"NO to Israeli, Saudi & hawks' calls for war on Iran"

"... South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and India - key partners in the neo-containment alliance - share Europe's dependence on Gulf oil and its attendant concern with price rises and disruptions of tanker traffic. They do not share the US's concern with Iran's nuclear program and most of them, despite US and Saudi urging, have declined to boycott Iranian oil. They, like the European powers, are almost certainly pressing Washington to refrain from military action and to stick to sanctions and diplomacy. 

Further, East Asian allies will be concerned with the strategic judiciousness of the US should it initiate a conflagration in the Gulf. They will also be concerned if the US were to keep a large number of its naval and air assets away from the Chinese periphery .... 

Saudi Arabia has been one of the driving forces in the effort to counter Iran and, along with Israel, foremost in public calls for war. The Saudis were most helpful to the US in opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan by funding the mujahadeen and driving down oil prices and devastating the Soviet Union's export revenue. 

But that was no favor which put the US in the Saudis' debt. They were angered by an officially atheistic power's invasion of a Muslim country. Furthermore, the US defended the kingdom in 1991 when Saddam Hussein's army overran Kuwait and seemed poised to drive farther south. The House of Saud cannot call in any markers in Washington. 

Saudi Arabia is pressing for war but is unable to field a meaningful part of any military effort  ... The Saudi military is replete with pomp and elegance but under no circumstance can it match up with Iran. Further, its Asian trade partners, especially China, are urging Riyadh to put aside sectarian-based anxieties and, in the interest of world trade, find a diplomatic solution. 

The influence of Israel's hawkish voices will become more apparent in the US congress as the crisis builds over the next few months. The Obama administration, however, may be more attentive to the several Israeli national security authorities who are both more thoughtful and more cautious. Their nuanced analyses get no purchase in the US public but they might have a welcome audience in the war councils on the Potomac. ... 

Few in Barack Obama's foreign policy team and trusted advisers are disposed to using military force. This is all the more so after the departure of Dennis Ross, James L Jones, and Rahm Emanuel in the last year or so.... 

Outside the wars it inherited, the administration has demonstrated a preference for highly limited military actions as evidenced by the cases of Libya and Somalia. Those cases saw only sparing use of US might, usually fighter aircraft and drones, and substantial indigenous and allied help, often in the form of ground troops. 

The Iran case would be quite different. There would be weeks of heavy bombing and cruise missile strikes ... 

The president's personal make-up may be critical the decision to go to war. Obama envisions himself as an exceptional figure, above the crush of ordinary politicians and tired circumstance, who went from the Illinois legislature to the White House in just a few years. He is one who effects change through charisma, elocution, and consensus-building, not through the coarse method of dropping bombs. 

Barack Obama has great expectations. He does not want to go down in history as a war president - one who failed to devote himself fully to bettering the lives of Americans and who carried on with his predecessors' plan for the Middle East. "