WarSclerotic

Who’s naive? | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

“Close to two years after the onset of Arab Spring the Arab masses found themselves a new-old target for their anger and frustration, which did not disappear or even lessen with the fall of dictators, but appears to have grown and become more powerful.”

“The slaying of Mr Stevens is hardly the only recent example of Arab dysfunction. Just to take the seven days prior to the killing: in Iraq scores of people were killed in bombings on one day and the vice-president was sentenced to death in absentia for alleged murder; in Yemen the defence minister survived an assassination attempt; in the Gaza Strip Israel killed six militants; in Tunisia extremist Salafists smashed up a bar that serves alcohol to the town where the Arab spring began; and most graphically of all, in Syria the death toll in the gruesome civil war continued to rise exponentially—to over 25,000.”

Column One: The reign of imaginat… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

Photo: reuters

Postscript: Israel’s Iran debacle – JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

US media see Iran strike as transcending elections issues – Israel News, Ynetnews.

NYT says leaders need ‘more than red lines,’ and Washington Post delves into Netanyahu’s ‘Hamlet-like anguishing’ over strike on Iran, as Israel-Iran tensions become pivotal issue in presidential race

Ynet

As the presidential race in the United States gains momentum and differences between Israel and the US over the need of an immediate action vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear ambitions grows, US media levels growing criticism at Israel’s demand of a “red line.”

A top commentator at the Washington Post urges US President Barack Obama to help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “climb down from his unwise rhetoric”; and the New York Times asserts that “Leaders need flexibility and ambiguity, not just hard and fast red lines.”

David Ignatius of the Washington Post’s opinion piece, titled “Puzzled by a ‘red line’ demand,” wonders about Netanyahu’s “almost daily demands” for the US to set a clear red line for Iran, and asks “What he wants beyond what President Obama has already stated?”

Ignatius said that “Obama believes he has drawn the US red line as clearly as a superpower ever should.” He notes previous statements by Obama, saying that the US has a national security interest in preventing the Islamic Republic from achieving military nuclear capabilities.

He further notes that the Obama administration has already proved it plans to stop Iran by directing the US Armed forces to formulate a detailed plan of attack should Iran cross the US’ line.

Ignatius hedges that Netanyahu’s true aim is to see Obama issue a de-facto ultimatum or deadline for Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment.

“Watching Netanyahu’s public, Hamlet-like anguishing over the past year about ‘to bomb or not to bomb,’ one suspects the real issue for him isn’t red lines so much as trust that they will be enforced,” the Washington Post states.

The relations between the American president and the Israeli prime minister have often been strained and close associates on both sides say they are plagued by mutual mistrust both on a personal level and on a political one.

“Netanyahu should understand that no country can allow another to impose the conditions under which it will go to war,” Ignatius wrote. “Presidents don’t turn over that power of war and peace, even to their best friends.”

If both the US and Israel wish to maintain deterrence vis-à-vis Iran, “Obama should help the Israeli leader to climb down from his unwise rhetoric,” he states.

‘No Rush to War’

The New York Times’ editorial largely echoed that sentiment, further stressing that the United States should not rush to strike Iran, especially since there is a consensus among experts that such a strike could, at best, set the Iranian’s nuclear program back four years at most.

Netanyahu, the editorial states, is “Trying to browbeat President Obama into a preemptive strike,” further exacerbating the tensions between the close long-time allies.

“Leaders need flexibility and ambiguity, not just hard and fast red lines. And it is dangerous for Mr. Netanyahu to try to push the president into a corner publicly and raise questions about Washington. Is that really the message he wants to send to Tehran?” the New York Times wondered.

Israel has no reason to doubt Washington’s resolve on the Iranian threat.

But recent polls show that 70% of Americans oppose a unilateral strike on Iran, and 59% said that if a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran ignites a regional war, the United States should not come to its ally’s aid.

The editorial asserts that “The best strategy is for Israel to work with the United States and other major powers to tighten sanctions while pursuing negotiations on a deal. It is a long shot, but there is time to talk. And that’s where the focus must be.”

Israel Hayom | Netanyahu: What if the US does not intervene on Iran?.

In special interview with Israel Hayom to be published in full on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses allegations that his insistence on red lines is impacting U.S. presidential race • Lieberman, Barak criticize PM for public discussion on Iran issue.

