Despite the beating drums of war on its news pages from David Sanger and others, the Times published an intelligent, pragmatic outline of a possible agreement between Iran and the U.S., written by two senior diplomats of past Republican administrations, Tom Pickering and Bill Luers.  Here’s the heart of it:

 …The United States would agree to full recognition and respect for the Islamic Republic, and Iran would agree to regional cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both sides would agree to address the full range of bilateral disputes.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council could accept an Iranian civil nuclear program in return for Iran’s agreeing to grant inspectors full access to that program to assure that Iran did not build a nuclear weapon. Once international agencies had full access to Iran’s nuclear program, there could be a progressive reduction of the Security Council’s sanctions that are now in effect. Iran would agree to cease making threats against Israel, and the United States would agree to support efforts toward achieving a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

It would be important to make arrangements for Israel’s security; the exact shape of those measures would have to be worked out in the negotiations. An agreement in which there would be full access to Iran’s nuclear program, with a monitored limitation of 5 percent enrichment, would offer Israel additional reasons for confidence in the deal.

Both sides would agree to cooperate in reducing the influence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; in combating drug trafficking; and in keeping open the routes through which energy flows to the world from the Persian Gulf. Both sides would agree that while wide differences between the two nations remained, those differences must be resolved peacefully.

I’m not sure the 5% enrichment limitation is acceptable since it will hardly allow Iran to develop a civilian nuclear program.  But possibly no enrichment beyond 20% might work.  Also, the U.S. will have to promise to bring Israel into the NPT and to lobby intensively for a Middle East nuclear free zone.  Only the U.S. can compel Israel to do this.  Otherwise, it won’t happen.  Those are big stumbling blocks.

What the proposal doesn’t mention, and which could be a critical long-term component in any resolution, is solving the Israel-Palestine issue.  Even if the U.S. and Iran agree to a settlement between themselves, a festering Israel-Palestine conflict will maintain a high level of tension in the region.

The op-ed uses the example of Nixon and Mao’s rapprochement as a parallel to the current situation between Iran and the U.S.  But the former diplomats note this important distinction between the two eras and situations:

The China analogy for American-Iranian relations falls short in some areas. The most important is that Mao was ready for an American approach, while Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not. Instead, he is convinced that the United States will not work with Iran until his regime is gone.

For Iran’s leadership, the notion that the United States is bent on overthrowing its rulers is rooted in historical experience: the United States did overthrow Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953, supported the Shah afterward, supported Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran in the 1980s, and now backs increasing efforts to weaken and isolate Iran.

Reducing the malign influence of this legacy on the thinking of Ayatollah Khamenei will be essential to achieving any deal. Simply “keeping the door open to diplomacy” will not be sufficient. So the Iranian leader must be approached directly, but discreetly, by someone he trusts who conveys assurances from President Obama that covert operations and public pressure have been demonstrably reduced. The interlocutor might be a leader from a country in the region, enlisted when the American president felt the time was right.

Ayatollah Khamenei will have to be convinced by actions, not just messages. Just as Nixon halted covert action in Tibet before approaching China, a similar signal will be needed with Iran.

There is no guarantee that diplomacy will succeed. But that is also true of war. And only diplomacy can offer Iran’s current rulers a stake in building a secure future without a nuclear bomb. Only diplomacy can achieve America’s major objectives while avoiding the mistakes committed in Iraq or Vietnam.

After so much blather and delusional thinking from so many U.S. (I especially “like” Niall Ferguson’s call for a new “Six Day War” against Iran which would involve “creative destruction,” which is turn is reminiscent of that other infamously delusional phrase crafted by Condi Rice during the 2006 Lebanon war, which she called the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”), and particularly Israeli politicians and analysts, it’s finally welcome to hear clear thinking and realism.  Though I am afraid that the conflict has gone beyond such pragmatic approaches.  I fear that both sides are on the road to war and nothing can stop it.  Though I hope I’m wrong.

Another issue that complicates the Pickering-Luers proposal is that the U.S. would essentially have to turn its back on Israeli hysteria about Iran.  It would have to drop its participation in the Israeli covert ops campaign against Iran.  It would have to firmly tell Israel the war scenario has come to the end of the road.  We will also have to demand that Israel join NPT and that it confront world pressure for a nuclear free Middle East.  Israel wouldn’t have to necessarily accede to this immediately.  But it will not be able to dawdle forever as it has regarding solving the Palestine issue.  I just don’t see Obama having either the will or the muscle to pull this off.  If it were Nixon and Kissinger–maybe.  Or Clinton–maybe.  But Obama? He doesn’t have it in him.  Again, may I be proven wrong.

In a somewhat related development, Efraim Halevy, the former Mossad chief touts a Pax Israelitus which envisions toppling the Syrian regime, icing Iran out, replacing Assad with a compliant, pro-western (i.e. pro-Israel) puppet.  Of course, he only says some of those things.  But he means all of them.  Halevy has a grand vision that foresees a new Syria cutting Iran’s arms lifeline leading to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.  This is turn will somehow force Iran to end its nuclear program and even topple the Ayatollahs.

Though I usually find Halevy eminently pragmatic, here he’s drunk the typical Israeli Koolaid, which usually involves elaborate fantasies of skullduggery and manipulation that turns the world from hostile to friendly to Israeli interests.  Returning to the Pickering-Luers thesis, there is only one way to create a stable Middle East.  That is negotiations among equals and with full consideration of the interests of all parties.

What Halevy is proposing is more of the same contrived realpolitik which has meant rivers of blood running for decades.  It’s also part of a neocon vision of western intervention to make the Middle East safe for Israel and our interests.  Other pro-Israel sources who’ve been touting this path are Michael Weiss in the pages of Foreign Policy and the Aipac affiliated Washington Institute for Near East Policy.  They spin a fantasy of hitching our wagon to the star of the Free Syrian Army, which, once it comes to power, will cast out Iran, make nice with Israel and turn off the spigot to Hezbollah.

Instead, all parties including Israel, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and others need to sit and figure out how to give each party something of what they want to satisfy its most critical needs.  For Syria, that will mean a new government that is independent and not dominated by the U.S., the west or Israel.  One hopes such an independent Syria will pursue a course that favors neither Iran nor Israel unduly, but approaches each for what it can offer Syria.

