Israeli know-how

De Borchgrave, in the Wash-Times, here

"... Today, Mr. Oren's new job is to ensure that little if any daylight passes between U.S. and Israeli positions on the perennial Palestinian-Israeli issue and on what most Israelis regard as the coming existential threat of Iran's nuclear weapons.

Clearly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition government are determined to stand fast on Jewish settlements in the West Bank pending resolution of Iran's nuclear ambitions, either through sanctions-driven diplomacy or military action. President Obama faces a dire financial and economic situation for at least another year, and is not about to favor a third war after Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan. If bombing it is, Israel will be on its own.

A powerful U.S. ally came aboard Israel's existential-threat vessel when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said this past weekend that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. National Security Council sources said Mr. Obama was not too pleased with what many quickly interpreted as a White House green light.

If Israel should opt for unilateral action against Iran -- by air via Turkey or over Iraq and/or Saudi air space, and by sea with submarine-launched cruise missiles from the Gulf of Oman -- no leader in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world, would believe this was organized and executed without at least a wink and a nod from the president of the United States. ....

A follow-up was equally telling. Would the United States stand in the way if the Israelis, viewing an Iranian nuclear bomb as a direct threat to the existence of the Jewish state, decided to attack Iran's nuclear facilities? "Look," Mr. Biden said again, "we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do." This stretches credulity. ...

Most experts see Israel holding off unilateral military action against Iran six to nine more months. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones believe Israeli bombing raids against Iran would trigger a much wider conflict encompassing most of the Middle East -- and beyond. On "Face the Nation," Adm. Mullen simply said any strike against Iran could be "very destabilizing."

Adm. Mullen and the other chiefs are known from private conversations to feel that an Israeli strike, even with precision-guided ordnance, would produce heavy civilian casualties and silence Mr. Obama's voice of a new America in the Muslim world. Oil at $300 would be the least of it