Israel must ask itself what will happen if the U.S. fails to take action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israel Hayom in a special Rosh Hashanah interview this week.

In the interview, to be published in full on Sunday, Netanyahu addressed recent assessments by top defense officials, who suggested that there is still time before action against Iran becomes necessary. “I hear all those people who say that we should wait until the very last minute. But what if the U.S. doesn’t intervene? That is a question we have to ask,” he said.

Netanyahu also dismissed allegations that his insistence on red lines, beyond which the U.S. would commit to taking military action against Iran, was impacting the presidential race currently underway in the U.S., saying, “This is nonsense because the issue that is guiding me is not the U.S. elections, but the centrifuges in Iran, and what can I do if the centrifuges in Iran are inconsiderate of the U.S. political timetable? If the Iranians were to hit the ‘pause’ button and halt their uranium enrichment and bomb preparation until after the elections, I would be able to wait.”

In addition, the prime minister explained that the gaps between Washington’s and Jerusalem’s stances on the Iranian issue revolve “not on a question of dates, but rather on a question of process.” Referring to homefront preparedness, Netanyahu said, “You can protect the country from missiles, in one way or another. But there is no protection against atomic bombs. The only way to protect against this is to prevent the creation of such a reality by the enemy, and of course, make it clear to anyone who would ever consider attacking Israel with weapons of mass destruction – do it at your own peril.”

Meanwhile, at an event in honor of the New Jewish Year this week, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that any discussion about Iran should be conducted behind closed doors. His comments echoed statements made a day earlier by Defense Minister Ehud Barak who criticized Netanyahu’s call for the U.S. to set “red lines” on Iran.

It doesn’t matter who holds what opinion: whether you believe we should press on with sanctions, or that sanctions are ineffective; whether you think that we should progress to the next level or not — all the these dialogues and discussions should not be conducted in public and in the media,” Lieberman said. “There are enough forums and channels through which information can be exchanged; there is no need for explanations and public debates.”

The foreign minister added that “our relations with the U.S. are founded on shared values and a lot of friendship, both diplomatically and personally.”

During a tour of southern Israel on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro also commented on reportedly strained relations between the two countries. “There is no crisis,” he said, adding that both countries have the “closest relations ever” in terms of security and strategic cooperation, and in their common goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Following a recent flurry of criticism voiced against Netanyahu by both Lieberman and Barak, as well as by the American publications The New York Times and The New Yorker, a source close to the prime minister said on Thursday that “Netanyahu’s sharp comments about Iran – even if they are not pleasant and seem direct – are necessary to create international pressure against Iran’s nuclear program.”

According to the source, “the prime minister is prepared to take the criticism. Experience shows that if Netanyahu would not have dared voice sharp remarks on Iran in public from time to time, there would not be this unprecedented international pressure on the Iranians.”

The source added that the prime minister believes setting clear red lines on Iran’s nuclear armament “is a vital interest to the State of Israel, and so he will continue to demand in a clear voice that the international community set this red line.”

Earlier Thursday, the prime minister held a gathering to mark the Jewish new year together with Defense Minister Barak, Israel Defense Forces Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and members of the General Staff Forum. During the gathering, Netanyahu said, “We live in an explosive and stormy region, and the explosions and storms are increasing. The strength of the IDF has helped ensure that we are an island of stability amidst the storms. From time to time, actions have been necessary and they were carried out with great success. Israeli citizens must know what I know — that we can rely on the IDF. There are those who know how to do the work. I wish the soldiers, commanders and their families a happy, sweet and safe Rosh Hashanah.”

US-led Sinai peacekeeping mission under al Qaeda attack: Fatalities reported.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 14, 2012, 8:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

First reports of many fatalities when scores of Salafi Bedouin linked to al Qaeda stormed the Multinational Force’s camp in northern Sinai with grenades, mortars and automatic guns Friday night Sept. 14.The 1,500 troops from the United States and other countries have been posted in Sinai to monitor the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel. The gunmen first blocked the roads to the Al Ghora base southwest of El Aris before smashing through the guard post and mowing down the peacekeepers serving there.

This was the second al-Qaeda-instigated assault on a primarily US target in the Middle East in four days after the murder of four US diplomats including Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya Tuesday.
More information is awaited…

Netanyahu’s Finest Hour? – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

This year, I happened to be in lower Manhattan during the 9/11 commemorations. Eleven years have passed since that terrible morning, and America has thankfully killed Ben-Laden.