This sort of new Syrian government would focus on improving its domestic economy and improving people’s lives rather than dabbling in regional power politics as it does now with Iran and Lebanon.  In turn, this would mean Israel would have to reign in its own impulse to dabble in the double game of spycraft and covert war against its neighbors.  Territorial disputes would be resolved by Israel returning the Golan and Shebaa Farms to their rightful owners.  In turn, Syria and Lebanon would recognize Israel and normalize relations.  This of course would help sideline or defang Hezbollah.

But none of this can happen through Halevy’s machinations.  It can only happen by negotiations in good faith, something Israel clearly isn’t prepared to do (yet).

Tamir Pardo scrambling Israeli politics by not heeding 'his master's voice' on Iran (digital painting, Ian Bunn)

Poor Bibi, he don’t get no respect.  Even his Mossad chief is bad-mouthing his cherished dogmas about Iran being an existential threat to Israel.  This week, the MFA hosts its annual confab for its ambassadors in which they hear off the record pep talks and briefings from the high and mighty in the political, military and intelligence hierarchy.  Among the speakers was Tamir Pardo, the Mossad director, who spoke candidly about Iran.

One of the ambassadors did a no-no and leaked Pardo’s comments to Barak Ravid, who reported them in today’s Haaretz. Pardo said:

…If Iran actually obtained nuclear weapons, it would not mean the destruction of the State of Israel.

“What is the significance of the term existential threat?” the ambassadors quoted Pardo as asking. “Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely. But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home. That’s not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely.”

What’s remarkable about this is Pardo’s recognition that Iran may get a nuclear weapon.  When Bibi and Barak and Barack are all fulminating against Iran and claiming they won’t allow them to get a bomb, the realists like Pardo and Dagan are recognizing that it may already be too late to stop this development.  Instead of guarding the barn after the horse has left, why don’t all of these parties spend some time deciding how best to either contain or co-exist with a nuclear Iran?

In all this, Pardo follows on the heels of his predecessor, Meir Dagan, who’s made it a personal crusade to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Pardo too appears to have gone out of his way to diss his nominal boss. This may be a good sign that there are some in the senior echelon who are not cowed by either Bibi or Barak and who will speak up candidly when necessary.  Statements like this give Bibi heartburn.  He vastly prefers toadies who do his bidding.

Of course, it does not mean there won’t be an attack on Iran. That would be going too far. But at least there’s one forthright individual in the halls of power.

Ravid also reports on a Daily Beast post by pro-Israel neocon, Eli Lake, in which he claims that the Obama administration is attempting to reassure the Israelis by determining with them what would be red lines beyond which Iran would not be allowed to cross without a military strike in response.  One red line noted is an Iranian attempt at “break-out,” that is moving from having the potential for creating a nuclear bomb to actually creating one.

If this is correct, it’s virtually meaningless since Iran is likely too  smart to move from researching how to make a weapon to actually making one.  It too understands the implications of such a move.  I personally doubt if Iran had the capacity to make a weapon that it would do so, unless it felt it faced an existential threat.  By this I don’t mean the term as Bibi used it, which is patently fake.  But an actual threat to the regime’s existence or to the nation from invasion or massive assault.

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday clock

You remember the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock which graced its monthly cover in the 1950s?  Periodically, the organization would announce how close we were to Nuclear Midnight depending on how grave relations were between the two major nuclear powers, the Russians and U.S.

Similarly, each day developments concerning Iran move my Doomsday Clock a minute closer or farther from midnight.  Right now, my sense is they’re at about four minutes till.  Everyone has their own conception of how dire things may be.  Maybe you’re at quarter till or one minute till.  Regardless of how close to the threshold we are, most of us would agree we are somewhere very close to it.

If war comes, at least for me it will be qualitatively different from most of the wars the U.S. has pursued in my adulthood.  The Gulf War you could justify based on Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.  Afghanistan you could justify based on 9/11.  With the Iraq War at least Bush-Cheney ginned up severe threats of WMD and Saddam seemed a genuinely evil dictator.  With Iran, if it happens, it will be different.  Iran, unlike Iraq, has not invaded any country (we can leave aside the issue of terrorism for now since an invasion is qualitatively different from supporting proxies engaged in acts of terror).  Unlike Iraq, it is ruled by strongmen-Ayatollahs, but this is nowhere near the dictatorial powers wielded in Iraq.  Iran even has vestiges of a democratic system, though it isn’t fully democratic.  Iran has a vastly more capable military force than Iraq with more sophisticated weapons.  And Iran fought and vanquished Saddam in an eight year-long war that tested the nation’s mettle in a way that neither Americans nor Israelis have been tested in decades.

There is no international consensus to attack Iran as there was in the conflicts I referenced above.  Obama and Netanyahu will have to face an intense level of opposition in the rest of the world to any strike against Iran.  And once the Iranian response is felt, that opposition promises only to grow.  As Obama enters a re-election campaign, I can’t imagine him winning if the Democratic left-liberals abandon him, as they would if he either participated in or supported an Israeli attack on Iran.  He may count on a short war which would be long behind him by Election Day.  But I can’t see how Iran turns into a short engagement given the latter’s resiliency in the face of other indomitable foes it’s faced.  I fear Obama (and certainly Israel) is making a major and disastrous miscalculation.

That’s why I think the notion of a Doomsday Clock and Nuclear Midnight is apt in the case of Iran.  Not to mention, that we’re once again arguing about nukes as we were with the Russkies in the 1950s.  Though I don’t think the issues are anywhere near the same today.  I think the issue of an Iranian bomb is not really the main issue.  I don’t think anyone truly believes the Iranians will use a nuclear weapon, though that’s what the warhawks claims to believe.  For Israel, as I’ve written here, the issues with Iran revolve around regional hegemony.  The former has never liked having charismatic Arab leaders to compete with (viz. Nasser), and always takes the first opportunity to cut such figures down to size.  Israel wants to maintain its prerogatives and will brook no opposition on that score.  No one crimps Israel’s style.

