The fascinating discussion on this site of the piece which Jeffrey Goldberg published on Bloomberg on 19 March, under the title 'Israelis Grow Confident Strike on Iran's Nukes Can Work', sent me back to the article he published, under the title 'The Point of No Return', in the Atlantic in September 2010.
Quite clearly, in both articles, Goldberg has been acting as a conduit for Israeli government propaganda. As so often in contemporary journalism, the implicit deal appears to be that a favoured reporter is granted access, on the condition that he or she uncritically relays the messages which his or her sources want broadcast. As a result, while Goldberg's interviews with Netanyahu and others are extremely useful for all of us attempting to assess what that Israel is likely to do in relation to Iran, the evidence they provide is difficult to interpret.
Perhaps ironically, given that the argument of the 'Point of No Return' article depended upon the use of 'proof texts' to establish that the Iranian government is a kind of Second Coming of the German Nazis, Goldberg provides a classic illustration of how difficult it can be to infer from what people say what they are actually likely to do.
What put the problem into the sharpest possible relief was the invaluable evidence presented on an earlier thread by jdledell. Summarising conversations with contacts in Israel who had a proper grasp of the technical problems involved in an attack on Iran and were not in the propaganda business, he confirmed what Colonel Lang, and others, have argued time and again on this site. On its own, Israel simply cannot expect to do significant damage to the Iranian nuclear programme. Among multiple problems, the refuelling capabilities that would be required for effective strikes just are not there.
Quite clearly then, there can be no rational basis for the confidence which Goldberg attributed to the Israeli leaders about what can be achieved by acting on their own. To act as he suggests they may intend to do would not only involve risking important military assets, but also court a humiliating demonstration of impotence which would mean that, far from providing a way out of the country's security dilemmas, Netanyahu and his associates would have been likely to have made its situation immeasurably worse.
As F.B. Ali noted, jdledell's comments – actually put up the day before Goldberg's Bloomberg article – suggested a variety of possible ways in which that article could be interpreted. In what follows, I am going to try to explore further a range of possible interpretations, and some of the issues they raise.
Irrational Israelis … ?
One possible interpretation of Goldberg's recent article has to do with the Holocaust trauma which was a recurrent theme of the earlier one. It may be that this so dominates the perceptions of Netanyahu and his associates that they are incapable of seeing the threats facing Israel in any kind of rational perspective – of grasping, for instance, that foolish and indeed obnoxious remarks by Ahmadinejad do not make him a new Hitler.
A further legacy of the Holocaust is evident in an observation quoted in the 'Point of No Return' article by the former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, that he does not put his life 'in the hands of goyim.' Here, a propensity to exaggerate the malevolence of genuine antagonists comes together with a belief that Jews ought to be able to rely for their security only on themselves.
So one way of reading the Bloomberg article is as a nemesis of a Holocaust-inspired exaggeration alike of the threats facing Israel and of what that country can expect to do about them, which is now only partially susceptible to deflation by the kind of rational analysis contained in jdledell's comments. Of course, as F.B. Ali points out, if this is so, the more relevant question may be not whether the Iranian government is a 'rational actor', but whether the Israeli is.
And this is a matter of some moment, given that while the Iranian government has no nuclear weapons, and it is certainly not proven that it has an aspiration to acquire them, the Israeli government commands a large nuclear arsenal. Although it has been suggested that Israel might compensate for its inability significantly to damage the Iranian nuclear programme by conventional means by using this arsenal, that is not really I think the problem.
What is the problem is that wars can very easily escalate in unpredictable ways. If there is no prospect of Israel finding any kind of lasting modus vivendi with its Arab and Muslim neighbours, and its future is likely to be one of recurrent war at infinitum, then the possibility of its nuclear weapons sooner or later being used in anger has to be a very real one.
That is obviously something which Middle Eastern governments need to factor into their strategic calculations, as also do American and West European policymakers. And in this context, if indeed the Israeli leadership are as crazy as Goldberg suggests, it is a very alarming prospect indeed.
… or Machiavellian manipulators?
It is however a recurrent problem that evidence which may indicate that a country's leaders are irrational can also be explained by the hypothesis that they have 'rational' reasons to pretend to be. An obvious possibility is that the suggestion that the Israelis believe they can mount a unilateral attack on Iran is simply propaganda, part of an ongoing campaign to get the American military to inflict the kind of damage to the Iranian nuclear programme which Netanyahu and others are quite well aware that they have no hope of achieving themselves.
A corollary of this hypothesis is that, if one finds it credible, it would provide some grounds for optimism that the Israeli government might be at least sufficiently 'rational' not to gamble on a unilateral attack.
However, a possibility which has preoccupied many of us for some considerable time is that an Israeli government might calculate that a unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear facilities might precipitate an escalation in which the United States would find it impossible not to join in on the Israeli side. Moreover, as the veteran USAF war planner Colonel Sam Gardiner noted in his March 2010 paper 'The Israeli Threat', the dynamics of the escalation might push the United States government both into an all-out attempt to eliminate Iranian nuclear facilities, and into making 'regime change' a war objective.
A corollary of this argument, obviously, has been that it has been perfectly possible to imagine a process of 'rational' calculation, according to which the Israeli leadership might believe that a unilateral strike on Iranian nuclear facilities might make perfectly good strategic sense. And, of course, as numerous commentators in recent discussions on SST have pointed out, escalation could perhaps he helped along by 'false flag' operations.
One important feature of such a strategy is worth pointing out. If in fact the objective is to push American civilian and military leaders into doing something which they would not do unless pushed, it might very well seem appropriate to obscure the fact that this is what is being attempted. Accordingly, it might very well be 'rational' to suggest that an attack was being made on the basis of confidence in what Israeli forces could expect to achieve on their own, even if there was actually a realistic appreciation of how little they could do.