From a historical perspective, however, Ben-Laden did achieve one of his objectives: to replace US-backed Arab regimes with Islamic ones.

Iran has played a major role, and continues to play a major role, in the Islamic takeover of the Middle-East and of North Africa. It also pursues nuclear weapons with the declared aim of wiping Israel off the map.

History has taught us that when Jew-haters threaten to kill Jews, they should be taken seriously. But History has also taught us that no country has ever abandoned its nuclear ambitions as a result of economic sanctions.

The Reagan administration didn’t want Pakistan to go nuclear, and the Bush junior Administration didn’t want North Korea to get the bomb either. Yet in spite of pressures and sanctions, both countries went ahead.

Iraq and Libya, on the other hand, did forego their nuclear programs only because they either suffered or feared a military strike. Saddam Hussein abandoned his nuclear ambitions after his French-built nuclear reactor was bombed by Israel in 1981. Muammar Gaddafi stopped his nuclear program right after the US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003, because he feared that he would be next in line. Even Iran temporarily suspended its nuclear program after the invasion of Iraq for fear of a US strike. As soon as it became clear that the Bush Administration had abandoned the idea of destroying Iran’s nuclear plants, Iran renewed its nuclear program.

Not surprisingly, economic sanctions are not convincing Iran to stop its nuclear program. For a start, these sanctions are a sham because they are not enforced by China (which needs Iran’s oil) and by Russia (which sees in Iran the last rampart against US hegemony in the Middle East). In addition, Iran and Egypt are now negotiating an oil deal to make up for Iran’s lost sales to the European Union. Iran supported the 2011 uprising that brought Muhammad Morsi to power. Now it is ripping the economic benefits of having a new Islamic ally.

But even if sanctions were actually enforced against Iran, they would be powerless: a leadership that has declared its readiness to sacrifice millions of its own citizens for the sake of destroying Israel surely has no qualms about temporarily lowering the living standards of its future victims.

So saying, as Hillary Clinton just did, that sanctions are the best way to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions is simply ridiculous and nonsensical.

Containment is not an option either. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is what deterred both the United States and the Soviet Union from going to war. Such deterrence will not apply to Islamists because they are suicidal. If anything, they believe that an Israeli nuclear strike will grant them a short-cut to heaven.

Nothing, bar a devastating military strike, will prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

America has the military capability of mostly annihilating Iran’s nuclear installations, but candidate Obama will not attack Iran while on the campaign trail. More worryingly for Israel, a re-elected President Obama will unlikely order a military strike. After all, the United States has already lost most of its Middle-East allies to Islamic regimes. So why contain and deter Iran when the latter has already achieved its goal of replacing US-backed Arab regimes with Islamic ones?

A nuclear-armed Iran could technically close the Straits of Hormuz (a major oil route) without fear of American retaliation. But such a move would be so harmful to Iran’s economy that it wouldn’t make sense. America was able to live with a nuclear Soviet Union, and it is able to live today with a nuclear Russia, a nuclear China, a nuclear Pakistan, and a nuclear North Korea.

A nuclear-armed Iran would further undermine US interests and power, but it would not constitute an unbearable threat to the United States. The Iranian bomb constitutes an existential threat to Israel, not to America. So Israel has good reasons to suspect that the current US Administration is bluffing when it says that all options are on the table to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran is moving its nuclear production underground by doubling the number of centrifuges it has installed at its facility near the city of Qom. While Iran is approaching the “immunity zone” that would make its underground nuclear fuel sites impregnable to attack, the US Government isn’t sending any ultimatum to the Mullahs.

So it does look like Israel is on its own with Iran. To add insult to injury, the Obama Administration is now trying to hold us back. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remark that “those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel” was spot-on.

Israel is on its own today the same way that it was on its own when it declared its independence in 1948, when it grounded the Egyptian air force in 1967, and when it rescued Jewish hostages in Uganda in 1976. In all cases, the Jewish leadership made a tough decision that defied logics but that relied on what Israel’s Declaration of Independence calls “The Rock of Israel.”

Making hard decisions and taking calculated risks is what leadership is all about. The coming New Year will be decisive. May it be remembered as Netanyahu’s finest hour.