Another fear that motivates Israeli bellicosity around Iran is that with a nuclear arsenal the latter can buttress its solidarity with the Palestinians and other frontline states.  Not that Iran would threaten to use nuclear weapons.  I think the Ayatollahs are too shrewd for that.  But the mere fact that there is a regional Muslim power with a weapon acts as an unstated insurance policy for the Arab cause.  It offers a red line beyond which Israel may not go unless it wishes to provoke the ire of a nuclearized Iran.  This constraint on Israeli power is also viewed as insufferable by Tel Aviv.

Now an explanation from the day’s news why the situation today seems so dire: first, Bibi Netanyahu yesterday gave another one of his infuriating ‘history-lesson’ speeches about how he has a rendezvous with history.  Except, instead of Churchill’s rendezvous with history, Bibi has a rendezvous with David Ben Gurion and Jewish history.  You see, the decision to attack Iran is at least as decisive in the history of Israel as Ben Gurion’s decision to declare Israeli independence.  At times like this I think back fondly on Lloyd Bentsen’s brilliant put down of  Dan Quayle.  In Israeli terms it would go like this: “I knew David Ben Gurion (or ‘BG’ in Israeli terminology), I was friends with BG, you are no BG!”

Here are some of Bibi’s words:

Great statesmen as well as friends of the Jews and of Zionism” warned Ben-Gurion that declaring a Jewish state in 1948 would bring an invasion of Arab armies and a “grave and difficult battle”, Netanyahu said.

“He understood full well the decision carried a heavy price, but he believed not making that decision had a heavier price,” Netanyahu said. “We are all here today because Ben-Gurion made the right decision at the right moment.  Today we are all in agreement it was a considered, correct and responsible decision. I want to believe we will always act with responsibility, courage and determination to make the right decisions to ensure our future and security,” Netanyahu said.

Although Netanyahu didn’t mention Iran or its nuclear program in his speech, it was quite clear that Netanyahu was using his speech to draw a comparison between himself and Ben-Gurion, and between Ben-Gurion’s decision to proclaim the foundation of the State of Israel and the decisions he, Netanyahu, is facing today to counter the Iranian nuclear threat.

How dare this two-bit tin-pot megalomaniac take the mantle of Winston Churchill or David Ben Gurion.  World War II and 1948 were indeed periods in which humanity was in the crucible of history.  Epochal decisions were made.  The decision to attack Iran, if it is made, will be nothing more than an expression of one leader and nation’s deep level of paranoia.  Such an attack will go down in history as a monumental catastrophe for all parties involved.  At least Avner Cohen can be consoled because he believes such idiocy can be redeemed by the declaration of the Middle East as a nuclear free zone.  I wish I had Avner’s optimism.  I think it might lead the region even deeper into the swamp of fratricide, if not genocide.

Besides Bibi’s “Sword of David” speech, the Telegraph reports that Ayatollah Khameini and Iran’s highest military officials have raised the readiness of the country’s armed forces to their highest level.  Presumably, leaves have been cancelled, readiness drills are underway, missiles and other advanced weapons systems are being dispersed throughout the country in order to prevent their being targeted in an attack and enabling them to survive to deal a return blow against any attacker:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s spiritual leader, issued a directive to the heads of all the country’s military, intelligence and security organisations to take all necessary measures to protect the regime.

Gen Jaafari responded to this directive by ordering Revolutionary Guards units to redistribute Iran’s arsenal of long-range Shahab missiles to secret sites around the country where they would be safe from enemy attack and could be used to launch retaliatory attacks.

In addition, the Iranian air force has formed a number of “rapid reaction units”, which have been carrying out extensive exercises to practice a response to an enemy air attack.

The Iranian leadership fears the country is being subjected to a carefully co-ordinated attack by Western intelligence and security agencies to destroy key elements of its nuclear infrastructure.

In a related matter, the U.S. finally conceded that the drone which crashed inside Iran was, as the Iranians had claimed, its most advanced Sentinel RQ-170 stealth vehicle.  It also acknowledged that the craft was being operated by the CIA, thus confirming that its flight had nothing to do with Afghanistan, but was rather a secret spying mission inside Iran.  We did deny, though, that the Iranians shot down the plane, saying instead that there was a communications failure that caused it to crash.  This would explain why it was relatively intact when it landed.  And it would counter the Iranians claim that they succeeded in downing the plane themselves.

This incident calls to mind another one which rattled two earlier superpowers: the Russian downing of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2, which led to a massive escalation in tension between Russia and the U.S.  The confrontation was defused by two relatively adult, mature leaders, Kennedy and Khrushchev, who negotiated a prisoner exchange which brought Powers home.  Frankly, I doubt we have such a quality of leadership.  Today, our leaders are more likely to drag us deeper into a quagmire than extricate us from one as the two leaders did in 1962.

As in those days, everyone in Iran and the U.S. knows that we’re doing this, but to have the evidence right out in the open creates an even higher level of paranoia on both sides (but especially the Iranian).  If it weren’t for the loss of its most advanced surveillance and stealth technology, I don’t think the U.S. would mind the level of anger this will generate within Iran.  Our policymakers would say: if it gets the average Iranian riled up, it might make the Ayatollahs do something really stupid which we can exploit and use against them.

The Iranians aren’t the only ones who are paranoid and misconstruing reality.  A top state department non proliferation expert rattled sabers today:

“Iran…is becoming a pariah state,” Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department senior adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, told a news conference in the South Korean capital.

“The situation in Iran has become more and more worrisome. The timeline for its nuclear programme is beginning to get shorter, so it is important we take these strong steps on an urgent basis.

“If we do not, pressures will grow for much stronger actions. The U.S. favours a diplomatic solution pressure, but if we cannot achieve a diplomatic solution soon, inevitably interests will grow in a different kind of solution.

There are several outrageous, but interesting aspects to this passage.  First, Panetta warns Iran that closing the Straits of Hormuz would be a casus belli in American eyes.  Of course, Iran has not threatened to do so unless IT is attacked.  So either the U.S. is deliberately distorting the scenario so it appears that Iran might engage in an act worthy of a U.S. declaration of war; or he’s warning the Iranians that if future attacks against Iran which the U.S. and Israel have planned, ever give the regime the idea that it can use closing the Straits as a tactical tool, they ought to think again.