Likewise, it might be 'rational' to suggest that you were not anticipating that the attack would bring the United States in on your side, when the coherence of your strategic calculations depended quite precisely on the expectation that this would happen.
However, such a strategy would represent a desperate gamble, in two ways. One possibility, obviously, is that the attempt to inveigle the United States into attacking Iran would fail. Another is that it would succeed but that the consequences for the United States – and also Western Europe – would be dire, if not indeed absolutely catastrophic. This F.B. Ali has suggested is extremely likely, and I agree.
If the consequences are indeed massively damaging for Britain, there are two results which would be probable here. The empowerment of Jews, which is been regarded as perfectly natural and unobjectionable among almost everyone over the past decades, would be come, in some measure, into question. I am not talking here about a recurrence of anti-Semitism, although that is possible. What would certainly be at issue would be that it would no longer be natural to assume that a Jew could be, for example, Foreign Secretary, without the question of where his or her prime loyalties lay being raised.
At the same time, and related to this, in part precisely because Israeli behaviour had quite patently damaged British interests, divisions among British Jews whose extent has I think been disguised by the fact that the impact of the increasing unsustainability of the 'liberal Zionist' position has been both gradual and largely obscured from view, would become acute. At that point Jewish anti-Zionism, which was very strong prior to the Holocaust, could be expected to enjoy a dramatic revival.
How far similar developments could be expected in the United States I cannot judge, but a good deal of evidence appears to suggest that although the American and British situations are different, the differences are not so very radical. The apparent insouciance of Goldberg and others about the possibility that an Israeli attack on Iran could have seriously adverse effects on the extremely favourable position enjoyed by American Jews in recent decades frankly baffles me.
Be that as it may, in addition to a possible interpretation of his writings according to which the Israeli leadership has taken leave of reality, there is a possible interpretation according to which the patently absurd claims about what Israel can expect to achieve on its own reflect a Machiavellian strategy.
Personal experience of Israel is something I completely lack, and although my wife and I have known a wide variety of British Jews, and had close Jewish friends all our lives, it has become amply apparent that the mentality of the British – and American – Jews we know well is no guide whatsoever to that of figures like Netanyahu. It is clear that different members of this 'committee of correspondence' who do have extensive personal experience of Israel have different views.
Repeatedly, Colonel Lang has suggested that to count on the assumption that the Israelis are 'rational actors' would be naïve – and he has made clear that he thinks that Netanyahu could well be crazy enough to launch a unilateral attack. By contrast, jdledell has suggested yet another interpretation of how Goldberg's Bloomberg article should be read. According to this, Goldberg himself has lost any idea of what, in the Israeli propaganda he uncritically recycles, is true and what is fiction. As to the propaganda itself, Netanyahu should be seen as a windbag.
And certainly, it is one thing to pose as a leader capable of resorting to desperate measures when interviewed by a sycophantic sympathiser like Goldberg -- and particularly a sympathiser who, as Goldberg patently is, is prepared to swallow sentimental kitsch. It is quite another actually to live up to the self-presentation.
Hubris and nemesis.
But of course, it is not impossible that there are elements of truth in all these interpretations. It may be that the Israeli leadership, having pursued what it believed were 'rational' strategies, has ended up in a dead end, where none of the available courses of action are very promising, either from the point of view of the country's interests, or of the personal political prospects of its leaders.
Particularly given that few of us are so very 'rational' in situations where an objective examination suggests that there are no very good options, there is a common propensity to pretend that intractable problems can be wished away: think the Japanese leadership in 1941. So another possible interpretation of the recent Goldberg article is that at least some of the statements quoted reflect the fact that the Israeli leadership, having boxed itself into a dead end, does not have any very clear idea of how to get out of it.
And indeed part at least of the explanation for the weird mixture of ludicrous pessimism, equally ludicrous optimism, and sheer incoherence in Goldberg's writing may be that he is simply reflecting the mental condition of those who have to decide whether Israel will attack Iran. They may be in a muddle, and trying to obscure the fact that they do not have any clear idea of what to do.
It is, I think, not difficult to see why the Israeli leadership might be going round in circles. A hubristic confidence, largely arising from unquestioning American support, has led the ineffably stupid Netanyahu to define Israeli security requirements in such an expansive fashion that, in the long term, it is wildly unlikely that they can be met. And the Israeli government has been encouraged along this disastrous course by similarly stupid American fellow-travellers like Goldberg himself, and all the Perles, Wolfowitzes, Haasses, and Beinarts.
A result has been an underlying confidence that, sooner or later, the United States could be manipulated into doing what the Israelis cannot do for themselves. However, recent developments have called this confidence into question. Although it certainly remains eminently possible that the course of confrontation on which the United States and the Western Europeans are set with Iran will end in war, what have seemed to be increasing causes for pessimism on this point are now balanced by some real causes for optimism. Meanwhile, grounds for doubting that a unilateral Israeli attack could precipitate an all-out effort by the United States to set back the Iranian nuclear programme have grown a great deal stronger.
Potentially, at least, this puts Netanyahu in a very difficult position indeed. Hubris may be being followed by nemesis.
An absurd analogy.
Where the expectation of unquestioning American support has led the Israeli government into a particularly problematic dead end has been in blinding it to the dangers of the repeated insistence that an Iran able to exercise its rights under the NPT constitutes the 'gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people.' Doubtless this ludicrous formulation – recycled uncritically by Goldberg in the 'Point of No Return' article – has roots in very genuine and deep trauma. However, invoking the Holocaust, both to dramatise the Iranian threat and play on gentile guilt, has also been a highly effective instrument in manipulating the United States, and other Western democracies.
