Let’s have an election-year debate over US ‘complicity’ in Israel push for war

Meanwhile, on Friday, August 31st, Time Magazine reported  that our government will significantly reduce the number of US troops, and amount of equipment, scheduled to be deployed “on the ground” in Israel for joint training exercises long scheduled for mid-October.

But if the “window of opportunity” for a solo Israeli attack has effectively closed, the perception of exactly how & why that window shut tight may frame the next phase of the struggle for a truly nuclear-free Middle East.  It’s a struggle that will necessarily include confronting the fact that Israel ”went nuclear” decades ago, and has remained beyond the reach of international treaties and inspections ever since.

Here are the remarkable details of a story that’s still unfolding:

On Thursday, August 31st, a day before Time’s report began to circulate, General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces restated the US position against an Israeli attack to journalists in London questioning him about our policy.  Then he added this:

“I don’t wish to be complicit in an Israeli strike” on Iran.

Given General Dempsey’s remarks, a recent New York Times report about how little lasting damage a strike would do, and continuing push-back by Israeli security & political heavy-weights (President Simon Peres was on Israel’s Channel 10 on Sunday, September 2nd, speaking against a strike), does even Netanyahu really believe Israel benefits by going forward alone?

In fact, the Israeli government is now reduced to pressuring the Obama administration for assurances that it will join a strike after the election.  Do they already have such assurances from Mitt Romney?

You’d have thought Dempsey’s use of the word “complicity”, all by itself, would have caused a furor on the American Neocon Right within seconds of his uttering it.

But how would they frame a response? It appears they are taking their cue, as usual, from their Israeli counterparts.

On Friday, August 31st, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial condemning Dempsey’s remarks.  By Sunday their editorial had been cited and amplified in Israel media reports (“Is Dempsey Goading Israel to Attack Iran”).  That same day Jeffrey Goldberg picked up the “goading” meme, without agreeing- yet- with its thesis.

Will FoxNews catch the ball, and start running with it?  Just in time for the Democratic National Convention?  Will the Romney campaign be far behind?

If they start excoriating Obama for keeping our soldiers out of harm’s way, for refusing to let another country dictate when, how, and under what circumstances the United States threatens war –  well, that’s an argument I’d like to have.  

So are we witnessing the beginnings of an important foreign policy debate in the United States?  In a way that will really grab the public’s attention?  Let’s hope so.  It’s long overdue.