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FrontPage Magazine » Saudis: Green Light for Israeli Attack on Iran » Print.

Posted By Ryan Mauro On June 22, 2010 @ 12:15 am In FrontPage

The Iranian regime does not just seek the destruction of Israel, but seeks to overthrow the pro-American Sunni Arab regimes, ushering in an era of Shiite dominance of the region. These Arab countries, despite their public denials, are wishing for the very scenario that the Obama Administration is trying to prevent: An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And there are growing signs that such a strike is being prepared for.

The call ^[1] for a “Greater Iran” stretching from Palestine to Afghanistan and vanquishing Saudi Wahhabism by the head of Hezbollah in Iran shocked the media, but the entire Middle East was already well-aware of this objective. The Iranians waged ^[2] a proxy war against Yemen and Saudi Arabia last year, providing a tremendous amount of support to the radical Shiite Houthi rebels. The regime has been trying to dominate Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories via proxies, and the governments of the Arabian Peninsula have accused Iran of stirring up unrest in their lands for years.

“The Saudis are as threatened as Israel by Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief of WorldNetDaily.com, told FrontPage. He has broken numerous stories about the fear of Iran expressed by Arab officials behind the scenes.

“Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia secretly back an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Saudis are particularly active in coordinating with Israel since their oil interests are at stake in a major war,” Klein said.

The Saudis have been sharing ^[3] intelligence with Israel about Iran and they reportedly ^[4] told the head of Mossad in early 2009 that Saudi air space could be used to carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. There have been consistent reports of secret high-level meetings between Israeli and Saudi officials over the past two years, and the Saudis have just simulated ^[5] a scenario where Israeli aircraft pass over a thin stretch of their territory to attack Iran to make sure there is not a confrontation. Predictably, the Saudis have denied ^[6] the arrangement, saying they’ll never allow their nation to be used to attack another country.

The panic over Iran’s activities in the region and pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities can be clearly seen in the Saudi media and Saudi officials are increasing the tempo of the warnings. The former Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, spoke ^[7] in Beirut last month and said that the Arabs must do everything they can to stop Iran from going nuclear. He said that if Iran succeeds in doing so, the situation is irreversible and the Arabs will face an increasing danger. Of course, he combined his call to stop Iran with criticism of Israel’s own nuclear stockpile, as is to be expected.

Egyptian officials are also taking a stronger line, particularly since the arrest ^[8] of 49 Hezbollah members in the country planning attacks on Israeli targets. Hezbollah reacted to the arrests by calling for the overthrow of the more moderate regimes in the region, including that of Egypt. The Egyptian Prime Minister accurately said that Hezbollah had “virtually declared war.” On May 3, the former ambassador to Israel clearly stated ^[9] on Egyptian television that Iran is not a friend. Last July, the Egyptians publicly allowed ^[10] Israel to send two missile boats and a Dolphin-class nuclear-capable submarine to transit the Suez Canal, practicing a potential deployment for a strike on Iran.  And last week, over a dozen U.S. ships and at least one Israeli warship transited ^[11] the Suez Canal with Egyptian forces providing security. This comes as a senior Egyptian security official anonymously said ^[12] that his government sees an Israeli strike on Iran happening as early as this July.

There are more countries than just Egypt and Saudi Arabia supporting an Israeli strike. A member of Israel’s parliament from the Likud Party said ^[13] in March that a “wall-to-wall coalition” of Muslim countries had secretly contacted Israel, some of whom the Israelis do not even have diplomatic relations with, expressing their support for any measure taken to stop Iran.

In January, for the first time, an Israeli minister visited ^[14] the United Arab Emirates to participate in an energy conference and the UAE teamed up with the Saudis to pressure ^[15] China into supporting sanctions on Iran. Algeria has accused Iran of supporting terrorists fighting the government, and Morocco cut off ^[16] ties with Iran in March 2009 because of their promotion of extremist Shiite Islam through non-governmental organizations.

Ethiopia is an opponent of two of Iran’s allies, Sudan and Eritrea, and has accused the latter of supporting Somali terrorists that they have gone to war with. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has frequently called Hamas a puppet of the Iranians and has blamed ^[17] them for Israel’s 2009 offensive into Gaza. The other countries in the Arabian Peninsula have had their own problems with Iranian meddling. The Israeli MP’s claim is not far-fetched.

This doesn’t mean that an Israeli strike on Iran doesn’t bring serious risks to the Sunni Arabs, though. Iran has repeatedly stated that Arab countries hosting U.S. military bases will be retaliated against if an attack happens. The Arabs, however, feel they have no other choice but to support Israel, especially considering they will likely be attacked regardless of whether they permit the strikes.

“There’s too much at stake for them,” Klein said. “They are betting an Israeli strike, as dangerous as it is, will be successful.”

The Arab countries also have to be concerned about domestic unrest in the aftermath of an attack. However, a recent poll indicates this will not significantly affect the stability of their governments. They were able to remain in power when the U.S. invaded Iraq, an action more infuriating to their populations because of their shared Arab identity.

A Pew Research Center poll ^[18] dated June 17, 2010 found that strong majorities of the people in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt view Iran negatively, lack confidence in Ahmadinejad and oppose Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. A majority of those in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon opposing a nuclear-armed Iran actually favor the use of military force if necessary to stop them. The popular backlash resulting from an Israeli strike may not be as much of a threat as is assumed.