Second, Panetta’s claim that Iran is the greatest threat to the stability and security of the region is blatantly false.  Whatever level of threat Iran may pose, Israel poses as great or greater one.  It has 200-400 nuclear weapons.  It, as Panetta himself conceded in this same speech, is a pariah in the region despised by almost everyone in ways it wasn’t as recently as a year or two ago.  Israel, contrary to Iran, has shown itself more than willing to attack and invade neighboring countries in attacks causing the deaths of thousands of civilians.  Israel, contrary to its claims, has remained unwilling to compromise in ways that might resolve the serial conflicts with any of the frontline states.

Returning to the issue of sanctions, another NY Times article about their disruptive impact not just on the Iranian economy but on the world oil economy contains this prescient warning from a prominent Iranian-American analyst:

“At some point, sanctions become an act of war,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and an expert on Iranian affairs. “If you cut Iran out of the oil market, this is no longer economic pressure.”

What especially troubles me is that we, the U.S. are being led by the nose in this belligerency toward Iran.  This is not our fight.  Iran is not our mortal enemy.  It does not pose an existential threat to us.  Nor does it to Israel, but that’s another topic I’ve previously addressed.  Even with a nuclear weapon, Iran will pose no greater threat to world stability than Pakistan or North Korea.  The key is to manage the threat and not to eradicate it with violence.

I am not arguing that Iran is not a danger to the region.  It clearly is.  But it does not pose as great a danger, to my mind, as Israel does.  Instead of contemplating war to end the Iranian threat, we ought to be contemplating what inducements we could offer the Iranians to end their program.  Barring that, we should begin considering George Kennan’s approach of containing Iranian power, rather than going toe to toe against it.

The series of conflicts we’ve engaged in over the past decade have shown that American power is no long pre-eminent or omnipotent.  America can lose.  If a foe is persistent enough and has access to lethal-enough means, our enemies can make us bleed.  And America is growing weary of its boys dying on desert sands in faraway lands.  I don’t think Pres. Obama can make the case for going into yet another Middle East guerrilla conflict whose impact could last years.

I foresee an attack on Iran possibly turning into the type of morass which Napoleon and Hitler entered when they each decided to invade Russia.  This in turn led to them each facing a monumental defeat that led to their ultimate demise.  Iran too might be that sort of black hole for U.S. and Israeli power.  No, we wouldn’t be invading Iran in the same way they did.  But an attack on Iran would draw such a furious counterattack, that even against our will we might be drawn into a campaign of regime change.  Such a plan would require boots on the ground and an invasion.  Then we would be talking along the lines of Napoleon and Hitler’s folly.

As days like this mount up, as the threats, paranoia, and bellicosity rise, I become more and more convinced that an attack is likely.

All I can say to you readers is: I hope you don’t get sick of this.  I don’t know how you could, but it’s possible some of you would prefer to be ogling Lady Gaga’s latest outfit.

The drama playing itself out in the Middle East and other capitals around the world is endlessly fascinating.  It’s almost like a miniature version of the lineup of world powers that faced off shortly before World War I.  Though I don’t mean to imply that we’re facing the next world war.  I do mean that the intrigue of this showdown between Iran and the west in general, and Iran and Israel in particular is riveting.  There is so much blood, conniving, and spookery, it as good or better than a John le Carre spy thriller.

The post I’m writing tonight was inspired by a conversation I had earlier this evening with Avner Cohen, perhaps the world’s leading academic expert on Israel’s nuclear program.  I’m going to weave together Avner’s ideas with my own, so the ones he agrees with shall be his own, and ones he doesn’t (if there are any) shall be mine.

A questions that always hovers over this debate for me is: why would Israel, in this day and age of savage advanced weaponry, play Russian roulette with Iran?  Why are Israeli leaders ready to go to war?  After all, the stakes are incredibly high.  Thousands, if not more will die on both sides.  The benefits to Israel appear marginal compared to the risks.  Just why is this so damn important?

Avner offered me some interesting insights (he’s just published this op-ed in today’s Haaretz).  Bibi and Barak have different, but overlapping motivations.  For Bibi, Israel’s nuclear arsenal gives it the ultimate veto power over demands placed on it by the U.S. and the world.  For the Likud and the Israeli far-right the biggest threat to their vision of Israel isn’t the Palestinians, whose power to change the map are minimal.  Rather it is the outside world, who they believe could attempt in the future to impose an arrangement on Israel that was against their interests or principles.  With a nuclear capacity, Israel can afford to say, simply, No.

For Barak, the considerations are different.  It has always been critical in the defense minister’s view for Israel to have decisive military superiority in the region.  With a nuclear advantage he has this in spades.  WMD gives Israel the ability to maintain its regional interests.  It throws just enough of the fear of god into other players that they must tiptoe where Israel’s interests are concerned.  Were Israel to lose this advantage, its room for tactical maneuvering would be far more limited.  Once Iran or another country in the region gets the bomb, Israel is no longer the top dog of the Middle East.  It becomes merely one among equals, or perhaps even an also ran.  Then Israel can get pushed around either by frontline states or world powers.  Its sphere of interest will diminish considerably and it may even be forced to make concessions or compromises against its will.

Seeing the possibility that Iran will gain a nuclear capability and the ill that it could bring Israel, Barak is sorely tempted to do whatever he can to delay that day.  For him, Iran with a bomb is not just a threat in and of itself, it marks the end of 60 years of Israeli dominance of Middle East realpolitik.  It’s a fate the defense minister is prepared to do everything in his power to avoid–including war, if necessary.  And he must do this while Israel still has the advantage.  After Iran gets the bomb the region will be different, and it won’t be nearly as much fun for the generals and spymasters who’ve been used to having broad leeway and deference from their neighbors.

Avner also offered me a fascinating insight into how the warning flares of an Israeli attack first went up around six weeks ago.  They began with reports  in multiple Israeli newspapers, virtually at the same time that Bibi and Barak were prepared to go to war imminently.  The language used was so dire, the pleading of the columnists so woeful, anyone with eyes in their head could see that these otherwise sober, even cynical reporters were begging the world to stop Israel before it was too late.

