Below are my latest thoughts on the developing situation in the Mideast, between Israel & Iran. The two nations seem to be steering a collision course for a showdown early in 2010. On Monday Iran tested two more advanced versions of its medium-range ballistic missiles. These missiles now can be fired from mobile launchers and carry multiple warheads. Bush 43 official Eliot Cohen sees either a nuclear iran or an Isreali/US military strike within one year, as neither negotiations nor sanctions will induce the Iranians to surrender their nuclear option.
1. Last June Saudi Arabia reportedly gave the Israelis clearance to overfly Saudi airspace if they promise to keep quiet. This obviates the need to cross US-controlled airspace. This in turn prevents Obama from freezing the Israeli air option by warning that he would immediately alert Tehran if Israel traverses US-controlled airspace without US consent.
2. Israel will not necessarily use air power alone. It has submarine-based missiles, land-based missiles & special forces.3. Iran will not be so quick to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the 40 percent of the world's oil that passes through there goes not to America, but to Europe, Japan & China. America would face a price squeeze, with oil, in the short-term easily over $200. But the others would face not merely a price crisis but a supply crisis as well. The immense harm to the global economy would be blamed on Iran as well as on Israel--although America & Europe would share the blame for failing to push through strong sanctions outside the UN, 5 to 6 years ago, when Iran, still far from nuclear status, surely would have caved. Now that Iran is on the threshold of achieving nuclear status sanctions, even stronger than the UN would approve (where Russia can veto), are probably too late to stop Iran.
4. Obama would also be blamed domestically for his hostile stance towards Israel, leading the Israelis to realize that America would not give them real help against Iran, and leaving Israel to act alone if Iran is to be stopped. And as nearly everyone knows, much of the world would blame the US for clandestinely approving the Israeli strike, even though not true. Great Satan always will share any blame heaped upon Little Satan (not only in the Islamic world).
5. $200-plus oil would spell the end of OPEC. The economic pain inflicted would force Western countries to implement every possible oil alternative, on an expedited basis. Iran would be a huge loser in the medium- and long-term. In the short-term its Navy would be destroyed, possibly even its ports. It simply is not credible for Iran to take on the entire world via such a destructive act. No matter how mad at Israel Europe would be they would have to wake up. Moscow would lose also in the long run, because Europe would be given a graphic demonstration of what dependence on adversarial powers for energy does to their security.6. More likely, Iran would retaliate via its terror proxies, chiefly Hezbollah & Hamas. That could inflict real pain in the dozens of Western countries where thousands of inviting targets lie unprotected from car bombs, suicide bombers, etc. The intended punitive effect would be achieved, without crashing the global economy. Iran would begin to rebuild its nuclear capabilities, but European countries might think twice about helping the second time around. Closing the Straits would be in much of the world viewed as a CAPITAL OFFENSE, one that could lead to the destruction of the regime. Thus, closure is not worth the extreme risk to Iran. Terror is cheaper & easier, and carries far less risk of massive retaliation. Moreover, terror would not impose incentives to migrate away from Mideast oil once & for all.
7. Obama is at zero by now with PM Netanyahu. Which is what happens when you kick Israel around over a bunch of stupid settlements and play Pied Piper to the Palestinians, supinely suck up to the Iranians, Syrians, etc. Israel is in a far stronger position to ignore Obama than it was 18 years ago to ignore Bush 41. No longer an economic basket case, Israel has become an economic superstar--read George Gilder's The Israel Test (2009),, a brilliant book on this topic (which I reviewed for TAS). The Israeli public shows all of 4 percent (yes, that is a four) believing Obama a friend of Israel, so where is the political price Bibi pays for defying us? What Obama did to Poles & Czechs will not be missed in Israel either. Punishment after an Israeli strike on Iran? Blanket embargo of Israeli goods backfires for reasons Gilder sets out--Israel supplies too many essential parts of the Internet & other high-tech goodies to the world's advanced economies. They may sell fewer shofars, but that's about it.
Obama, I strongly suspect, has likely thought of little or none of this.
Bottom Line. Feckless diplomacy since Iran was caught cheating on nuclear energy nearly a decade ago, and tepid sanctions watered down to win Security Council approval, plus an administration catering to Iran while pressuring Israel, have all combined to make an Israeli strike the only plausible way to stop Iran from going nuclear soon. If struck, Iran surely will retaliate, but far more likely via unleashing terrorism than by taking the desperate all-or-nothing step of closing the Strait of Hormuz, lest the major powers be so damaged economically that their public insist their leaders take decisive action to end dependence on Mideast oil--and also end the regime in Iran.
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