The writer is a Likud Candidate for the 2013 Knesset Elections

Romney, Ryan accuse Obama of failing to lead in a time of global crisis – The Washington Post.

To Defend Obama, U.S. Media Goes Global « Commentary Magazine.

Yesterday, I wrote about how the liberal establishment’s ignorance of Israeli politics and history has severely hampered their ability understand the words and actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, resulting in some serious and unfounded accusations against him that he’s trying to meddle in the American presidential election. David Frum points readers to a good post by Michael Koplow in which he makes a similar point but adds another element: the American media’s tendency to think everything is about the U.S.

Koplow writes that Netanyahu’s recent spate of comments about the Iranian nuclear program were about Israeli domestic politics, amid concerns that he may not have everyone he needs on board should he feel the window on stopping Iran is closing and the U.S. balks at military action. Koplow notes some of the more sensational outbursts from the media, including David Remnick’s accusation that Netanyahu is attempting to be a one-man super-PAC in Mitt Romney’s corner. This morning, the Associated Press has followed up with another perfect example of this problem. After scanning an interview Netanyahu conducted with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, the AP writes:

In an interview published Friday, Netanyahu hinted Israel may have to strike Iran even without U.S. support to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.

The comments indicate Netanyahu is not backing down from his thinly-veiled criticism of the Obama administration, despite a phone call from the U.S. president this week that was meant to smooth over their differences.

The errors here are all quite obvious. First of all, Netanyahu doesn’t speak to Obama through Israeli newspapers, especially when–as the AP reports in that same sentence–the two talk on the phone. Second, the idea that Israel may have to act on its own, while no one’s ideal conclusion to the Iran crisis, is not criticism of Obama, “veiled” or otherwise. It is simply one of the options on the table, and Netanyahu has to test the waters of public opinion and prepare his country for any eventuality–not to mention the political needle he would have to thread to keep a coalition together and unite, if possible, the political class.

This whole episode is reminiscent of the Obama administration’s frantic and unseemly tantrum over plans to build more homes in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, Ramat Shlomo. The announcement in 2010 by the housing ministry concerning Ramat Shlomo coincided with Joe Biden’s visit to Israel. If it was meant to embarrass anyone it was Netanyahu, not Biden or Obama, but in all likelihood it was not aimed at anyone since building there has become commonplace and uncontroversial to residents of Jerusalem–Jewish and Arab alike.

But the Obama administration assumed it was all about them, in part because Obama has such a weak understanding of Israeli politics and culture and has not made an effort to expand his very limited frame of reference on the subject. So Netanyahu, who was probably just as surprised as Biden by the announcement, was yelled at for 45 minutes on the phone by Hillary Clinton, who also seemed not to know what was going on.

The hysteria of the media has been on full display this week, with reporters expressing their outrage that Romney dared criticize Obama on foreign policy. But that tells you that what is actually happening is a sort of inverse of what is being reported. It is not that Netanyahu is trying to intervene in a presidential election, but rather that the American media’s sense of defensiveness about Obama is heightened during the home stretch of the election, causing them not just to attack Obama’s opponents at home but to take their cause global and go looking for enemies abroad as well.

Israel’s window for action against Iran ‘is getting much smaller,’ says Ambassador Oren | The Times of Israel.

‘The issue is not whether we trust the US,’ says Israel’s envoy to Washington. ‘The issue is our responsibility as a sovereign Jewish state’

Michael Oren (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons CC-BY-Anne Mandlebaum)

It’s not easy being an ambassador in a high-profile posting when your home country and your host country are in the midst of a very public row over an acutely sensitive issue.

Just ask Dan Shapiro, the US envoy to Israel who reportedly broke protocol to remonstrate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for misrepresenting President Barack Obama’s Iran policy at a meeting last month. Shapiro publicly denied the report as “a very silly story,” only for the third man in the room — Rep. Mike Rogers — to declare that there was “a very sharp exchange.”

Ordinarily Shapiro, and his Washington counterpart, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, would expect their work to be sensitive, demanding, and extraordinarily important — but not hugely controversial. They are, after all, the representatives of two profoundly allied countries, partners committed to democracy and freedom.

But these are not ordinary times. Iran, a common threat, is progressing relentlessly with its nuclear program.

