Philip Girladi
The Unz Review
29 August 2017
When
politicians are feeling the heat, they start a war and their popularity
goes up even if the war is unnecessary or completely ridiculous. Donald Trump,
the presidential candidate who promised that he would not take the
nation into another Middle Eastern war, did so when he launched a
fifty-nine cruise missile barrage against a Syrian Air Base even before
he knew for sure what had happened on the ground. It was totally stupid
but proved to be popular, even among talking heads and Congressmen, some
of whom described his action as “presidential” in the best sense of the
word.
It’s the same in Israel. For those who have not been following developments there, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has been under pressure due to an ongoing investigation for corruption.
One of the truly great things about Israel is that while they have a
lot of corrupt politicians, just like everywhere else, they actually
investigate, indict, prosecute, convict and send them to jail. The
betting is that Netanyahu will soon be in prison, so he has been
responding in the time-honored fashion by threatening his neighbors and
hinting at the possibility of increased military action and even war. If
there is a war going on, he believes, probably correctly, that no one
will want to remove him.
In an amicable recent meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu stressed that there are some red lines that Israel will not allow to be crossed,
while also suggesting that some of them have already been violated,
most notably through the alleged construction of an Iranian military
base inside Syria. Netanyahu provided Putin with “top secret
intelligence” to make his point and told the Russian premier that “Iran
is making an accelerated effort to entrench itself militarily in Syria.
This poses a danger to Israel, the Middle East and in my opinion the
world itself.”
Netanyahu
characteristically depicted himself as restrained in his responses,
telling Putin that Israel had taken only limited action in Syria against
Hezbollah supply lines, but that was a lie as Israel has also hit
Syrian army positions. Netanyahu described an Iran that is largely a
fantasy creation of his own Foreign Ministry,
“We don’t for a second forget that Iran continues to threaten Israel’s destruction on a daily basis. It arms terrorist organizations and initiates terror itself. It is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles with the intention to equip them with nuclear warheads.”
He went on to claim that his
strategic objective was to prevent the development of an Iranian
controlled land bridge, described as “territorial continuity,” that
would extend through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea.
The reality is,
however, somewhat different, that Israel has long preferred chaos in
Syria since it eliminates any threat from a unified and powerful
government in Damascus. But just as nature abhors a vacuum that policy
had a considerable downside with Iranian supported militias and
Revolutionary Guard units increasingly become part of the conflict,
picking up the slack where the Syrian Army has been too overstretched to
operate. Iranian influence over Syria, both overtly and covertly, will
continue after Damascus eliminates the last vestiges of al-Qaeda
affiliates and ISIS, not to mention the rag-tag “moderate rebels.” And
Iran will have standing behind it the Syrian Army, Iraqi Shi’a militias,
and Russian firepower. This has meant that the Israeli plan to have a
chronically weak state across its border has backfired, bringing into
the fighting and post-war reconfiguration Iran, which Tel Aviv fears
most as a regional adversary.
So Israel has two
strong motives to begin a war with Iran, one political and the other
ostensibly linked to national security. Ironically, however, it also
knows, and has even admitted,
that Iran does not actually pose any threat against a nuclear armed
Israel that has complete air superiority over any or even all of its
neighbors. The often-cited land bridge threat is also a bit of a
chimera, as whether it could potentially exist or not depends on
effective interaction with Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, all of which have
their own political dynamics and are somewhat wary of Iranian
involvement. If there is any actual threat against Israel it comes from
Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is an independent player even though it has
strong ties to Tehran, but even in that case the threat is not as
serious as fearmongering government leaders have claimed.
All of which is
not to suggest that Iran is toothless if Israel were to get really
aggressive. Hezbollah would undoubtedly unleash its missile arsenal
against Israeli cities, some of which would get through, and any attack
on Iran using aircraft would be confronted by formidable air defenses.
Iran could also strike back against Israel using its ballistic missiles,
all of which means that attacking Iran would be far from cost-free.
From Netanyahu’s
point of view, it is far better to stage an incident that brings in
Washington and then allows Uncle Sam to do the heavy lifting. The U.S.
has strategic military capabilities that Israel lacks, including heavy
bombers and armaments that could penetrate Iranian defenses, but it also
has vulnerabilities in terms of military bases within striking range
and ships at sea that could be attacked by swarms of small boats and
land launched missiles.
Israel believes
that bringing Washington into the conflict is doable given that the U.S.
media has heavily propagandized against Tehran and that
inside-the-beltway groupthink largely perceives Iran as an enemy.
Recently Henry Kissinger spelled out the
new line of strategic thinking which Israel is already exploiting to
make its case. Per Kissinger, the impending defeat of ISIS in Syria and
Iraq will create a power vacuum which will open the door to the creation
of an “Iranian radical empire,” a more evocative version of the “land
bridge” warning, which he refers to as a “territorial belt reaching from
Tehran to Beirut.” As Iran is also fighting ISIS, Kissinger warns
against complacency, that “in the contemporary Middle East…the enemy of
your enemy is also your enemy.”
Israel has been pushing hard on Washington, recently having sent a high-level combined intelligence and military delegation to confer with National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Special Mideast Envoy Jason Greenblatt
to explain the alleged Iranian threat. And the neocon chorus is also
signaling that it expects the Trump Administration to do something. Frederick Hof of the hardline Atlantic Council recently wrote that the fundamental mistake made
by Washington consisted of not invading Syria and installing an
acceptable government years ago, which would have kept Iran out.
Saudi Arabia, which is demonstrating some signs of political instability,
would also welcome conflict with Iran, which means that there is an
existing coming-together of parties who for various reasons would
welcome the escape from other problems that war offers. Donald Trump
himself was angry at the
State Department in July because it had certified that Tehran was in
compliance with the nuclear pact signed last year and Congress also
vented its anger by initiating new sanctions against Iran. The next
certification is due in October and the president would clearly like to
have a good reason, contrived or actual, to break the agreement.
Speculation in Israel is
that some kind of preemptive strike is being planned, possibly directed
against an Iranian target inside Syria. The danger is that such a move
could quickly escalate, with the U.S. Congress and White House quickly
aligning themselves with Netanyahu. The United States has no real
compelling interest to attack the Iranians and would again find itself
in a conflict generated by feckless regional allies that are not allies
at all. The results could prove catastrophic in practical terms as Iran
is capable of striking back, and it could be devastating to actual
American longer terms interests both regionally and worldwide. It is
time to say “no” when Israel comes knocking.
Source: http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/iran-again/
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