One consequence of a style of politics which depends upon a continual reiteration of inflated estimates of threat to American audiences may well have been that Netanyahu has – as often happens – become the victim of his own propaganda. Accordingly, just as much as mouthpieces like Goldberg, he and many others in the Israeli leadership may have lost the ability to distinguish between truth and fiction.
I find it difficult to see any other explanation for statements like that of an Israeli planner, quoted in the 'Point of No Return' article, which seems to give an extraordinary hostage to fortune. Having explained that 'many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz', the planner goes on to say that 'we have to let them know that we have destroyed Auschwitz, or we have to let them know that we tried and failed.'
The point about reckless analogies between Nazi Germany and the Iranian Ayatollahs is not simply that they inflate a real threat out of all proportion: it is that, having attributed to the Iranians a strategy of frightening Israelis out of the Middle East, those who do so appoint themselves the 'useful idiots' of the supposed strategy.
Among the very many ways in which the Auschwitz analogy is absurd is that, in sharp contrast to the situation in the Thirties, educated and technologically sophisticated Jews confront no difficulties whatsoever in moving to the United States, or indeed Western Europe. Even to use such an analogy, one would think, is liable to encourage members of Israeli elites to emigrate, or at least to put contingency plans in place which would enable them to do so, should the situation in Israel get substantially worse.
But to use this analogy also greatly restricts the room for manoeuvre available to Israeli leaders, in the event that confidence that the United States can be inveigled into attacking Iran proves misplaced. Moreover, claims made about what could be achieved by a unilateral Israeli strike – irrespective of whether they are underpinned by delusion, part of a Machiavellian strategy, or simply hot air – further restrict the room for manoeuvre.
The claims made by Goldberg's Israeli contacts, and uncritically recycled by him, are helping to create a situation where either to make an abortive unilateral strike, or to fail to attempt one, is liable to represent a colossal own goal for Israel. If one tries to imagine how the scenario of an Israeli official explaining, in the wake of an abortive unilateral strike, that the IDF had 'tried and failed' to destroy Auschwitz, might actually play out, it will be apparent that it courts one of two responses.
The less dangerous for Israeli prospects of survival is 'what is this windbag blathering on about?' The more dangerous, and indeed potentially fatal, would seem to be: 'Perhaps this really is Poland in 1935 – my grandparents did not try to get out/tried and were unable to, but I can get out and have every intention of doing so while there is still time. Maybe I should e-mail that friendly Mr Goldberg and ask about job opportunities in the United States or perhaps I should take out a Polish passport, and move to London. The descendants of my great-uncle, who did manage to make it over there, don't seem to be doing too badly.'
If the consequences of an abortive attack are bad enough, however, the consequences of practising this kind of threat inflation, and then making clear that you are unable even to attempt to do something about the threat you have painted in such lurid colours, when you have repeatedly suggested you had it in your power to do so, might also be quite serious.
A 'psychological complex'?
A further consequence of the path down which Israel has gone may be to lock that country's leaders into an impossibly contradictory relationship with the United States. Earlier, I referred to remarks by Ephraim Sneh, quoted in the 'Point of No Return' article, to the effect that he does not put his life 'in the hands of goyim.' In fact, however, the whole direction taken by the policy of Israel's leaders over the past decades has been to throw away such prospects as there were of creating a strategic situation in which the country's prospects for long-term survival were not totally dependent on the American 'goyim'.
This remark by Sneh comes at the end of a paragraph where he has told Goldberg that the wounds of the Holocaust 'do not heal', and asserted that the catastrophe that engulfed Europe's Jews is 'not some sort of psychological complex', but 'an historic lesson.' Having recounted the fate of his grandparents, murdered in Poland after they had been handed over by Poles to whom they had paid substantial sums to shelter them to the Germans, Sneh goes on to say that this is the reason that he does not 'trust the goyim'.
In fact, the meaning of 'trust' here is ambiguous. In so far as a prudent Israeli policy should not be premised upon the assumption that one can rely upon indefinite American support, it would indeed be eminently sensible not to 'trust the goyim' – and a key problem with Israeli policy is quite precisely that it has not taken this fact adequately, or intelligently, into account.
Insofar as Sneh is suggesting that he believes that all 'goyim' harbour a deep-rooted latent propensity to manic anti-Semitism, however, his position is patently problematic – as also is Goldberg's apparent inability to see the potential implications of an identification with such a position among Jews outside Israel.
How either Sneh or Goldberg expects that American 'goyim' are likely to react to the suggestion that a fundamental truth about them has been revealed by the behaviour of Poles under Nazi occupation is not clear to me. In fact, however, these remarks reveal very clearly a very deep gulf which has developed between Jews who found refuge in Israel, and very many of those who were able to find it in Britain.
Certainly Jews my wife and I knew who made it over here from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia immediately prior to the outbreak of war were scarred by the Holocaust. However they gave no visible signs of expecting that their British friends harboured any aspiration to murder them: least of all in the case of the only Jew I knew who had spent time in a concentration camp, one of the least fearful human beings I have known.
What appears not to have struck Goldberg is that for a British, or indeed or American, Jew to identify with Sneh's position is to court one of two responses. One is that the traditional anti-Semitic suspicion that the essential loyalty of Jews is to other Jews, and that they can never really be unqualifiedly loyal to any predominantly gentile polity, has something in it after all. The other is that the Holocaust has indeed, for many Israelis, become a kind of 'psychological complex'.
