Marc Lynch at the Atlantic, responding respectfully to Jeffrey Goldberg’s piece promoting a strike against Iran, makes me wonder who is out of control here, Ahmadinejad or Netanyahu? Which is the rogue state?
The "Israeli clock" is a major disruptive factor in the administration’s strategy, as Goldberg’s article makes clear, with the U.S. needing to simultaneously reassure Israel of its intentions and gauge Tel Aviv’s calculations while dealing with Tehran. The most interesting part of the article is therefore Goldberg’s assessment of the state of mind of the current Israeli leadership. It sounds right to me as a description of Netanyahu and his team (including the offensive "J Street Jew" remark). It is worth asking whether this is an attitude shared widely across the Israeli political spectrum (i.e. Kadima) or rooted in Netanyahu’s psychology (as Goldberg suggests) and his coalition. For at least the short term, we must assume that it is this Israeli leadership that will make the call, so the distinction may not seem relevant…
But why assume that it should make the call? And remember Noam Sheizaf saying that Israeli society is not represented in this call. More Lynch:
The hostility to Iran in various Arab circles should not lead anyone to believe that Arabs would support an attack on Iran by the U.S. or Israel, however. While Arab leaders would certainly like Iranian influence checked, they generally strongly oppose military action which could expose them to retaliation. Iran hawks typically make far too much of the private remarks of selected Arab regime figures, without considering whether those remarks reflect an internal consensus within their regimes or whether they will be repeated in public in a moment of political crisis (as opposed to Aspen [Goldberg’s quoted source]). Arab leaders will likely continue to welcome any efforts to contain Iranian power, particularly when it takes the form of major arms deals and political support. And they will likely continue to mutter and complain about America’s failure to magically solve their problems for them. But those who expect these regimes to take a leading, public role in an attack on Iran are likely to be disappointed — especially if there is still no progress on the peace process.
Finally, the whole discussion of an Israeli or American strike against Iran seems to take place in an historical void, as if we have not just lived through the brutal, griding experience of a war chosen and sold on shaky grounds. I would hope that the lessons of Iraq will not be so easily forgotten. When we are presented with claims of a ticking clock approaching midnight, we should recall Colin Powell at the UN and be very suspicious about the alleged urgency and absence of options. When we are told that an attack will likely succeed at low cost, with the positive impact high and the negative impact minimal, we should recall the predictions that the war on Iraq would likely cost little and easily succeed.