What was the spur for this, what convinced journalists that we were in a make or break moment?  Cohen tells me he understands that something very specific happened during this period.  He’s not sure what it was, but it clearly took the form either of the successful test of a new weapons system or technological capability; or perhaps the completion of a major training exercise/drill connected to an Iran attack.  Here is how Haaretz, in a November 4th article by Yossi Verter, alluded to the same phenomenon:

Why did the public-media discussion [regarding an Iran attack] break out in such intensity in the past week?  According to several discreet independent sources, in the last two to three weeks something happened, some sort of development in the political-security arena which pointed out to those in the know that the level of preparation for an attack had risen by a significant step.  The various sources don’t disagree on the importance of the development, only on when it occurred.

Whatever the specific event, it was some sort of milestone that Israel needed to pass in order to offer certainty that the attack was guaranteed success (at least in Israel’s eyes, if not those of the rest of us who are doubtful).  Once it was completed, Israel was ready for war.

I ran this scenario by my own Israeli source who confirmed the general outlines but would not go into particulars because it is “very sensitive.”  If you add to this the fact that the same source has told me that there are many more “surprises” in store for the Iranians in the future, I come to believe that Israel has been spending massively to prepare multiple types of cyberattacks and advanced weapon systems which will amplify the impact of their strike.  In his own pro-Israel ‘kid in a candy store’ sort of way, Eli Lake wrote exuberantly of such prospects recently.

Remember the $300-million that George Bush gave Meir Dagan around 2007?  Where do you think it’s being spent?  In mounting a massive campaign to develop cyberwarfare skills (of which Stuxnet is only the tip of the iceberg), in subsidizing the Mossad to the tune of tens of millions, and its MEK collaborators to the likely tune of millions for their spying and sabotage missions inside Iran among others.  Where do you think the hundreds of thousands of dollars MEK is spending to lobby for its removal from the Treasury Department’s terror list comes from?  How ’bout the black ops program which caused the Nov. 12th missile base explosion and the Isfahan blast and assassinations of three nuclear scientists?  All paid for by Bush and implemented by Israel through its spy agencies.

Yossi Melman with his typical touch of Israeli braggadocio, confirms as much (Hebrew) in today’s Haaretz, in which he recites the litany of suspected terror attacks by Israel against Iran, ending with this:

It’s clear that the damage caused by these types of operations required great sophistication and financial and technological resources in the form of field agents and intelligence that was timely and precise.

Where I profoundly disagree with him and all the other Israeli spooks who brag and crow about these achievements, is that it will have any sort of long-term impact on Iran, its possible WMD development, or the region.  Here’s an example of what I find objectionable in this approach:

Even if the CIA and Mossad are not involved in these operations, the very hints which allude to their involvement serve the purposes of western intelligence services.  They create an image of them as omnipotent and intensify the fears of the Iranian leadership.  In the lingo of intelligence this is known as psychological warfare.

I’ve got news for Melman.  It ain’t gonna work.  Meir Dagan may have ice water running through his veins, but his Iranian counterpart is no less steely.  The rhetoric above is precisely what is wrong about the Israeli attitude and psychological profile.  There’s a sort of swagger in the step, and self-confidence bordering on pathology.  Whatever we do is gonna work.  Whatever we say is going to throw the fear of God into ‘em.  But it doesn’t work that way anymore.  Israel is no-doubt powerful, it may even win the battle if it strikes Iran.  But as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, Israel will lose the war.

In fact, another interesting part of my conversation with Avner Cohen involved a discussion of the aftermath of such an attack.  He believes that the world will be so disturbed by the outcome that there will be an outcry for a Middle East nuclear free zone.  Though Barak believes he can finesse his way out of such a development, the Israeli scholar believes there will be overwhelming international support for one.  The numbers of dead on both sides, the devastation to city and countryside, all will be so severe that nothing less than ridding the region of WMD will have to be the result.  It will be the price the world will expect and demand from both Israel and Iran.

I’m not sure I agree.  Avner may be more of an optimist on this score than I.  Of course, if something as disastrous as a war has to happen it would be redemptive for some good to come out of it as the declaration of the United Nations emerged from the ashes of World War II.  But I’m not as sanguine that the world can be unified enough to make such a thing happen.

Now a word about the MEK, those darlings of the Beltway political punditocracy.  Yossi Melman confirms the critical role it plays in fomenting terror and instability inside Iran:

With all due respect to the great efforts invested by western intelligence agencies–and we’re speaking here of operational coordination whose like may never have been seen before–it’s hard to imagine that such operations could’ve succeeded without internal support [within Iran].  That is, without the support of individuals, groups and organizations opposed to the regime and prepared to aid in these acts of sabotage [or "terror"].

Melman continues droning on about the dissatisfaction brewing within the country among ethnic minorities so angered by the regime that they’d be willing to rise up against it, engage in massive terror attacks, and overthrow it.  It’s precisely such delusions and utter ignorance about the actual internal dynamics of Iran that breed the types of monomaniacal Israeli policies I’ve been discussing here.

On the day that Israel launched the newest prototype of the launch vehicle for its Jericho III missile, Channel 10′s Tzinor Layla interviewed me.  There was a gag on reporting the exact nature of the missile that was launched. But as long as a foreign reporter said it, it was OK for the Israeli censor. We’re sometimes very useful in that way.  To this day, the New York Times and its “ground-breaking” Israel bureau still insist on reporting only that a “missile” was launched, despite the fact that both AP and my own Israeli source have reported that it was a Jericho III. Ground-breaking indeed.

Mahmoud Abbas delivered his UN speech today to rapturous applause from the assembled delegates.  Bibi Netanyahu–not so much.

In one especially telling passage he likened the Palestinian demand for statehood to the Arab Spring, calling it the Palestinian Spring.  But Bibi warns in his speech that it could turn into an Iranian winter (a nuclear winter, of course).  But it is Bibi who’s suffering through winter, a winter of the world’s discontent with Israel’s intransigence.

