Oil or Israel or Both

When Egyptian youth began their occupation of the Cairo square, it was difficult for the Israeli public to take it seriously. They knew that the Egyptian army dominated the government, that the so-called dictator Hosni Mubarak served at army pleasure. One of the most popular jokes circulating in Israel during the first outburst of protest in Egypt read "Dear Egyptian Rioters, Please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild."
Israel's seeming indifference in the current continuing crisis is matched by its indifference to popular outrage in almost every nation over its 44 year occupation of the West Bank territories once controlled by Palestinians. This indifference was sustained by its belief that authoritarian Arab regimes would keep their subjects’ rage in check and that the survival of the authoritarian Arab regimes would be defended under the United States security umbrella for geopolitical reasons and especially for the continuity of the oil business. The deference to the US was responsible for the stability of Egypt's and Jordan’s peace accords with Israel.
This functioning of power reaches beyond the limits of representative democracy into sanctified areas of corporate profits, national income and world hegemony. Hosni Mubarak is out of power but Israel may once again become the pariah nation in the region. If democracy becomes a way of life there, at least one of the nascent political parties will make demands of Israel. A change of government in Egypt, still undetermined, is likely to undermine Israel's strategic situation, even the degree of US support, as America might be forced to choose between Israel and the wildly profitable flow of Arab oil.

Netanyahu's New Strategy for Israel

Netanyahu's New Strategy for Israel
By Jerome Grossman

As I write this blog, the new Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just left his meeting with Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, on his way to confer with King Abdullah of Jordan. On Netanyahu's schedule are additional meetings with leaders of the other authoritarian Arab leaders, all clients of the United States: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates.

Netanyahu has an important message for them, as original as President Richard Nixon's recognition of Communist China or Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. The message goes something like this. The critical struggle is not between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. The critical struggle is between the current regimes aligned with the United States on one side and Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah on the other. The Iran group seeks regime change in the American clients, the overthrow of their governments and the installation of religious insurgent governments or Shi'ite leaders.

Netanyahu would continue: Israel, on the other hand, has no such ambitions. Israel, also an ally of the United States, has no interest in the thousand year battle between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites. Israel has no desire to change the leadership in the Sunni countries. Furthermore, in response to Arab suggestions, Israel is prepared to ease the condition of the Palestinians on a triple track:

1. Political: To renew peace negotiations with the Fatah Palestinians

2. Security: To strengthen Palestinian police with training and authority

3. Economic: To increase the number of jobs in Israel for qualified Palestinians

Please note that there is no mention of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state which the Arab dictatorships and the Obama Administration support and which Netanyahu strongly opposes.

Netanyahu's strategy is to exploit the Arab fear of Iran’s military power and its subsidization of the insurgency movement against the Arab dictatorships. Complicating the future of the region is the agreement that the U. S. move its military from Iraq by the end of 2011. If and when that happens, the two biggest military forces in the area will be Iran and Iraq, both ruled by Shi'ites. The Sunni regimes will be vulnerable and may be forced to seek a better relationship with Israel, a dominant military power and the one backed by the U.S. as far as the eye can see.

The Saudi 2002 peace plan promulgated by Saudi King Abdullah remains an intriguing possible basis for U. S. - Saudi cooperation on the Israeli - Palestinian issue. Abdullah's proposal was endorsed by the entire Arab League at its 2002 summit. Israeli President Shimon Peres and then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have referred to it favorably, and Barack Obama praised Abdullah for making the peace proposal.

Netanyahu has strongly opposed the Saudi plan. His diplomatic offensive may be designed to prevent the U.S. and the Arab states from implementing the Saudi initiative in whole or in part

The Rockets From Gaza

The Rockets From Gaza

By Jerome Grossman

There are valid fears in Israel, in the rest of the Middle East, and in Western Europe that Iran could develop nuclear weapons. In fact, nuclear weapons in the possession of any nation constitute an existential threat to all humanity. Nine nations possess nuclear weapons: The United States, United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan…..and Israel. Israel neither confirms nor denies possession, has never tested, but is believed to have between 100 and 200 nukes

However, there is a more immediate nuclear danger to Israel and the entire region: the possibility that the enemies of Israel could use non-nuclear rockets to bomb Israel's plutonium-production reactor at Dimona. The City of Dimona is situated in the Negev Desert and is the seat of Israel’s Negev Nuclear Research Center. This danger is highlighted by the hundreds of rockets now being fired at targets in Israel from Gaza, some fired by Hamas, some fired by others in Gaza in homemade style.

Israel's fears are justified by recent history. As reported by the Arms Control Association, in 1980 Iranian aircraft attempted to destroy Iraq's Osirak reactor, in 1981 Israel finished the job; in the 1980s Iraqi aircraft attacked Iran's reactors; in 1991 the US bombed an Iraqi reactor; in 1991 Iraq launched SCUD-B rockets toward Dimona but missed.

In no case did these raids on nuclear facilities cause radiological consequences. The outcome of a successful strike on Israel's reactor at the Dimona could be catastrophic, releasing the radioactive contents of the plant causing radiological damage to all life in the area.