Ironically, these Arab countries appear to be actually promoting Israeli military action against Iran while the U.S. is trying to stop it. If Israel ultimately decides to strike Iran, the Arabs will join the Obama Administration in condemning them—but privately, they will be thanking their Jewish adversaries for saving them from having to handle a nuclear Iran, an enemy far more threatening to them than Israel ever was.

IDF strengthening ties with Chinese military.

AFP: Former Israeli top spy calls for strike on Iran.

(AFP) – 7 hours ago

JERUSALEM — Israel should launch a pre-emptive strike to prevent arch-foe Iran from going nuclear, a former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency said on Monday.

“I am of the opinion that, since there is an ongoing war, since the threat is permanent, since the intention of the enemy in this case is to annihilate you, the right doctrine is one of pre-emption and not of retaliation,” Shabtai Shavit told a conference.

Shavit, who served as chief of Israel’s foreign spy agency from 1989 to 1996, was speaking at a conference held at the hawkish Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv.

“To use retaliation as the main strategy means to sit idly and wait until the enemy comes to attack you,” a university statement quoted Shavit as saying.

“But we are dealing with an enemy that plans all the time and waits for the opportunity to arise in order to attack, so what is the point, even morally, to wait and do something only when we are attacked,” he said.

Israel, which has the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, regards Iran as its principal threat after repeated predictions by the Islamic republic’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Jewish state’s demise.

Along with the West, it suspects Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of its nuclear programme, a claim Tehran denies.

Israel has backed US-led efforts to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapons capability through sanctions, but has also refused to rule out military force.

In 1981 Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor and reportedly also attacked a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is aimed solely at power generation and medical research and says that the international community should focus its attention on Israel, which, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

The American-Israeli disparity over Iran.

When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visits the White House in early July, the Iranian nuclear file is sure to be discussed.

And he is bound to be disappointed with what he hears from Barack Obama. That is because there are profound differences between the Obama administration and Israel when it comes to the perception of the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran, as well as their estimation of the consequences of preventative military action.
First, there are analytical problems stemming from the White House’s belief that Iran would be willing to strike a “grand bargain” if an American president emerged who threw cold water on the US-Israeli relationship. Netanyahu suffers from no illusion that Iran would reorient itself toward the West. After all, one of the pillars of the Iranian revolution is to despise big and little Satan (America and Israel, respectively), and it has long been embodied in Iran’s foreign-policy slogan: “Neither East nor West.”

Then there is the problem of effective sanctions. Israel believes time is running out and sanctions will not alter the regime’s behavior. But the Obama administration is proud of the new toothless sanctions passed by the UN Security Council. Indeed, Resolution 1929 fails to target Iran’s energy sector and safeguards Russia and China’s economic interests. Moreover, while the US Congress wants to punish companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran, team Obama prefers a slower approach. This fourth round of sanctions is being billed as proof positive that American foreign policy toward Russia and China is a smashing success. Yet the Bush administration managed to gain their support for three separate rounds of sanctions from 2006-2008. It is difficult, then, to see how Obama’s foreign policy outreach has paid dividends, and equally hard to conclude that the latest UN sanctions will affect Iranian behavior. For Netanyahu, the idea that working through the UN could effectively solve such a time-sensitive problem is absurd.

Yet the analytical problem goes even further when contemplating a preemptive strike and the resulting fallout. The Israeli view is that Israel would be hit with rockets from Hamas and Hizbullah, and Jewish sites around the globe would be attacked. There would probably be attacks against the US as well, and the global economy would take a dive. But in the end, Iran would be forced to face Israel’s counterdeterrent.

The Iranian people may even turn against their leadership and say, “look at the mess you have brought upon us.”

In the Israeli view, maybe their preemptive strike only sets the program back a year – but that is what Israel thought after bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 and today, some 30 years later, Iraq’s nuclear program was never reconstituted. Accordingly, buying a year in the Middle East could actually be quite significant. In this view, the morning after does not look so bad for Israel; it is something the Jewish state can weather.

THE OBAMA administration’s view is very different. The result of an Israeli raid would mean that American soldiers – 150,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan – would be more exposed than ever. The global war on terrorism would become even more difficult to prosecute. The regime in Teheran that today is weak and divided will grow united along with its people. It will redouble its efforts to get a nuclear weapon and there would be precious little international support to prevent that. Those weapons would be delivered to its terrorist proxies. In the White House’s estimation, an Israeli preemptive strike would be catastrophic.

But the disparity between Israel and the US is more than analytical. There is a stark analogical difference as well.

Israel views Iran like Europe in the 1930s, with a country openly determined to eliminate all the Jews. It presents a very real existential threat.

On the other hand, Obama sees Russia and China during the Cold War where a combination of containment and deterrence prevented nuclear hostilities.

Yet given the ideological-messianic fervor of many in the Iranian leadership, Israelis rightfully question whether such a regime can be deterred.

Moreover, there is no hot line between Jerusalem and Teheran such as existed between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War. Any diplomatic incident would run the risk of snowballing toward a nuclear clash. Indeed, the possibilities for conflict are endless in a region that has long been a tinderbox.

These two strikingly different analytical and analogical frameworks are mutually exclusive and are bound to lead the US and Israel in very different directions. The past year and a half has been a story of missed American opportunities to pressure the Iranian regime.

Moreover, Obama’s “charm offensive” in the Muslim world has displayed American weakness rather than strength.

Today, Iran can proudly add Turkey and Brazil to its resistance camp. By way of contrast, America’s allies wonder if the Obama administration has the ability to bring about peace through strength. Given the current American trend, the answer firmly appears to be no, and Iran has certainly taken notice.

The writer is director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center in Washington, DC.