Last week we ran David Bromwich‘s argument that Obama had so painted himself into the corner on his Iran rhetoric that he may have to go to war:
Has Obama then put off a war in the fall by committing us to war in the spring?… We are at a moment when a president with an ounce of invention could move the consensus in this country, and legitimate a stance of containment rather than imminent war.
Well here are two Israel lobbyists affirming Bromwich’s point. Martin Indyk says that we’ll have to go to war next year. “Speaking during a panel discussion Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation, Indyk said: ‘I’m afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we’re going to have a military confrontation with Iran.’”
Indyk expressed confidence that whichever president is elected will attack Iran in 2013, saying that even though “Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon” such a war could at best be put off another six months.
Indyk also sought to downplay the recent split between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the difference “isn’t that great” and that when push comes to shove Obama will follow through on his “commitment” with the war.
This reflects yesterday’s claim by Ambassador Susan Rice that there is “no daylight” between Obama and Netanyahu
And Jeffrey Goldberg, who likes to say that he’s never come out for war on Iran (no, he keeps tiptoeing up to the line then dancing back with a smirk on his face; two years back he wrote very hopefully that Israel was going to attack Iran by spring 2011), echoes Indyk at his blog. He’s telling Bromwich and the rest of us, Obama is not allowed to contain Iran.
Obama understands that his presidency will be judged a failure if Iran goes nuclear. He has gone on record many times promising the American people, and the world, that Iran will not get a bomb. If Iran succeeds, he will have failed, catastrophically. His legacy will be shattered, his credibility will be destroyed, and he will bequeath to his party a reputation for weakness and fecklessness that will not be shed for a generation. For these reasons alone, Obama knows he cannot let Iran go nuclear.
This is absurd. Politicians change their minds all the time. Obama could decide on containment. As Bill Keller has decided on containment.
After immersing myself in the expert thinking on both sides, I think that, forced to choose, I would swallow hard and take the risks of a nuclear Iran over the gamble of a pre-emptive war. My view may be colored by a bit of post-Iraq syndrome.
“This is absurd.”
I agree. I think that very few Americans would be disappointed if the US didn’t attack Iran. Israel-only-ers like Goldberg, maybe.
he keeps tiptoeing up to the line then dancing back with a smirk on his face
ha! perfect description of goldberg on iran.
LOL!!!! does indyk think people believe this crap?
That’s a great question Annie.
I wondered the same but with regards to Goldberg down below, but I think the same question applies not only to Indyk but to all these Israel Firsters.
Do they believe it? I think that they actually do.
They are so trapped in their Israel-centric viewpoint, they tend to hang out with similar folks like them(who also have these viewpoints) that it becomes the default way of looking at the world.
This is the very definition of “living in a cocoon”.
They probably believe the line that “what’s good for Israel is good for America” full stop. Including a disastrous war that would plunge America back into depths close to a depression, only because Israel wants it.
After all, repeat a lie enough times and you start to believe it yourself.
The same is true with ‘Hasbara’.
(Which is just a collection of lies with an Israeli prefix designated for the American public, anyway).
Oh noes, the Israel Firsters are going after Obama.
Now that they can’t threaten him with re-election sabotage, they will try to threaten his ego.
Granted, even I submit that Obama’s ego is on pretty massive levels. But that’s precisely why he won’t succumb to them; he isn’t so insecure as to seek validation among people who he so clearly know have an agenda.
Obama’s place in the history books will be dependent upon his policies for America, as he knows. It won’t be dependent upon what wars he launched on behalf for Israel, as Goldberg seems to suggest(I wonder if he believes even that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did).
Still, the more important point to draw from these comments is that the lobby is gearing up for more confrontation with Obama after the election.
We won’t get war, but they will want those now-notorious red lines.
Will Obama submit?
The answer is that post-election win, he will have a lot less reasons to. 2nd term presidents always mellow. Clinton and Bush both pushed for a 2SS (even if it was mostly half-heartedly).
Obama already tried that from the beginning and probably won’t try again.
Instead he’ll make sure that America heals completely.
Remember, Obama has had an economy in the toilet for his entire first term. He wants a real legacy and that comes after the recovery by 2014~ish.