As such, of course, a non-Jew may sympathise with the trauma. But a question is obviously raised as to whether one wants trauma victims influencing crucial matters of foreign policy, to which the trauma is relevant, and where it may lead them to advocate courses of action potentially catastrophic alike for their gentile associates and themselves.
Last but hardly least, Sneh's remarks raise the question of whether Israel has turned out to be a place where the traumas of the Holocaust cannot heal, not simply among the children and grandchildren of its victims, but indefinitely. Moreover, there may be structural reasons why the deeply unhealthy relationship in which Israel has come to be dependent on American Jews manipulating American gentiles whom at least some Israeli leaders suspect of harbouring an ineradicable anti-Semitic virus is hard to escape.
And here one comes back once again to the implications of the kind of reckless threat inflation contained in the 'Point of No Return' article. To admit that the fate of the grandparents of today's Israelis in Poland or Germany in the 1940s is of the most marginal relevance to the prospects their grandchildren might have, if they left Israel for San Francisco or Surrey, is to give further force to the question of whether it makes better sense for Jews to see their future away from the Middle East.
To insist that the Holocaust remains an 'historic lesson', as Sneh does, however, is to leave Israel with no obvious future but as an embattled ghetto. While in relation to its Arab and Muslim neighbours, it sees itself as a beleaguered outpost of Western civilisation among the savages, the inhabitants of that ghetto have difficulty in abandoning the suspicion that Western civilisation is inherently and ineradicably anti-Semitic. Accordingly, the definition of a Jew comes to be as a member of a tribe whose members, for inexplicable reasons, practically everyone has a lurking aspiration to murder. This is hardly a promising identity to ask intelligent young people to embrace.
As I have said, I have no experience of Israel, but at this point I find myself wondering whether the society is not threatened not simply by its inability to offer rational reasons why Jews concerned for self-preservation should remain, but by the fact that Zionism cannot in the end offer a viable Jewish identity. This may be a presumptuous claim. But I note that the question of whether Israel has disintegrated into a ghetto, which simply cannot be an appealing place for the adventurous and curious, was among the issues raised by Avraham Burg in his notable exchange back in January 2008 with Ari Shavit.
What this exchange also brought out is the fact that to call into question the belief that the Holocaust is an 'historic lesson' is to call into question the validity of all the sacrifices that Zionists have made to create and sustain the Israeli state. And to have to confront the possibility that sacrifices may have been meaningless is liable to be, in itself, a deeply traumatic experience. To say this, of course, is to say that the history of Zionism is a tragedy -- as also is that of the Palestinians.
And exercise in escalation.
However, the notion that one can indefinitely play on gentile guilt, even when it involves manipulating the 'goyim' into courses of action which run deeply counter to their own interests, is patent nonsense. And here one comes back again to the Auschwitz analogy. The attempt by Netanyahu to use the failure of the Allies to bomb Auschwitz as providing grounds why the United States should attack Iran increasingly seems to have something of an air of desperation about it.
The other crucial element in assessing the significance of Goldberg's Bloomberg articles is a series of developments which have called into question not only the assumption that the United States can be brought to initiate a war against Iran, but also the assumption that it can be inveigled into one. Confronted by the massive assault levelled by Netanyahu, with the assistance of Israel's fellow travellers, on his visit to Washington, Obama accommodated, but hardly gave grounds for hoping that the United States, under his watch, would either initiate war against Iran or allow itself to be inveigled into one.
Certainly, he may have given hostages to fortune. But if he is re-elected, Obama's power position with regard to the Israeli lobby will be much stronger, so these hostages may not matter, unless the Iranians are foolish.
Crucial, however, are developments in the American military. The fact that Obama now has, in General Dempsey, a tough-minded and clear-thinking CJCS who cannot either be forced out or intimidated, clearly changes the situation very materially. Meanwhile, the recent 'Internal Look' exercise, to the New York Times report of which F.B. Ali pointed, is of enormous significance.
What Goldberg has to say about this in the Bloomberg article is extremely interesting – and again very hard to interpret. Some Israeli officials, he suggests, 'believe that Iran's leaders might choose to play down the insult of a raid and launch a handful of rockets at Tel Aviv as an angry gesture, rather than declare all-out war. I'm not endorsing this view, but I was struck by its optimism. (A war game held by the U.S. military this month came to the opposite conclusion, according to the New York Times: A strike would likely lead to a wider war that could include the U.S.)'
The report of the 'Internal Look' exercise is certainly worth a much closer examination. While I may be reading too much into it, it seems to me to contain a very clear indication that, if the relevant American military commanders have any say in the matter, the kind of uncontrollable escalation leading from a unilateral Israeli strike to an American destruction of the Iranian nuclear programme and regime which Colonel Gardiner suggested might be unavoidable might not actually be impossible to prevent.
Indeed, as the scenarios for escalation appear to depend entirely on Iranian actions, if I were an Iranian planner I would be tempted to see the way 'Internal Look' has been presented as containing a kind of implicit covert offer of cooperation to contain the possible consequences of a unilateral Israeli strike. The message I would take from it is that, while escalation is commonly very difficult to avoid, there is sufficient chance that a 'proportional retaliation' directed solely at Israeli targets would not trigger it to make it worthwhile going for precisely the kind of muted response Goldberg suggests. And if there were hotheads who had concluded that escalation might be the least worst Iranian option, I would be explaining that to avoid it might be a cunning chess move, which while it did not guarantee an immediate checkmate of the Israelis, might lead to an endgame in which the odds were heavily stacked against them.
