Why do I have to read this in Haaretz and not the New York Times? Amir Oren’s reporting. 3 little steps to an attack by Israel, OK’d by Obama’s team, and diverting attention from the Palestinian issue. Oh my. What price occupation?
Obama has chosen the summer of 2011, about a year before the election season warms up in 2012, to refresh his national security staff. Within a few short months, he released his national security adviser, the retired General James Jones, in favor of his deputy, Tom Donilon; he parted from Gates; he transferred Panetta from the CIA to the Pentagon and General David Petraeus from commanding the forces in Afghanistan to the CIA…
Dempsey is familiar with the Israel Defense Forces both from his days in Tradoc [Training and Doctrine Command for armed forces] that first gained praise for studying the lessons of the Yom Kippur War just when the young Dempsey, a fresh Second Lieutenant from West Point, preferred the armored corps to the other corps, and from exchanges of information and opinions between the ground forces of both armies in recent years. The IDF has a permanent liaison officer with Tradoc at its headquarters in Virginia. Tradoc has also studied in depth the lessons of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead and the war against terrorism in the territories…
The chance that Dempsey, at the start of his term of office, would advise Obama to attack Iran, or to permit Israel to do so, is not high. The outgoing head, Mullen, is likewise not enthusiastic about that but his ties with the IDF’s general staff are close and it can be assumed that, if Benny Gantz was persuaded to sign a plan by Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, Mullen would not be happy but would also not torpedo it. The conclusion is that between the end of June and Gates’ retirement, and the end of September and Mullen’s retirement, the danger that Netanyahu and Barak will aim at a surprise in Iran is especially great, especially since this would divert attention from the Palestinian issue.