He won’t sabotage that by plunging the world into a massive Iranian conflagration and thereby destroying any chance of a decent legacy.
Goldberg probably doens’t get that the health of the American economy is more important for the American people and a pro-American president.
But that’s the price you pay when you see Israel’s interests as far more important than America’s. Even if that includes pushing a war which would crash the American economy just because it’s what Israel wants.
Obama’s place in the history books will be dependent upon his policies for America, as he knows. It won’t be dependent upon what wars he launched on behalf for Israel. . . “
well said
I tend to agree with those who are less optimistic than Philip and others on this site, that the public is waking up about Israel and the plight of the Palestinians.
As if to prove me wrong are two letters to the editor in today’s Newsday, a paper that simply would not have such printed such sharp words in the past.
“If the Israelis want war with Iran, let them fight it. If Israel thinks it can attack with impunity a nation of 80 million people and not suffer serious consequences, then let them learn the hard way.”
“Tel Aviv’s national interest is not necessarily identical to Washington’s. Yet Israel manages to sway U.S. foreign policy in ways inimical to long-term peace and stability in the Middle East. . . . In truth, the existential danger to Israel lies in its obstinate refusal to allow a viable, contiguous and soverign Palestinian state.”
How is it that the “legacy” of all those neocon con-job pundits was not tarnished by their claims over the years which were demonstrably untrue? Is it only presidents whose feet can be held to the fire? Or is it only those who hesitate to accept the Israeli ukase (any Israeli ukase, but this time on Iran) who can be threatened and demeaned?
Are you better off today? Than before Bush#2 and his beautiful little wars? Another decade older and deeper in debt? Did the neoconmen help the USA by giving timely good advice? Have they changed their spots? (Does the leopard change his spots?)
Martin Indyk is a sanctimonious and sonorous fool who is way past his sorry shelf life/ so is Goldberg.
Thanks for exposing their agenda.
I’m sick of them acting as though they really care about people and peace.
They clearly do not.
Saw and heard Indyk at Univ of Colorado’s World Conference seminar several years back. He was on a panel about the middle east. He looked nervous when facts on the ground were brought up about the I/P conflict. He knows the cat is out of the bag.
he knows Israel is being called out on the carpet for their long list of crimes against humanity
He knows while standing on the carpet that the Palestinians are under the carpet, where Israel has swept them. But now a few goys have noticed the situation. And calling them antisemites doesn’t seem to work.
@just. You should call the Brookings Institution and share your disdain for Mr. Indyk. I did. Perhaps he won’t change; he’s probably too old, anyway, but it does perhaps put a seed of doubt and suspicion of his ilk in the person who answers the phone, and may be that will share it with someone else, and so it goes.
Indyk has been undermining U.S. National Security almost as long as Dennis Ross by misrepresenting what is going on in the I/P conflict. The repercussions if Israel or the U.S. pre-emptively attack will be catastrophic. The fact that people in that region have had decades of oppression somewhat lifted from their backs and now have an actual voice. You think the Arab Spring brought people to the streets. If Israel or the U.S. pre-emptively attack Iran based on unsubstantiated claims. U.S. enemies will be a hundred fold. Decades of oppression supported by the U.S., a war in Iraq based on a pack of lies, no movement in the I/P issue (well except for more illegal expansion of illegal settlements). Rockets would rain down on Israel, oil supplies would come under threat…all hell would break loose. The Iranians are not going to take a pre-emptive attack lying down.
Allegedly there have been quiet negotiations going on with Iran. Let’s hope so. And Iran has all ready gone nuclear they have the right to go nuclear for peaceful purposes. In this equation it is Israel that went nuclear weapons long ago and continues to refuse to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty. Indyk and Goldberg should have to register under FARA as agents of another country.
Indyk has been undermining U.S. National Security almost as long as Dennis Ross
K I was about to post the same point. In the 90s these two were identified with liberal democratic admins and seemed to be working for a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I thought so anyway.
By 2009 it was clear that both were Israel firsters and would engage in any lie to promote Israel’s interests. When Obama gave Ross the Iranian portfolio in 2009 it was clear that the diplomatic approach to that problem would be sabotaged. I happen to believe that Obama was duped here and finally realized that when he let Ross go.