If in fact Israeli leaders have faced up to the weaknesses jdledell describes, they must realise that the strategy in which Goldberg suggests they believe could precipitate a devastating Iranian victory. Although it may suit Israelis to suggest that they believe it is 'optimism' to believe escalation can be avoided, on the basis of the NYT report at least, 'Inland Look' seems to me like a crucial further stage in the process whereby Netanyahu's options are being closed off.
Whether in fact he is crazy enough to risk a 'damp squib’ attack leading to limited Iranian retaliation, without escalation, or prefers to risk the consequences of being exposed as the blabbermouth jdledell believes him to be, we shall see.
David Habakkuk
Who wrote this piece? Col. Lang?
Posted by: Medicine Man | 23 March 2012 at 02:43 PM
MM
David Habakkuk pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 23 March 2012 at 02:53 PM
Ah, thank you.
Posted by: Medicine Man | 23 March 2012 at 02:57 PM
A fascinating analysis. I find particularly persuasive the idea that this ingrained "the gentiles can never be trusted" attitude is in the end deeply corrosive to the long-term survival of a Zionist Jewish identity -- what a grim and forbidding way to live.
This video of Beitar Jerusalem fans chanting "death to arabs" at a Jerusalem shopping mall recently (Haaretz reports that Arab cleaning staff were assaulted and the police declined to make any arrests) shows where this is all heading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d3_dty1oSz4
The far right is gaining strength, "liberal" Jews in Israel grow increasingly worried.
Contingency plans? My Israeli housemate (a graduate student at Harvard) is the great-grandson of German Jews who emigrated to Israel before the Holocaust. He is truly "Israeli," by language, cultural affinity, and habit, as much as I am an American. He served his time as an intelligence officer in the IDF. Yet he had out his German passport a few days ago, getting it renewed.
Posted by: DanM | 23 March 2012 at 05:45 PM
two points:
And the Israeli government has been encouraged along this disastrous course by similarly stupid American fellow-travellers like Goldberg himself, and all the Perles, Wolfowitzes, Haasses, and Beinarts.
Beinart is carefully trying to disentangle himself from the imperialist's embrace, no matter what one thinks of the prince. This may be indicative of a larger changing ground.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/zionsquare.html
Having explained that 'many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz',
In spite of Sheldon Adelson's help in perception-management via his free newspaper:Israel HaYom no Israeli majority supports a strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson
Polling: Israelis Wary Of A Unilateral Attack On Iran
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/03/09/441275/israelis-wear-unilateral-attack-on-
So king Bibi faces more imponderables, there is not enough support on home ground. as to America, would I find it easy to trust someone, I rang rings around with my address to congress? Thoughie, ain't it. The guy might look for a chance to take a revenge? No?
Posted by: LeaNder | 23 March 2012 at 06:01 PM
"Some Israeli officials, he suggests, 'believe that Iran's leaders might choose to play down the insult of a raid and launch a handful of rockets at Tel Aviv as an angry gesture, rather than declare all-out war. I'm not endorsing this view, but I was struck by its optimism. (A war game held by the U.S. military this month came to the opposite conclusion, according to the New York Times: A strike would likely lead to a wider war that could include the U.S.)"
"I was struck by its optimism" ... I am glad that Habakkuk was struck by the optimism of the statement. It only scared the living shit out of me!
Posted by: Jake | 23 March 2012 at 06:02 PM
Thank you Mr. Habakkuk for a fascinating analysis.
There a certain human activities where a reputation for being slightly crazy and unpredictable is helpful. Statecraft is not one of them.
Posted by: Walrus | 23 March 2012 at 06:15 PM
Goldberg (and presumably Israeli leaders) have indeed NOT thought this through. What will happen if Israel were to inveigle the United States into a military action that most likely would result not only in stratospheric energy prices but also a debilitating quagmire for the United States. And all of this on behalf of a Jewish state. How would Israel benefit from the ensuing wave of anti-Semitism throughout the industrialized world? Their lust for war does beg the question of whether the Israeli leadership is rational.
And, assuming that they are rational and understand their limits, how do Netanyahu and his cohorts benefit from the hysterical threats? Are they simply media hounds, who consider that there is no such thing as bad publicity? Do they get perverse pleasure from watching their allies squirm? Are they trying to divert attention from something dastardly that they are perpetrating under the "attack Iran" noise? Or do they simply think that Israelis how so few common bonds that can all agree on nothing but the Jewish Holocaust and the Iranian threat, the absence of which remove the country's sense of its own nationhood?
Since it's hard to envision any scenario where Israel comes out ahead, you have to conclude that seriously disturbed people are running Israel, people who have nuclear weapons are their disposal.
Posted by: JohnH | 23 March 2012 at 06:21 PM
second try, no idea if it already worked last time.
And the Israeli government has been encouraged along this disastrous course by similarly stupid American fellow-travellers like Goldberg himself, and all the Perles, Wolfowitzes, Haasses, and Beinarts.
Whatever one thinks of Prince Beinart, he is trying to disentangle himself from the embrace of the lovers of empire and WWIII/IV promoters. That may well be indicative of larger shifting grounds.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/12/why-zion-square.html
Having explained that 'many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz',
It seems that in spite of Sheldon Adelson's support in perception management via his free newspaper, there is no majority in Israel for a unilateral strike against Iran. How are Bibi's ratings?
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/03/09/441275/israelis-wear-unilateral-attack-on-iran/
So king Bibi may well face more imponderabities than Obama's absolute reliability. Would you trust someone, you ran rings around by addressing congress? If I were him, I wouldn't. And what about the rumors Bibi wants to dethrone Obama? Not helpful either.
