WarSclerotic

“Iran is Obama’s biggest foreign policy failure,” says Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Perhaps — but the failure has many parents. The Clinton administration ignored Iran and Russia’s collaboration on the nuclear front, the Persian Shah was abandoned by former President Jimmy Carter, President Ronald Reagan made a problematic “arms for hostages” deal, and President George W. Bush — despite singling Iran out with a place of honor in his “axis of evil” — didn’t exploit the military victory in Iraq to put Iran in its place, even though its nuclear program was already in its advanced stages.

The overview of American mistakes regarding Iran is more comprehensive yet. At a certain point, the U.S. even supplied weapons simultaneously to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. None of this prevented Iran from continuing its nuclear efforts and expanding its regional (and to a certain extent, global) terrorist network to do its bidding, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Past experience should have undermined the complete confidence held by our American friends regarding their wisdom on the Iranian issue.

Senior American spokespeople repeatedly emphasize that Israel and the U.S. share the same intelligence information, but that the conclusions regarding that information are different, which is the crux of the matter: Intelligence is not the determining factor, rather the analysis of it and the conclusions — right or wrong — drawn from it.

For instance, based on the information it had in 1973, Israeli military intelligence determined that Egyptian army deployments along the Suez Canal were for “training” purposes only. The IDF’s intelligence chief, Eli Zeira, adopted the conclusion. Then Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. David (Dado) Elazar was convinced.

Only the defense minister at the time, Moshe Dayan, requested to see the raw intelligence and said: “This isn’t for training, it’s for war,” and he was right.

Today, the Americans (and the Europeans) interpret the point Iran has reached, on the way to the atomic bomb, as being far removed from its desired destination. Israel says Iran’s distance to a bomb is much closer but that regardless, getting it wrong shouldn’t be risked because the main price, at least at first, will be ours to pay.

Administration mouthpieces, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, don’t deny that the threat toward Israel is more serious, which raises questions that aren’t only of a military nature, but also moral: Washington declares day and night that it won’t let Tehran have a nuclear weapon, and we want to believe it, so why is it refusing to implement the only measure that has a realistic chance of succeeding, as well as likely being able to prevent the need for military action? In other words, setting clear “red lines.”

Why is Washington not issuing Tehran an unequivocal ultimatum that if it crosses certain lines, America will act against it with its entire military might? After all, not even the administration can ignore the fact that sanctions and “diplomatic dialogue” are no longer effective.

Is it that the administration’s apprehension to do so is tied to the election campaign, as some believe to be the case, or is the reason more fundamental and worrisome? In other words, are there those within the administration who believe that the world can live with a nuclear armed Iran, despite the risks it would pose to American status and despite the grave threat to Israel?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the leader of Israel and the Jewish people, must express his concern over this, sometimes publicly.

President Obama, however, should be commended for taking the initiative last week by discussing the matter with Netanyahu in detail and at length, and for understanding, it seems, that some of the comments made by his aides were not conducive to clarifying the situation, Israeli-American relations, or for his re-election campaign.