Should Israel close Dimona, a place of symbolic significance as well as one of the nation's most valued assets, in order to avoid the radiological consequences of a military strike on Israel's plutonium-production reactor? Or should Israel rely on its capability to retaliate against an attacker if that attacker is a nation-state? But what if the attacker is an individual or small group acting on their own?

Multiple factors may drive Israel's adversaries to hit the plant: it's centrality to Israel's nuclear weapons program, revenge for Israel's strikes on neighboring states, and most dangerously, an attack to intentionally release radioactivity as a weapon of terrorism.

Buried in the protective mantle of secrecy, Israel must have already made its decision. Let us hope it is the correct one. The problem is another illustration of the greatest dilemma of our time: How to bring nuclear weapons programs under control and then to eliminate them entirely.

The U.S. and Israel on Iran

The U.S. and Israel on Iran
By Jerome Grossman

The United States of America and the State of Israel are the closest of allies, sharing intelligence, weapons, military research, among many other joint ventures. They support each other's policies at the United Nations and other international venues with only rare exceptions.

Policy on Iran may be one of those rare exceptions. Responsible Israeli officials have made their positions clear: Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and Iranian protestations that their development of nuclear power is only for civilian electricity is not to be believed. Furthermore, that Iranian President Ahmedinejad's threat "to wipe Israel off the map" represents Iranian policy.

Some Israeli leaders want to launch a preemptive attack. Israeli official Shaul Mofaz said recently, "If Iran continues its program to develop nuclear weapons, we will attack it."

In a New York Times op-ed, July 18, 2008, Benny Morris, an influential moderate and former Israeli official warned, "Israel will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months."

Recently, the Israeli Air Force conducted a massive war game over the Mediterranean that was interpreted as a demonstration of Israeli ability to mount a serious and effective attack on Iranian installations.

However, US policy now seems to be headed in another direction. In the past, American policy placed Iran in the Axis of Evil, condemned it as a terrorist regime, passed a resolution in the U.S. Senate demanding regime change, appropriated money for Iranian dissidents, and refused to establish any diplomatic contact with the Iranian government.

Now, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “We are not planning for a war with Iran,” Admiral Mike Mullen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff supports him. Accusations of Iranian interference in Iraq have diminished. Most importantly, the Bush administration is planning to establish an American diplomatic presence in Iran for the first time since Iranian extremists seized American hostages and occupied the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Is the US sending a message to Israel not to attack Iran? Is the US sending a message to Middle East nations disassociating itself from an Israeli attack? Has US intelligence decided that the Israelis are serious in their threats?

The effects of an Israeli - Iran war would be world wide. The Muslim world would explode and attack western interests everywhere they could. Rulers of Muslim nations friendly to the west and clients of the US might be overthrown. The price of oil would probably reach $400 per barrel assuming that any oil at all would be shipped to the west. Worldwide energy shortages and commercial disruption would likely cause a financial collapse.

The stakes could not be higher, considering that Barack Obama told the US Israeli lobby AIPAC on June 4, "My goal will be to eliminate the threat (to Israel) posed by Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. (Pause) Everything. The pause is scary.

Yes, We Can Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Yes, We Can Abolish Nuclear Weapons
By Jerome Grossman

A major disappointment in the presidential race has been the failure of the three surviving candidates to address nuclear weapons, the greatest existential threat to planet Earth, to the human race itself, and of course, by extension to the United States of America.

The failure is extraordinary because the abolition of nuclear weapons has been raised recently and repeatedly by some of the most respected and powerful personages in the U.S. military, the federal government, and corporate America. How could a serious election virtually ignore this powerful initiative?

A January 2007 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry called for a “world free of nuclear weapons” and urged the United States to lead an international effort to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. They argued for a multilateral verifiable plan with strong enforcement mechanisms. They stated: “Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.”

Last month, in response to a question about her reaction to Iran attacking Israel with nuclear weapons, Hillary Clinton said that she would “obliterate” Iran in that eventuality. In a later interview she again threatened “massive retaliation.”

Her remarks were unwise and destabilizing, echoing the irresponsible statements of President Ahmadinejad of Iran who has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map” and then tried to modify the statement. Hillary knows not to answer a hypothetical question, particularly when Iran does not have nuclear weapons according to the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that stated that Iran ended its unsuccessful program to build them in 2003. Clinton should have used the question to rally support for stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the reduction of nuclear arsenals that exist in eight countries. She might have pointed out that such an attack was unlikely because Israel deters other countries with its own nukes, some of them on submarines constantly patrolling the Mediterranean.

Overt threats like those by Ahmadinejad and Clinton to use nuclear weapons are dangerous because they initiate a process that might become uncontrollable. Nuclear war must never happen and even to contemplate it weakens international inhibitions of their use.

Most importantly, Clinton wasted an opportunity to rally support behind the well-documented and responsible proposal to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons. That is the crucial issue for the survival of America. Will the next president accept the challenge?