Posted by: LeaNder | 23 March 2012 at 06:40 PM
A good and thorough explanation of the situation. I won't be expecting this in-depth analysis from our news media.
My only hope is that if and when events overtake US military and politicians, that it isn't the media jocks that "are in the saddle and ride mankind".
Posted by: greg0 | 23 March 2012 at 06:58 PM
David - My compliments are an extremely perceptive analysis. For a Goyim, you do a pretty good job of understanding Jews(LOL). There is only one additional factor I would add to gain some understanding of Bibi. It's the effect on Bibi of his 100 year father, Benzion.
Benzion is a formidable personality with an overpowering hatred of arabs. He was a buddy with Jabotinsky and has always been a VERY outspoken advocate of Greater Israel. His concept of Greater Israel has always included the Sinai, Lebanon up to the Litani river, parts of Syria and Jordan. This is the environment Bibi grew up in.
When I lived in Israel in the 1980's Benzion was a frequent speaker at various events as well as on TV talk shows. I heard enough to get ill when he opened his mouth. The short version of his philosophy is Jewish supremacy. He vehemently opposes a two state solution and advocates perpetual domination of the arabs with forceable transfer if they act up.
It is widely accepted in Israel that Bibi cannot implement a two state solution until his father dies, if then. I've seen the two of them together on a stage and Benzion dominated his son, even when he was PM the first time. I am sure, given Benzion's attitude that he is pushing Bibi hard to bomb Iran. It would not surprise me if he is telling Bibi to use nuclear weapons on Iran. If Benzion were PM, there is no doubt in my mind that he would not hestitate to lay complete radioactive waste to Iran and sleep well that night.
Again, David, thanks for all the work you put into your analysis.
Posted by: jdledell | 23 March 2012 at 09:49 PM
David Habakkuk:
The American leaders and their English counterparts as well as those in France, Germany and elsewhere in Europe are conveniently hiding behind Jews, Israel, and Israeli-first-ers etc.
The fact remains that the near war crisis early this year – which could have caused a disaster for Iran, the United States, the Middle East, and the world - as well as the similar near war crisis in 2006, owed its existence to the decisions of the US (and UK, etc.() leaders.
They pursued coercive diplomacy with respect to Iran that was going to lead to war. This was a massive miscalculation by US, UK and other leaders.
In 2007, the US NIE on Iran saved the day.
In 2012, Mr. Obama, an instigator of the most recent crisis in the first place, had to publicly defuse the near war crisis by himself.
It was not Israeli leaders that brought the world to the edge of potential disaster; it was the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and assorted other European leaders.
They forced the Iranians to state that they are ready for war.
Israel had nothing to do with it.
May be the lone sane Englishman by the name of Jack Straw can be sent to Iran to negogiate a deal with Iranains.
No other Western politician can credibly do so - and certainly not that hussy called Baroness Ashton.
Posted by: Babak Makkinejad | 23 March 2012 at 10:00 PM
As usual, a first rate piece of analysis. Coming from across the pond, it's understandable that Brother Habakkuk has a handle on the dynamics of "being Jewish in the UK" as well as how Anglo-Saxon culture relates to their presence. I fear the situation in the US is somewhat more complex, malignant even.
First, there's a constant "holding forth" of the Holocaust as a teaching device for the edification and chastisement of the goyim. Perhaps if the psychic capital of the event had been invested in an interest bearing account, rather than being trotted out to pay the day-to-day bills of over zealous Zionists, there might be more "goyish guilt" to tap into.
Next, there's the highly dangerous cultivation of the "Rapture scenario." Many evangelical Bible thumpers orgasm over the fulfillment of scriptural promise, justifying the resources Zionists invest in their cultivation. Left unsaid is the "end of days" that entails the virtual destruction of the Zionist state (and most of its Jewish folk) just before the return of the Messiah who was, after all, rejected by the Chosen People. The term "mixed emotions" comes to mind.
Bottom line; evangelical support for Israel is driven by a desire to be Raptured out of an increasingly bad situation, a desire that is quite sanguine about the anticipated Shoan Mark II (G*d's will & all that.)
A growing "Christian Dominionist" voice in the US military (OK, mainly the AF, but they're players, right?) adds another unsavory ingredient to this witches brew, and further complicates the role of "civilian governance" in these increasingly complicated times.
Posted by: Pirate Laddie | 23 March 2012 at 10:19 PM
A comprehensive and excellent review of the issue. A few random comments:
The possibility that these threats are either some Machiavellian scheme or Netanyahu being a 'windbag' is discounted by the considerable number of former senior Israeli intelligence and military figures who have come out publicly against such a venture. One presumes they would be in a position to assess whether the threats were mere bravado.
I agree that it is very reassuring that the US military appears to recognize the dangers of getting involved in such a war. However, their reluctance would not count for much if political considerations compelled Obama to take the US into war in Israel’s support, or if there were US casualties caused (actually or ostensibly) by an Iranian response.
Unfortunately, such initial reluctance would not act to temper the military’s actions once they went in (even though Obama might well wish that). Their tendency to use the full force available to them is likely to ensure that “the consequences for the United States – and also Western Europe – would be dire, if not indeed absolutely catastrophic”.
As David has pointed out, the Iranian response to an Israeli attack could well be critical to the outcome. It is difficult to make any reasonable assessment of the chances that it would be ‘strategic’. The Iranian regime also has internal imperatives, and may believe it cannot afford to give an impression of weakness by moderating its riposte. Just as the Holocaust overshadows and warps Israeli policies and actions, the influence of religion has a large effect on those of the Iranian ‘theocracy’. In both cases, rational considerations may be swamped by such ‘ideological’ beliefs.