Didi Remez offers a scan from Maariv which notes Bibi is using his tried and true method of advancing Israel’s interests on the world stage: bribery.  Just as he bribed Romania and Bulgaria to vote No on statehood by offering 1,000 Israeli work permits to each, he’s offer “foreign and military aid” to Portugal, Nigeria, and Gabon to secure their No votes.  There’s nothing like a country that argues its case solely based on merit, is there?

Bibi's UN sophistries

Bibi’s speech (full text) was full of his usual sour-dourness.  Imagine he flies all the way to New York to address the General Assembly and all he can muster is dark imprecations about the UN being a “place of darkness” for Israel and ” a theater of the absurd.”  Of course, he’s referring largely to the Zionism is Racism resolution which harkens back to the dark ages of the 1970s.  No one appears to have told Bibi that times have changed and that in today’s world Israel is rightly condemned not for Zionism, but for killing civilians and other acts which many consider violations of international law.

Among Bibi’s many sins of omission and commission are this conflation of the PA and Hamas:

President Abbas just said on this podium that the Palestinians are armed only with their hopes and dreams. Yeah, hopes, dreams and 10,000 missiles and Grad rockets supplied by Iran, not to mention the river of lethal weapons now flowing into Gaza from the Sinai, from Libya, and from elsewhere.

In fact, the PA has performed diligently in guaranteeing security in the West Bank and for Israel as well.  No missiles are launched from Fatah territory into Israel.  Yet somehow this good is transformed into bad and Fatah and Hamas are conflated as if they are one and the same.  In fact, Israel has refused to encourage any political process by which the PA might be governed democractically by either Fatah or Hamas.  In effect, Bibi has only himself to blame.

Someone he also counted up Hamas’ missile inventory and discovered that all “10,000″ Grad rockets have an Iranian imprint on them.  Curiously, not even his own intelligence agencies have made such a vague, unproven claim.

Bibi begins his speech on a note of sheer chutzpah claiming to reach out his hand in peace to every state which Israel has affronted through war and acts of violence including Turkey, Syria, and last but not least the Palestinians.  It reminds me of that old saying: you can’t piss on my back and tell me it’s rain.  That’s pretty much what Bibi’s doing here.

He is the ultimate chutzpan (someone showing chutzpah), saying he’s willing to go anywhere to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, even willing to meet Abbas right there in New York at the UN.  If that’s so then why did Avigdor Lieberman, Yuli Edelstein and Ron Prosor make such an ostentatious point of exiting the hall during Abbas’ speech (Hebrew here)?  And believe me, such senior officials don’t decide on their own to take such a flagrant and public action.  Their boss, the prime minister, surely knew what they planned to do and approved it.  And if he didn’t then he’s a leader who doesn’t know how to control his subordinates.

Both Bibi and Barack said in their speeches that peace cannot be won through UN resolutions.  They conveniently forget that national independence can indeed be won through such resolutions, which was how Israel won its recognition as a new state in 1947.

Israel’s PM raises the specter of “militant Islam,” that bogeyman so useful to Islamophobes and radical right-wing Israelis everywhere.  When the odds are against you you can always pull out the specter of bin Laden to shock and frighten your audience.  There is yet another noxious element to the abuse of this trope: it confuses the Palestinian struggle for nationhood with a religious holy war.  There is no religious war between Israel and Palestine.  There is a war for national independence and rights, which is not the same thing.  To claim anything else is a lie.  But a lie that is convenient to all the radical Judeans (settlers) who envision a final Gog and Magog between the religious forces of Good and Evil.

I wouldn’t mind Bibi likening “militant Islam” to a noxious reptile if he’d also do the same for militant Judaism (in the form of the settler movement):

[Our] critics continue to press Israel to make far-reaching concessions…They praise those who unwittingly feed the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam…They cast as enemies of peace those of us who insist that we must first erect a sturdy barrier to keep the crocodile out, or at the very least jam an iron bar between its gaping jaws.

As Yousef Munayyer points out, if Palestinians likened the settlers to reptiles, the latter would be the first to shrey about anti-Semitism.  Yet somehow, Bibi gets a pass.  Bibi I’ll make you a deal: you call the settlers creeping insects, crawling reptiles or other noxious treif animals and I’ll be OK with all the crocodile stuff.  Deal?

Here, Israel’s leader adds further insult to injury:

Militant Islam has already taken over Lebanon and Gaza.

This of course presumes that Hezbollah rules Lebanon, which is not the case.  Hezbollah may have veto power over the current government, but that’s not the same as ruling.  Lebanon is far too complicated a country politically and ethnically for Hezbollah or Islamism to prevail there.

Here Bibi again posits an imaginary militant Islam tearing up peace treaties:

It’s determined to tear apart the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan.

If those peace treaties are torn up it will only be Israel’s fault because it didn’t resolve the underlying conflict with all the frontline Arab states.  No one, as far as I know has said a word about tearing up the treaty with Jordan.  Again, this is Bibi’s delusion.

Here, Netanyahu attempts to rewrite history:

In 2000 Israel made a sweeping peace offer that met virtually all of the Palestinian demands. Arafat rejected it.

Easy for Bibi to talk about Camp David when he himself opposed, and has opposed virtually every major peace effort.  And easy for him to call it a sweeping offer when he wasn’t the Palestinian leader being asked to accept half a loaf.  The Camp David offer was simply not enough territory for Arafat to be able to accept it, and even senior U.S. negotiators like Aaron David Miller have conceded this in books they’ve written.

Bibi further advances the preposterous argument that the West Bank promises to become a terror state with missiles smuggled into the Hebron Hills to rain down on Israelis living below.  And he has the chutzpah to call this scenario “very real.”  The only thing raining down on the Hebron Hills are the bullets and blows of far-right settlers beating up Palestinian farmers and shepherds and burning their fields.

