Written by Winston P. Nagan   

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been riding his warhorse furiously to Washington D.C. In Washington, there is a strong lobby group that gives him a sympathetic ear. That sympathetic ear tends to be less skeptical than he receives in Israel. In the middle of the U.S. election campaign, Netanyahu came to press President Obama for an attack on Iran for the purpose of eliminating its prospective nuclear threat. The President, who has cool relationship with Netanyahu, made that relationship more chilly by rejecting Netanyahu’s demand for immediate military action. The President then went to the most powerful pro-Israeli lobby group in Washington to explain his policy of restraint regarding the use of force. The President stated that this was “not the time for bluster”. Intelligence has confirmed that Iran has abandoned its earlier nuclear weapons program and both the U.S. and the Israeli intelligence have confirmed that currently Iran has not made a decision to create a nuclear weapon. Moreover, Meir Dagan, former Mossad Chief, has stated that attacking Iran “would mean regional war, and in that case, you would have given Iran the best possible reason to continue its nuclear program”.

The question still remains; why it is that Mr. Netanyahu is so fixated on a war with Iran, led by the United States? One reason could be doctrinal. Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud colleagues were the architects of a doctrine known as the “Clean Break Doctrine”. This Doctrine was sold to American neo-cons and chicken hawks. The basic idea was that a durable peace in the Middle East could not be achieved because the Arabs state stakeholders were largely authoritarian and peace settlements were simply a strategic adjustment until the next conflict. Real peace required a clean break. A clean break meant, regime change, which assumes would emerge with democratic values. High on the list for a regime change was Saddam Hussein’s Iran. This initiative actually led to a congressional resolution, non-binding, calling for the removal of Hussein. The neo-con supporters of Netanyahu’s Clean Break received a golden opportunity to give it effect when Al Qaeda orchestrated the attacks in New York and Washington. The Clean Break Doctrine became a foundation for the New Bush National Security Doctrine. Among the controversial features of this Doctrine was the claim to use preemptive action and regime change as a national security priority in the war on terror.

With the Likud and its right-wing backers, performing a cheerleading role, the neo-cons dragged America into a war of choice against Iraq. It is estimated that this war would eventually cost the nation up to two trillion dollars. The costs in human lives were thousands of Americans and Iraqis. Although representations were made that the cost of the war would be modest, and that in any event, control over Iraqi oil would pay for most of it, none of these claims were ever rooted in reality. The critical reality in Iraq was that the removal of Hussein also removed the power of the Sunni minority and correspondingly empowered the Shia majority. The Shia majority shares the same form of Islam with Iran and to a large extent the same ethnic pedigree. Additionally, the Iranians often provided support and refuge for Shia victims of Hussein. In short, the victory over Saddam was also a victory for Iran. Fellow Shia were now in control of Iraq, and the U.S. victory laid a foundation for a possible “Greater Iran” in the region. This may be an example of strategic blowback.

When Israel attacked Lebanon several years ago, in 2006, it was unclear precisely what the objectives were of the attack. Tactically the Israeli forces targeted with special violence the Shia community of Lebanon. This community is the foundation for the support of Hezbollah. One can only gather that the attack on Hezbollah, which leads a community of Shia, and which has close ties with the Iranian regime, was a provocation to get Iran to intervene to protect its proxy in Lebanon. If Iran had intervened then, there would have been pressure for the U.S. to upscale its armed intervention in the region and possibly make Iran a candidate for regime change. The Iranians probably figured this out and remained restrained, providing supplies and other forms of support but not actively engaging in the field. The provocation did not work and the Israeli armed forces were removed from the seat of operations. Clean Break did not succeed.

Now, Mr. Netanyahu is again reinvigorating the Clean Break and the old New Bush Doctrine to attack Iran. This time, the U.S. administration is not biting. Obama has his own National Security Doctrine and that Doctrine does not endorse preemptive, unilateral action for regime change. There are more specific reasons for U.S. restraint, and indeed, there are important reasons that the U.S. will not support unilateral action by Mr. Netanyahu.

First, an attack by Israel, unilaterally, on Iran will be construed in Iran and throughout the Muslim world as an attack by United States. It is difficult to predict precisely what the consequences would be, politically, economically, diplomatically, and strategically for both, Israel and the U.S. Second, Iran’s immediate reaction to an attack will be to close the Strait of Hormuz. Forty percent (40%) of the world sea born oil passes through this strait. Closing this strait is an easy military operation. A few missiles should do the trick. It would require more than U.S. aircraft carriers going on cruises to the strait to open it. Indeed, the only real military option to open the strait would require an invasion and occupation of large parts of Iran to ensure that missiles that it launches cannot reach the strait. This type of land war would be vastly expensive and costly in terms of lives and diplomatic credibility. Iran, in this scenario, would probably be analogous to Vietnam.

Third, the disruption of oil to world market will have catastrophic effects on the price of oil at the pump. It will have catastrophic effects on the economy of the U.S. and Europe, which is still struggling to emerge from the recession. It is difficult to know just how catastrophic a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, but it would probably be for an extended period and have far-reaching consequences for the entire global economy. In short, an attack on Iran carries major risks of vast economic dislocations, an incredible price to pay.

Fourth, there is still ample diplomatic room for alternative strategies to persuade Iran not to embark on a nuclear weapons program. However, if the war talk is accelerated, as Israeli intelligence suggests, this could prove to be an incentive to go nuclear. The nuclear deterrent is a powerful deterrent. There is a consensus in intelligence and security services that Iran does not represent an existential nuclear threat. Moreover, we have lived a managed some such threats as between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Presently we live with a nuclear threat between Pakistan and India. These are not end of the world scenarios. It is true that Mr. Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, often exhibits a voice that appears to be larger than his brain. His outbursts are often rhetoric without substance. What is clear is that Iran does not have a tradition of attacking other nations, and has not done so in a thousand years. Additionally, Iranians at the highest levels know that should a move be made to actually develop nuclear weapons, dangerous as this is, that any imminent threat to Israel could result in a massive attack from Israel, an attack that could completely obliterate the Iranian state. I have seen no evidence that the Ayatollahs of Iran are committed to running the risk of national extinction. On the other hand all Israel’s neighbors fear the massive Israeli nuclear arsenal set to be between two hundred and fifty (250) and four hundred (400) nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

Finally, Israeli reports acknowledge that promoting the Iranian fear on the world stage, permits Mr. Netanyahu to avoid the problem of settling the claims of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. What AIPAC and the U.S. government, and Israel should be discussing, is an expeditious settlement of the Palestinian issue. In this stoking up the Iranian threat really sidetracks the issue. In the meanwhile, the American neo-con/chicken hawks, along with great nostalgia for some sort of regime change success, anywhere within the orbit of Netanyahu’s Clean Break fantasy.