Posted by: FB Ali | 23 March 2012 at 10:32 PM
Jake,
'I was struck by its optimism' was a quotation from Goldberg, not my observation. However, although I very much agree with F.B. Ali that one can hardly count on a limited Iranian response to a unilateral Israeli attack, if the Israeli government is remotely rational, the possibility that escalation cannot be assumed would be grounds for caution. If the Israelis are being Machiavellian, they would have to pretend to find the limited response scenario one of 'optimism', even though it scared the living daylights out of them. However whether the Israelis are rational is precisely the issue.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 03:05 AM
LeaNder,
It may indeed be that Beinart deserves more indulgence than I was showing him. My impatience arises in part from the conviction that his attempt to rescue the 'two state solution' is too little, too late.
But it also relates to the mentality revealed in a quote from Beinart's Daily Beast article:
On the one hand, Jews delight in our newfound power. What could be more exhilarating for a people that seven decades ago were impotent to stop the Holocaust than seeing a Jewish state with nuclear weapons and an American Jewish community capable of making politicians pander in the most obsequious of ways? What is the AIPAC Conference if not a celebration of our own Purim-like transformation from terrifying weakness to intoxicating strength?
There are certainly some British Jews who might share this mentality -- though in their case it is largely a vicarious identification with American Jewish power. However, when I think back to the two Jews I with whom I had contact who made it over here in 1939 -- Peter Stern of Prague, who I knew slightly, and Peter Ganz of Mainz, who I knew quite well -- they would be turning in their graves.
Both were fine scholars, and civilised men, and would have viewed this kind of intoxication with power with revulsion and foreboding.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 04:41 AM
jdledell,
Thanks for the compliment, which is much appreciated.
What you say about Netanyahu's relationship to his father is most interesting. A frightening aspect may be that a weak man, attempting to live up to the demands of a tyrannical father, may do unpredictable things.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 04:46 AM
Babak Makkinejad,
I do not think that the British government has been 'hiding behind' Jews or Israel. As to the risks of the courses adopted, I would agree with you. The explanation, however, is that those in charge of British foreign policy do not know what they are doing.
On the ineptitude of British -- and European -- foreign policy, a discussion of Iran between the former British diplomat Peter Jenkins and George Kenney is interesting.
(See
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/12845/mutually_assured_madness )
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 04:55 AM
F.B. Ali,
I hope I did not sound too optimistic about the possibilities of controlling escalation.
What did however strike me was that when I followed up your link to the NYT report of 'Inland Look', it seemed to me possible that one of the points about the report was to signal a message both the Iranians and the Israelis.
I was struck by the following paragraph:
The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America's arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program -- if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retalation.
It seemed to me possible -- no more than that -- that the sources who had been involved in the exercise were happy to undermine what would be everyone's natural assumption -- that if U.S. armed forces were once drawn in, they could be relied upon to 'use the full force available to them'.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 05:18 AM
Good piece, Habakkuk.
You wrote of "The empowerment of Jews...would...come...into question" in England, and a possible recurrence of anti-Semitism, though not necessarily.
And you pointed out "What would certainly be at issue would be that it would no longer be natural to assume that a Jew could be, for example, Foreign Secretary, without the question of where his or her prime loyalties lay being raised."
Your country has a population of around 51 million. Ours is six (6) times that…and 15% are either un- or underemployed. We hear from power pundits here constantly that America supports Israel 100% (not true, people keep their mouths shut so they aren't Helen-Thomas'd). That support, however, is 3,000 miles wide and an inch deep among the Joe Six-Packs. If Israel attacks, and gas goes to $10/gal+plus, food through the roof because of the cost of transportation, and average folk can't afford milk for their kids or to drive to work, support for Israel will evaporate vocally. In plain language without filigree. American Jews will call it anti-semitism. The rest will call it righteous and ridiculous.
If the consequences are even more dire, and the situation becomes catastrophic (WWIII, bombs on our shores), you can count on anti-semitism here--take it to the bank--because Israel's actions will be seen as anti-gentile in the extreme after all the help we've given it, and all Jews will be blamed as a result (since all Jews are considered citizens of Israel). I'm already hearing the mutterings of it (started a year ago) from ordinary folk who can't understand why Obama had to meet with Netanyahu nine times during our financial crisis; each one of those visits takes up one month in Presidential preparation time, before and aft; or "Why do Jews get all this attention? They're 2%. Obama promised to deal with immigration." The spectacle of those 29 standing ovations have had a consequence and will have many more, and Israel never saw it coming. Dempsey is one.
This is the problem when you silence dissent, as AIPACADLJDL do for a living, and the problem when Americans succumb to the shaming. You get festering resentment that will surface full-blown with the right trigger. (There was a consequence to ruining Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr, and Rick Sanchez.) This is something Goldberg either doesn't have a handle on or chooses not to consider--his swing-his-dick blog exemplifies it--and neither do all the Jewish Richelieu's with White House, congressional, and media access. They're in a fantasy bubble pissing on decades of gentile goodwill, and after two wars this decade people are getting tired of it. (You got trauma? See a shrink & take your meds.) Cries of victimhood and persecution are going to fall on deaf ears should the hoi polloi start rumbling. Complete disinterest. Not even the Rapture rats could counter the mood change.
PS. jdledell: The New Yorker's David Remnick wrote recently he couldn't stand to be in the same room with Netanyahu Pere because of his extreme ugly racism.
Posted by: MRW | 24 March 2012 at 05:26 AM
@Pirate Laddie on evangelicals ...