In a further insult to injury, Bibi adds another canard to the list of infractions in his speech.  He advances the lie that the PA’s UN observer called for Palestine to be “Judenrein.”  This is a flat-out lie.  What the ambassador did say was that he envisioned something that virtually every major Israeli center-right politician has said hundreds of times over–that the two peoples should be separated from each other for their own security.  He said nothing about no Jews being allowed within Palestine, but rather that the two states should be separated.  In fact, Palestinians leaders and even some religious settlers envision a future in which Jews may live within Palestine as long as they take Palestinian citizenship and accept Palestinian sovereignty.  I only wish Israel’s leaders would do the same for Palestinian refugees seeking to return to their historic homeland.

One of the most incredible fictions Netanyahu advances is the notion that his historic claim to the land is confirmed by the fact that he can read his family name in historic Israelite inscriptions:

In my office in Jerusalem, there’s a — there’s an ancient seal. It’s a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there’s a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That’s my last name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin — Binyamin — the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria [sic] 4,000 years ago, and there’s been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.

His Diaspora family name was not Netanyahu, but Miliekovski.  In other words, national identity isn’t just inherited.  It isn’t based on fact or history alone.  It can also be a construct.  There’s nothing wrong with that as the Palestinians to an extent have done just the same.  But what IS wrong with this process is if you confuse historical fact with your own personal definitions or aspirations.  Bibi’s claim to the land is a Zionist construct which he and others fill with meaning.  It is created or willed, not God-given and certainly not solely determined by history.

Bibi’s sophistries continue with this one:

So let’s meet here today in the United Nations. Who’s there to stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations?

What’s to stop you, Bibi?  How about thousands of Israeli troops maintaining a massive Occupation along with 500,000 Israeli settlers displacing the former Palestinian landowners and residents of that land?  How about that?  This situation reminds me of the midrash of God holding Mt. Sinai over the heads of the Israelites and offering them the Torah and asking whether they accept it.  They had little choice, did they?  Well, Abbas is saying that Palestinians have free will and they won’t be railroaded by superior power into a sham deal.

Bibi asks this interesting question about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Can you imagine that man who ranted here yesterday — can you imagine him armed with nuclear weapons?

A fair question perhaps.  But can the world imagine Bibi Netanyahu armed with 400 nuclear weapons?  Why is a single Iranian weapon more dangerous than Israel’s 400?  And does the world truly believe that Ahmadinejad is any less a radical troglodyte for his country’s interests than Bibi is for his?

Another telling passage from his speech:

Millions of Arabs have taken to the streets to replace tyranny with liberty, and no one would benefit more than Israel if those committed to freedom and peace would prevail.

This of course is a delusion.  Israel doesn’t welcome the Arab Spring.  It’s petrified of it.  What Israel wants is an Arab Spring that continues Israeli hegemony over the region and its interests there.  This will not happen.  So Bibi here is spouting pure sophistry.

What this speech proves more than anything else is that peace is impossible given the current Israeli leadership.  There is nothing but deafness on that side.  So if Obama, the UN, the Europeans, the Quartet want peace they must bring it themselves by imposing a settlement.  But the first step in doing this is throwing a bucket of cold water in Bibi’s face, and recognizing a Palestinian state will do that.

Uzi Arad and Bibi Netanyahu toast during happier days (Moshe Milner)

Yesterday, I reported a story from Yediot that claimed Uzi Arad had given a U.S. diplomat a copy of the secret Lindenstraus report on the second Lebanon war.  Turns out, there were two accurate claims in the report–that it involved the U.S. and a secret report.  But the rest was wrong.

Today, a different story has been reported by Channel 2 about the reason for Arad’s brusque firing by Bibi Netanyahu from his senior post as national security advisor.  The news report says that Arad briefed Israeli reporters and revealed that during the prime minister’s July 2010 visit to the White House, the U.S. and Israel secretly upgraded the level of their nuclear cooperation.  This, according to Haaretz, followed on the heels of Obama’s surprise endorsement of a nuclear-free Middle East in which all states endorsed the NPT.  This raised fears in Israel that pressure would be brought to bear against it as a non-signatory.  The agreement was meant to reassure Israel.

Since the 1970s, Israel has been punished for not signing the NPT by being prohibited from building a civilian nuclear program.  Only one other country in the world is an NPT non-signatory which received a “waiver” to build its own civilian nuclear power facility with U.S. approval: India.  This is what Arad was telling the world.  Israel had achieved what only one other country in the world had.  The ability to thumb one’s nose at NPT while having civilian nuclear power: like having your cake and eating it too.

Given the sensitivity of the subject, considering Iran’s nuclear program and Israeli-U.S. hyperventilation about the threat it poses, Arad’s revelation can only have complicated relations between the U.S. and other Mideast states.  Further, considering the U.S. was secretly upgrading cooperation with an Israel which has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, while it railed against Iran (an NPT signatory) for having the temerity to want what Israel has had for decades–well, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

That is what this 7th Eye report explicitly confirms, saying that the U.S. offered to provide Israel nuclear fuel for civilian uses:

Because Israel was a serious, responsible state.

…As opposed to a certain other Middle East state who didn’t yet have nuclear weapons, was an NPT signatory, but nevertheless was unserious and untrustworthy…

Though Israel has Dimona, which produces fuel for its nuclear weapons, it does not have civilian nuclear power capacity.  That’s what the U.S. was offering.   Materiel and know-how that could begin a civilian nuclear power industry in Israel, to be used by Israel to produce not only electric power, but also in technological processes and to power various types of sophisticated equipment.  Israel, of course, viewed this as a Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the White House that its status as a nuclear power was in the good graces of Washington.

All this of course put the lie to U.S. efforts to inhibit nuclear proliferation both in Iran and throughout the Middle East.  How could we look at such countries with a straight face and tell them they should remain nuclear-free, when we were rewarding Israel’s defiance of NPT with secret accords and other goodies?