Now both are fully exposed as the true neocons that they really are. Let us hope that their credibility is permanently damaged.
The Ross selection threw some of us for a loop. “change” and all. Same old thing. Could not follow what Obama’s strategy was by choosing Ross. Interesting Ross went all neutral on the election. Clearly his stance says something about where Obama may head during the next four years and Ross does not like it. A good sign
as i recall it was clear that ross was an IF at camp david. he tag teamed with his media buddy tom friedman (both started the conservative kol shalom synagogue) to put the failure of the talks on arafat.
Camera Cspan watch has some interesting things up at their site. They started tracking callers who call in with mostly legitimate complaints and facts about the I/P conflict labeling everyone who brings up the issue anti semitic. Camera C-Span watch has been tracking the program since 2008. They are now asking people to write to Comcast and Time Warner to complain about Washington Journal allowing calls to come in questioning the I lobby and Israel. They are asking people to call in in support of what Israel is doing. But clearly that is not working. The callers keep mentioning the facts on the ground in the conflict. What Camera does not seem to get is the truth is out, no way to put the facts back in the bag
How many millions of times has the hasbara crowd claimed Israel never asked America to fight it,s battles.
Someone explain to me again why Pakistan having the bomb is no big whoop but Iran getting it is a catastrophe?
What is a “red line,” anyway? A subway line to Quincy on the “T?” Is Bibi’s “red line” what we used to call a “line in the dirt?” These were never red . . . until after they were crossed.
When I was a kid, you took a stick; you scratched a line in the dirt; you said to your (smaller) enemy: “Step across that line and I’ll bloody your nose.” If your enemy was bigger than you, there were problems. If he stepped across the line, then you drew another line and said: “OK, tough guy, eh? Well, step across that line and I won’t like you anymore.”
Of course, if you were a skinny kid with glasses, like me, you could still draw lines in the dirt as long as your big brother was 210 lb and the varsity full-back. And this pretty well sums up the current situation with Israel. More precisely, Bibi, as always, would rather talk his big brother into drawing the line and he [Bibi] will just sit the whole thing out, as he’s done in Iraq and Afghanistan. When the big brother was Geo. Bush and his gaggle of neocons, it was easy for Israel to get lines drawn and Americans killed. Now – finally – the big brother has some brains and is even thinking about getting a paternity test.
Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk has a very interesting analysis of this “red line” situation. Also check the comments. These guys are non-proliferation engineers. They go through the calculations of how much stuff Iran really has available to build a nuke and how many nukes they’ll be able to build when they enrich what they have, etc. etc. It seems like most of the technical issues are resolved. The limiting factor is U-235.
Lewis concludes that Iran is already there. Based on IAEA reports, Lewis thinks Iran has 20 kg of fissile U-235 at or near bomb-grade; i.e., what they need to be in a “break-out” position. So if that is Bibi’s “red line,” too late.
link to lewis.armscontrolwonk.com
On Sep13 Landler and Cooper at NYT reported on a “one hour” conversation w/ an Obama official who insists that the administration’s “red line” is constructing an actual nuke. This seems pretty consistent with what BO has been saying all along. Along this topic of a timeline for assembling a bomb, the Lewis wonks discuss what are the chances of an untested nuke actually working the first time. Answer: pretty durn high. If an actual bomb is BO’s line in the dirt, then Iran will obviously just sit on its pile of fissile stuff, and dig it deeper into the mountain while tweaking its ICBMs. I guess this would be sort of a soft deterrence position. Israel would know that an attack on Iran would be reciprocated not in seconds or minutes, but by the weekend, for sure.
link to nytimes.com
It is very difficult to envision a way out of this morass that doesn’t involve thousands of dead people, virtually none of whom will know the difference between U-235 and U2. If I was in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, I think I’d just sit tight a while longer.
thanks for the links denis, i am going to check them out.
