U.S.: Israeli Dissent May Create More Space for Iran Nuclear Deal

• Analysis by Jim Lobe* (washington)
• Tuesday, May 01, 2012
• Inter Press Service

That a war seems significantly more remote than during the winter months, when tensions reached an all-time high, was confirmed to some extent Monday when the U.S. 'newspaper of record', the New York Times, ran a front-page article entitled 'Experts Believe Iran Conflict is Less Likely' .

But, judging by actual bets placed on the on-line trading exchange, Intrade, the chances that the U.S. or Israel will indeed conduct air strikes against Iran before the end of the year have fallen by more than half since the high reached in mid-February — from just over 60 percent to about 28 percent as of Monday.

That's still a substantial percentage — about twice what it was before the latest round of Israeli sabre-rattling was launched in November.

And it's difficult to find any close observer of U.S.-Israeli-Iran relations who believes that war clouds could not suddenly reappear, particularly if the next meeting of the so-called P5+1 (the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France — plus Germany) with Iran scheduled for May 23 in Baghdad should break down or be delayed.

For its part, the administration of President Barack Obama shown little inclination to reduce pressure — and the threat of military action — on Tehran.

Not only has it moved more minesweepers and F-15 fighter jets into the Gulf region, but the Air Force announced Friday that it has deployed an undisclosed number of advanced F-22 stealth fighter- bombers to the area, specifically to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to the industry publication Aviation Week.

Despite those moves, fears of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran this year have clearly receded, especially since all sides left the last P5+1 meeting in Istanbul Apr. 14 seemingly satisfied with the seriousness of the exchanges and guardedly optimistic that a diplomatic solution could yet be achieved.

The meeting's success was made possible by signalling on both sides of their readiness to make concessions on key issues: on Tehran's part, by stating explicitly that it could halt its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, transfer its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium out of the country, and accept greater scrutiny by international weapons inspectors under the right circumstances; on Washington's, by stating more clearly than ever that it could accept Iran's continued uranium enrichment of up to five percent under the right circumstances.

Whether the 'right circumstances' can be accommodated by all sides, of course, will determine the ultimate success or failure of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, however, those voices, both here and in Israel, that have been most disdainful of the diplomatic route and most insistent that only military action can dispose of the alleged threat posed by Iran's nuclear programme have found themselves increasingly on the defensive since tensions reached a peak in early March.

It was then that Obama declared to the annual convention of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that 'the loose talk of war' by the main Republican presidential candidates was dangerous and counterproductive.

At the time, AIPAC was pressing Congress for quick passage of both a new round of unilateral sanctions against Iran and a Senate resolution that would define the U.S. 'red line' for taking military action as Tehran's development of a 'nuclear-weapons capability' rather than the administration's 'red line' of developing an actual nuclear weapon.

'Once the president put the argument about the 'loose talk of war', the momentum shifted quite dramatically,' according to Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). He noted that Democrats who had previously bowed to AIPAC's hawkish line have since become more deferential to the White House.

One token of the change was an anti-war ad run last week by former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion 10 years ago and who is now running to reclaim his old seat. In it, he warned that a war against Iran would make 'Iraq and Afghanistan look like a cakewalk'.

'It's a much different debate now,' Abdi told IPS. 'It's now 'diplomacy versus war', not 'war now or later'.' While sanctions legislation is still pending, he said, 'There doesn't seem to be much of a push to get it done, at least before the Baghdad meeting anyway. Congress is in a kind of 'wait-and-see' mode.'

Ironically, the hawks have also been set back by the intensifying appeals by neo-conservatives, in particular, for Washington to intervene militarily in Syria.

Not only has that debate diverted time and energy that many of the fiercest hawks would otherwise devote to Iran. It has also exposed divides, similar to those that surfaced last year over the intervention in Libya, between interventionists on one hand and realists and libertarians on the other within the Republican Party.

'Talking about war with Iran at the same time that you want us to get involved in a civil war in Syria is not a popular message this year,' according to one Congressional staffer who cited recent public opinion polls suggesting that Republicans have become almost as war- weary as Democrats. 'Given Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, it's a bit much.'

Similarly, the unprecedented public criticism by former senior Israeli national security officials of Netanyahu and Barak has given new ammunition to those who favour diplomacy.

In recent weeks, the former head of the Israel's Mossad spy agency, Meir Dagan, reiterated his long-held views that an Israeli attack on Iran would be 'stupid' on the most-watched U.S. public affairs television programme, '60 Minutes'.

His successor and current Mossad head, Tamir Pardo, subsequently publicly questioned whether an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose an 'existential' threat to Israel, as repeatedly alleged by Netanyahu.

Last week, the head of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, offered that Iranian leaders, contrary to Netanyahu's views, were 'very rational' and were likely to stop short of developing a nuclear weapon.

But perhaps the most damaging attack to date came on Friday when Yuval Diskin, the immediate past chief of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency, denounced both Netanyahu and Barak as acting out of 'messianic feelings' and predicted that an Israeli attack would likely accelerate Tehran's nuclear programme.

'I saw them up close, they are not messiahs,' he said. '… My main problem on this issue is that I don't have confidence in the current leadership of the State of Israel — that (they) could lead Israel into something of the order of magnitude of a war with Iran or a regional war.'

Diskin's remarks, which were defended by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Gantz's predecessor, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi (ret.) at a rancorous conference in New York this weekend, will almost certainly give pause to Netanyahu who, despite his messianism, is also famously risk-averse as a politician, according to Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator.

'He knows that if anything goes wrong (in an attack on Iran), there are very well-respected non-political Israeli figures who will be there to ferociously attack him,' he said, adding that Netanyahu in the coming weeks will likely call an election for September or October.

'That makes the relative unlikelihood of a strike in 2012 even less likely,' he told IPS.

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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