's highly unlikely that the US would shoot down Israeli planes headed to Iran via Iraq as Obama foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has suggested. Obama realizes that he would turn himself into a lame duck President the minute that happened.

Israel Matzav: US trying to restrain Israel on Iran