It is very difficult to envision a way out of this morass that doesn’t involve thousands of dead people,
i don’t agree. remember “The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it.”
link to mondoweiss.net
Denis says: “…Of course, if you were a skinny kid with glasses, like me, you could still draw lines in the dirt as long as your big brother was 210 lb and the varsity full-back. And this pretty well sums up the current situation with Israel. More precisely, Bibi, as always, would rather talk his big brother into drawing the line …”
I agree with that — but there’s a subtle twist.
If Israel just appears to be bombing Iran on her own, she’s pretty much just taken another step — maybe a big step — down the road she’s been following with the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Lebanon, Cast Lead, and so on. More outrageously violent behavior, leading to ever-greater isolation. She’d even jeopardize her support in America — which is her sole means of support. It’d be if not the end, a giant step in that direction.
On the other hand, if she can clearly implicate us in the action — or better still, get us to carry it out on her behalf — then she has bound us to her even more tightly. Suddenly it’s no longer Israel becoming isolated in the world, but Israel together with America both becoming isolated. She’d increasingly be our only friend. It would be just the two of us. She’d have us all to herself.
I think that’s the equation underlying all this. It’s not a matter of Israel attacking Iran — it’s a matter of Israel attacking Iran with our support. That’s what makes the prospect attractive to her.
It’s not really about our being more able to execute this — militarily, the strike isn’t going to make much difference to anything whoever does it. It’s about the difference in the fall-out of it all if we do it together versus her doing it all on her own.
Obama could defuse this situation by making a deal with Iran.
dbroncos says: “Obama could defuse this situation by making a deal with Iran.”
That may well have already happened. I’m not saying it has — but it’s perfectly possible this situation is already diffused. Netanyahu may just be thrashing about.
Containment? How about Cooperation?
[More trouble for Obama?] [Haaretz]
Israel rejects U.S.-backed Arab plan for conference on nuclear-free Mideast
The conference would take place in Helsinki toward the end of 2012, or early in 2013; Israel calls it ‘coercion.’
By Amir Oren | 01:51 20.09.12
Israel expressed its strong opposition on Wednesday to an Arab initiative, supported by the Obama administration, to hold a conference that would debate the possibility of a nuclear-free Middle East.
link to haaretz.com
Indyk saying that we are going to have a war against Iran no matter who is elected President is so f—ing arrogant. Assuming that what Israel wants Israel gets no matter who is President. Talk about wagging
Lol.
“…Obama understands that his presidency will be judged a failure if Iran goes nuclear. He has gone on record many times promising the American people, and the world, that Iran will not get a bomb. If Iran succeeds, he will have failed, catastrophically. His legacy will be shattered, his credibility will be destroyed, and he will bequeath to his party a reputation for weakness and fecklessness that will not be shed for a generation…”
Yeah. Like the president on whose watch Pakistan got the bomb. Or India.
Their names will live in infamy…whoever they were.
“…After immersing myself in the expert thinking on both sides, I think that, forced to choose, I would swallow hard and take the risks of a nuclear Iran over the gamble of a pre-emptive war. My view may be colored by a bit of post-Iraq syndrome…”
Of course. We have never attacked a state solely because we thought it was attempting to develop nuclear weapons. This was true of Russia, of China, of India, of Pakistan, of Israel, of South Africa, and even of North Korea. How on earth could an attack on Iran be justified?
It’s nonsense anyway. 70% of Americans oppose an attack on Iran. Why these guys are pretending it could happen anyway escapes me. Why should it?
Hezbollah.
What these people fail to grasp is that the average American is perfectly willing to ‘support Israel’ — as long as it’s a financial appropriation and a matter of the occasional Security Council Veto.
That’s an entirely different matter from actually going to war on her behalf. As polls have emphatically made clear, that the average American is not willing to do.
It’s like Israel is this spoiled kid. ‘Daddy, will you buy me that shirt?’ ‘Sure, honey.’ ‘Daddy, my teacher’s mean to me. Will you get me transferred?’ ‘Sure, honey.’
‘Daddy, I want us to move to a desert island.’ Umm…no. They don’t seem to grasp the distinction.
Well, let’s hope they push real hard. ‘President Obama won’t take us to war. Vote Romney.’ In fact, some black propaganda along those lines wouldn’t be such a bad idea.