Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are silent in the face of the avalanche of bad news coming in from official Washington.
The Patriot anti-missile systems scheduled for what was to have been the biggest joint US-Israel anti-missile drill in October will remain packed in tarpaulin because they come without crews; even one – much less two – Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships may not be dispatched to Israeli waters; and the number of US servicemen sent over for the annual exercise is to be cut by more than two-thirds to 1,500.
This downgrade of US participation in an annual war exercise with Israel is more than striking. It adds up to the dismemberment by the Obama administration of the entire intricate strategy US and Israel have built over years for the deterrence – and interception if need be – of any Iranian/Hizballah/Syrian missile assault on Israel.
The inferences are cruel: The US defense or second-strike elements – which had been slotted into place by the military strategists of the two armies – will not be there. Their absence slashes the time available for Israel’s alarm-and-interception systems to spring into action – the moment the engines of Iranian ballistic missiles heading its way are fired – right down from the originally estimated 14 minutes’ notice.
It also means that Barak’s estimate of 500 dead in the worst case of a war with Iran must go by the board.
Netanyahu and Barak have clearly been rendered speechless by the high-powered US military, diplomatic and personal onslaught on Israel and its government. Even the smooth-tongued Tzahi Hanegbi, just returned to the Likud fold, found no easy way of whitewashing the debacle. “Defense relations with the US are deeper than ever before,” he said unconvincingly in a radio interview Sunday morning, Sept. 2.
Hanegbi is in Netanyahu’s confidence. His words may signify the prime minister’s decision to bow under the onrush of Hurricane Obama. There is of course another way: He could demand a retraction from the White House of the damaging comments by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey denigrating Israel’s military ability to seriously damage Iran’s nuclear program and his statement: “I don’t want to be complicit if they (Israel) choose to do it.”
This was a devastating detraction by America’s top soldier, who a week ago boasted he spoke regularly to Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, not only of Israel’s military deterrent ability but of the morality of its acting to preempt or delay a nuclear Iran.
(Collins dictionary: complicit: The fact of being an accomplice especially in a criminal act.”)
Yet US commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have chosen to let Dempsey’s words stand. The unavoidable inference is that they are complicit with Dempsey’s sentiments.
For a similarly brutal assault, the late prime minister, Mehahem Begin, reproved US Ambassador Samuel Lewis by retorting, “We are not a banana republic!” He sent his cabinet secretary Arieh Naor to recite his words in Hebrew and English to make sure they were fully understood in Washington.
By failing to follow his example, Netanyahu and Barak are bowing their heads before the Obama administration, a grave strategic error at the very moment when Israel needs to put its foot down, and one which augurs ill for the efficacy of their handling of the Iranian peril rising up just around the corner.
WarSclerotic 
September 2, 2012 at 11:01 AM
I was starting to think that Martin Dempsey was the first faggot to lead the U.S. Military, and sure enough, here is what I just found :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Dempsey
“He has a Master’s degree in literature from Duke University, where he wrote a thesis on the Irish poet W B Yeats.”
Barack Hussein Obama managed to put a poet at the helm of the most powerful armed forces on Earth ! As if a poet, and a military who never risked his life, could be the right man to face the most insanely dangerous dictatorship since Nazi Germany !
As to Leon Panetta, he comes from the CIA : Wall Street’s secret services if you know history. The price of oil going up is seen as a very bad thing now in Wall Street, so that means not taking a single risk in the Middle East.
Poets and businessmen, guys who spend their time dreaming of “mist-drops hung on the fragrant trees” and of always more billions of dollars should never ever be in the position to decide the future of Humanity in the face of a deadly threat.
September 2, 2012 at 1:00 PM
Very good job, sir. Strange men for important jobs, that is Obama’s game. But you left one single name out of discussion and with your permission I’ll write it for you : Valerie Jarrett, the dark eminency behind Obama couple. She is the third important ”man” in the White House, after Obama and his wife. And she is an anti-Semite, too.
The decision to take down Bin Laden was postponed three times because of that women.
And no american operations in Iran will start when she is still sleeping in the White House.
September 3, 2012 at 12:35 AM
I googled her name recently after you mentioned her, but I did not find much. Do you have any links to offer ? Thank you in advance, Luis !
September 3, 2012 at 5:20 AM
@Kishonist
Studying letters does not make you less of a man. But perhaps more human. It would appear that your avoidance of letters and ignorance of poetry is the condition of your fear of being perceived as less than a man. Or perhaps I give you credit far past your due.
If we apply your thesis then humanity is best served by bigots and uneducated, ignorant fools.
Are you seekiing political office?
September 3, 2012 at 11:21 AM
I am a philosopher. As Nietzsche put it : a philosopher and a poet are the two most opposite men you can find on this planet. I want a philosopher to lead the military, not a poet. Nietzsche predicted that the Germans would start the most horrible wars in human history. What poet did ?
I grant you that instead of depicting Martin Dempsey as a faggot, I could have called him a bureaucrat, an officer willing to lick the feet of politicians to reach the higher echelons.
September 3, 2012 at 8:36 AM
Regarding Valerie Jarrett issue, ill put a fast link to some info from Fox news, for example:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/1798099932001/whos-calling-the-shots-at-the-white-house
However, I first learned about her when I did some searching regarding Michele Obama. What did strike me was her place of birth : Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran and grew there up to age of five, when later her family came back in the States. I wont say anymore on this issue because it is not the subject of this site, but knowing that a personality like hers is pulling the most important strings in the House, is very concerning, to say the least.
September 3, 2012 at 1:49 PM
I found this very interesting article (by googling her name and Israel):
http://israelmilitary.net/showthread.php?p=108903
September 2, 2012 at 2:47 PM
Most people in Europe and America wake up each morning hoping obama will get a bullet,look what he did to the uk Americas only true allie,after a decade of uk forces fighting two American wars he removed the statue of Churchill from the oval office,and then refused to back the uk over the Falklands,i would like to say something much more unpleasant about him,he is commie scum,i hope he has a slow and painful death