In The Triple Alliance of The Chosen, The Elect, and The Saved, are evangelicals allies or clients? Hard to believe these missionary operations [US ministries and broadcasting networks] are maintained solely by donations from parishioners and listeners. The great wave of mass enthusiasm has gone by.
Posted by: rjj | 24 March 2012 at 08:26 AM
David, first, sorry for spamming the comment section, but it was more easy a while back to see if your comment was accepted. Now I sometimes need to enter a security code, sometimes not and the comment simply vanishes. As you, I found the discussion highly interesting, just as I was fascinated by jdledell's earlier contributions.
Even if my comment didn't give the impression, I absolutely agree with your critique of Peter's positions. What I appreciate is the debate he opens up for a more mainstream audience. His example shows how difficult any move in the right direction is. Watch the fierceness of the attacks from the right or ironically "liberal" Zionists establishment like Goldberg.
Both Peter Stern of Prague, Peter Ganz of Mainz] were fine scholars, and civilised men, and would have viewed this kind of intoxication with power with revulsion and foreboding.
Thanks for giving us the names. I used to buy in a little Jewish shop were many still spoke German, when I lived in London in the 70s. ... I didn't dare to speak German myself at the time. ;)
Concerning power, when I read your title "hubris and nemesis", I thought concerning hubris, didn't we experience it already during the Bush years down to the single average Joe we met on the net? Over here mediawise represented by the http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/authors/#autoren>Axis-of-Good. Only 15 years ago I was puzzled by a pair of raised eyebrows I faced when praising a special article by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henryk_Broder>Hendryk Broder,which I still think was brilliant, but on the other hand the submitted designs for the Holocaust memorial in Berlin handed him the material to ridicule on a plate. I was still a firm Hasbara at the time. The responses of the Bush administration to 911 and the "hybris" I seemed to encounter everywhere changed that dramatically. Broder, by the way, was involved with another Jewish German author, I highly respected up to this point, in polemics against the building of a Mosque here in Cologne, not too long ago, joining the extreme right. Suddenly Arabophobia became visible I didn't want to see or understand before. Only in Bush times I realized what the raised eyebrows signified. Bush politicized me to an extend nothing did before, as it forced me to learn more about the I/P conflict. And I absolutely doubt I am the only one.
Obama may have been disappointing to the extend his slogan Change, was utopian, but if he manages to reign in Netanyahu now, then he will be another Kennedy. Besides he always said that change needs many, many boots on the ground; e.g. Pat's committee of which you are a member.;)
Back to Beinart, there is absolutely no doubt that Israel's Iron-Wall-Strategy has long ago passed it's expiration date, and yes Israel is in deep crisis. To make it visible to more people every contribution in this direction is appreciated, if only for the reason it opens up debate. Let anyone contribute to the extend he can, Beinart may well change himself in the process and learn from his critics.
Maybe I am too optimist, but I prefer to be at the moment.
Posted by: LeaNder | 24 March 2012 at 08:34 AM
@DH:
a tyrannical father who renamed himself gift of god.
might also factor into the Mileikowsky family myth dynamic one impossible-to-live-up-to-now-he's-a-dead-hero older brother.
Posted by: rjj | 24 March 2012 at 09:19 AM
There is one central meme, that occasionally passes my mind in this context. I am not sure to what extend it may be driving people. It goes something like: If the Jews are threatened, it always is the start of a threat to all of us in the long run.
Maybe it is not always, as Pat often suggests, only the purely economic advantage that drives people?
The other central meme is Antisemitism as an eternal force here to stay, it only adapts to new circumstances. Remember the latest New Antisemitism?
I read two books on the Protocols lately. In the first admittedly in spite of reading the whole book, I couldn't manage to finish reading the introduction, and here is why:
http://www.richardlandes.com/books
“The introduction is indeed a tour de force, full of strong opinions expressed by the authors in a lively and often provocative style that combines the latest in post-postmodern critical thinking with common sense analysis. Some scholarly readers might react with dismay, but I think - and I am sure many readers will agree - that the statements for the most part are not only stimulating but indeed necessary for opening up a new debate on the subject of the "New Antisemitism's" demonization of Israel which is so often discussed in hackneyed and stultifyingly mealy-mouthed terms The passage is bold in the original.
The other book is a much better resent publication edited partly by a historian, I respect a lot and a scholar of literature. It's a completely different approach. It's not feeding the myth by showing it's constant growth but carefully dissecting facts from fiction, even in scholarly literature. In this book's suggested reading list, which was advertised as the latest study on the Protocols, at least over here, was listed justifiably among the: Litarary adaptations, semi-fictional and pseudo-scientific accounts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadassa_Ben-Itto#The_Lie_That_Wouldn.27t_Die
http://www.amazon.de/Die-Fiktion-von-j%C3%BCdischen-Weltverschw%C3%B6rung/dp/3835304984/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332595188&sr=8-1
Is that why it didn't make it to Amazon.com? And aren't the Protocols the main reason, that Jewish power can be both celebrated but at the same time denied to be discussed by non-Jews?
Posted by: LeaNder | 24 March 2012 at 09:31 AM
MRW
You get festering resentment that will surface full-blown with the right trigger.
I agree, and think this a very important element in the current mess. It completely baffles me that so many on both sides of the Atlantic cannot grasp that silencing criticism of Israel by playing on guilt is a strategy liable to blow up in their faces. It is a basic lack of 'horse sense'.
But this is in no way distinctively Jewish. Much of the political and media elite on our side of the Atlantic, as yours, lives in a kind of cocoon. The widespread lack of any sense of danger, in relation to where current policies with regard to Iran could end up, is another case in point.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 24 March 2012 at 10:29 AM