Senior Israeli minister Yuval Steinitz went further in his own remarks and said that the agreement with the U.S. put in on a par with India (another NPT refuser) as a nation with which the U.S. engaged in similar secret nuclear agreements.  The message Steinitz sought to convey was that Israel, like India, could maintain its favored relationship with the U.S. while remaining outside the NPT.  He went even farther in calling the agreement a “historic declaration.”  This naturally didn’t sit well with the U.S., which could see all manner of countries, nuclear and wanna-be, lining up for similar treatment.  Not to mention, both Arad and Steinitz were explicitly undermining Obama’s call for NPT to be accepted throughout the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, the Obama administration immediately denied that there had been any agreement between itself and Israel about nuclear cooperation.  And just like that, Israel’s civilian nuclear power dreams went up in smoke.  Needless to say, this sort of thing makes a president very cranky.  So that’s why Uzi Arad was canned.  Considering the level of threat Arad had already posed to U.S. intelligence given the Rosen-Aipac spy scandal, there was surely little love lost between Arad and this administration and the latter would have shed few tears at his firing.  Haaretz also notes that poor Uzi has also lost his top level security clearance for his indiscretion.  So his career inside the security establishment seems over, at least for now.  But people like Arad in Israeli politics seem to come back like a bad penny.

The irony of Bibi being off today to none other than Washington to meet the president who originally promised (or so Israel believed) the nuclear cooperation deal isn’t lost on many Israelis or on Obama.  Couldn’t be worse timing to have such a incident clouding such a meeting.

One final word, Arad claims that he let this news slip accidentally in a briefing he gave to Israeli journalists.  If you believe this I have a bridge I want to sell you.  In fact, Arad has to say this because if he leaked the material knowingly, then he could  (and probably would) be prosecuted.  By claiming it was an accident, he makes it harder for the prosecutor to build a case against him.  The attorney general, in considering bringing charges, decided not to.  So as I wrote yesterday, Anat Kamm gets up to nine years for leaking documents far less damaging to Israel’s interests than what Arad did.  The latter almost single-handedly sunk Israel’s chance of a civilian nuclear power industry.  What did Kamm do?  Revealed that a general aided and abetted commission of a war crime for which he was not, and will never be prosecuted.  In Israel, justice isn’t blind.  It looks out for the powerful and tramples the lowly and the weak.

Ehud Barak was a guest on Greta Van Sustern’s FoxNews show tonight (no I don’t watch regularly, I was channel surfing) and made some surprising statements after a meeting with the UN’s Ban Ki-Moon.  First, Van Sustern asked him almost querulously: Geez, you won’t stop settlements, the Palestinians won’t come to the table unless you do, what do you expect us to do for you?  Barak’s clueless answer shows just how bereft of options he and his government are at this juncture:

I’ll be tomorrow in Washington and early next week, I’ll probably know more.  I am here to try and help to find the right formula.

When your interviewer asks you what her country can do to help you make peace and all you can do is punt–not a good sign.  To paraphrase a Paul Simon lyric: you don’t know where you’re going and my friend neither do I.

One of the neat ideas Barak has dreamed up to force the Palestinians back to the table (yes, didn’t you know it was the Palestinians’ fault the negotiations failed?) is for the UN to demand that the Palestinians resume negotiations.  That’ll go over big with a world body which basically believes that this whole mess is Bibi & Co.’s fault.

Neat idea #2 concerned Iran: as far as Barak and sanctions are concerned, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  The operative word for sanction hawks used to be “punishing sanctions.”  Now they’re ratcheted up the rhetoric and the Israeli defense minister is calling for “paralyzing sanctions.”  Perhaps he’s calling for inducing an Iranian polio epidemic?  What else could that mean?  Laying siege to Iranian ports?  Boarding ships on the high seas to enforce a blockade?  Who knows, and the skies the limit as far as those pesky Israelis are concerned.

When asked how far Iran was from getting a nuclear weapon, Barak demurred giving a substantive answer.  But he did make this revealing reference I haven’t heard an Israeli official make in a long time:

I think and I expect in the [garbled] community while considering the timeline for all these sanctions and Chapter 7 kind of resolutions in the UN Security Council, to bear in mind that time is not infinite and beyond a certain window of opportunity the Iranians will get immunity through redundancy [they will have the components of their nuclear weapons so dispersed and redundant that their program cannot be stopped].

The reference to Chapter 7 really caught my eye because it’s the category of resolution that is necessary in order to approve the use of force against a member state.  In fact, the Bush Administration attempted to invoke it in 2006.  Typically, the interviewer let the reference slip by and didn’t catch its potential significance.

Of course, there are several members of the Security Council who might frown on a Chapter 7 resolution since it clearly could be construed as a step closer to war.  Barak can’t seriously believe Israel would get such a resolution through the Council.  But since he’d just returned from a meeting with the UN secretary-general, this was clearly one of the things he was proposing.  I believe it’s likely this is a part of the game of psychological warfare waged by the Israelis against the Iranians.  But what the Israelis don’t seem to realize is that the Iranians are not stupid.  They know Israel has no hope of such a resolution.  So the entire exercise appears as a bluff, making Israel appear to be an empty suit.

I also believe the entire issue of Iran, as far as Israel is concerned, is that slight distraction that magicians count on to fool their mark.  It’s the moment that allows the magician to pull off the trick.  In this case, the trick is the Palestinian conflict and Iran is the distraction, the escape valve that lets off steam when Israel fails to meet its obligations to negotiate an end to the conflict.  What better way to turn the world’s attention away from Israel’s failure than to conjure the Iranian bogeyman who allegedly threatens not just Israel, but the entire world?

Haaretz reports that 26 former EU leaders have signed a sharp letter to the current EU leadership asking it to take strong measures to protest Israel’s violation of international law and to support Palestinian efforts to establish a state.  Among the signatories were former EU foreign affairs minister Javier Solana, former German president Richard von Weizsacker, former Irish president Mary Robinson, and former prime ministers of Spain and Italy, Felipe Gonzales and Romano Prodi:

The European leaders are backing the Palestinians’ efforts to rally international support for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state as an alternative to the negotiations that have reached an impasse. They note that the Palestinians cannot expect to be able to set up an independent state without international political and economic assistance.

…They also want it made clear that a European Union decision to upgrade relations with Israel and other bilateral agreements will be frozen unless Israel freezes settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

They also propose that the EU announce that it will not accept any unilateral changes to the 1967 border that Israel carried out against international law, and that the Palestinian state would cover an area the same size as the area occupied in 1967. This would also include the establishment of a capital in East Jerusalem.

George Gershwin wrote: “How long has this been going on?”  Now, the question is how much longer can this go on?