If Israel doesn’t use its military capacity soon, it will no longer be able to impact that program. But the United States is urging Israel to hold its fire — to give more time for diplomacy and sanctions. Extraordinarily fateful decisions are being weighed. Perhaps inevitably, tensions are fraying even between these firmest of allies.

And the diplomats — along with the politicians and the security chiefs — need to be acutely careful about what they say and do. Every word and deed comes under the microscope — whether it is US military chief Martin Dempsey’s use of the word “complicit” to denounce the notion of an Israeli attack; or Netanyahu’s assertion that it is not “moral” for those who are not setting red lines for Iran to seek to prevent an Israeli strike; or the resonant failure of the presidential schedulers to find a time-slot for an Obama-Netanyahu tete-a-tete during the prime minister’s admittedly brief visit to the US at the end of this month.

In a telephone interview from his Washington offices on Thursday, Oren — a former paratrooper who fought in the 1982 Lebanon War; author of “Six Days of War” and other highly regarded works of history; and now three years into the post of ambassador — was at his diplomatically polished best.

He gave no ground whatsoever on the curious case of the Obama-Netanyahu non-meeting, insisting that it was simply a matter of scheduling difficulties. He was slightly more forthcoming, though unsurprisingly non-specific, when acknowledging that some of the recent Israeli-American rhetoric has not been helpful.

Where he was most insightful was in describing the “structural differences” between the US and Israel when they grapple with the Iranian danger, and when bringing his historian’s perspective to the crisis. Without remotely diminishing what he called the “existential” threat posed by Iran, he noted that Israel faces moments of truth “all the time.” That, he said, is “the nature of Jewish sovereignty. It’s the responsibility that comes with it.”

Excerpts:

The Times of Israel: You have to be diplomatic and ambassadorial. Your job is to tell us that all is well between the US and Israel, but it doesn’t seem as though it is. I’m very struck by the statement by the American chief of staff about not wanting to be “complicit” in an Israeli strike at Iran. I was struck when the prime minister questioned the “moral” right of those who seek to prevent Israeli military action. And I’m amazed that it has not been possible to schedule a meeting between the president and the prime minister. Essentially the president is asking Israel to not fire (at Iran), and to put its destiny in American hands, and is not prepared to discuss this face to face? It seems very hard to fathom.

Michael Oren: First, you have to understand the nature of our relationship with the United States. The newspapers — I’m not faulting the newspapers here — tend to focus on specific issues, issues that capture the eye, or evoke some kind of curious interest. But the US-Israel relationship is vast. It’s multi-faceted and deep. Even though I spent about 30 years studying it, and thought I had a good grasp of it, I had no idea of how vast it was.

Even on the strategic issues, the spectrum of our common interests and communications is vast. So for example during the summer, we had a long list of high-ranking US officials come — Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

What do you think those conversations are like? The conversations open up first of all with the situation in Sinai… a source of great concern not just for Israel but for the United States. It impacts Jordan. It has impacted Saudi Arabia. Egypt itself. If Sinai becomes a safe haven for international terrorism…

The next topic is the Syrian situation. Together we are very concerned over the future control of chemical weaponry there.

We talk about the peace process… We’re talking about ways to incentivize the Palestinians to get back to the negotiating table, and to keep them at the negotiating table, and trying to dissuade them from going off on a unilateral path at the UN, which we think will be disastrous for them and certainly not helpful for us.

These are serious talks. They are substantive and detailed to the extreme.

And then, yes, we come to Iran.

When we talk about Iran, we proceed on the assumption that we have a structural difference. The structural difference is that Israel is a small country, living in Iran’s backyard, with certain capabilities. And Israel is threatened almost daily with national annihilation. And of course the United States is a big country, far away from Iran, with much greater capabilities, and not threatened with national annihilation.

And what we’re trying to do is find a middle road where these structural differences can sort of meet a golden mean that would allay our fears and guarantee our security and also satisfy American interests.

That makes absolute sense, and yet the three points that I made seem to be a departure from the logical picture you give of the meetings. You have Iran watching as the American military chief is basically suggesting that Israeli military action would be something criminal. You’ve got moral accusations. And then this failure to meet. It doesn’t sit easily with what I’m sure is indeed a very serious and substantive, measured, incredibly intensive coordination.

Clearly, things have been said which might not have been helpful for the situation. But at the same time in the last few weeks the prime minister had telephone conversations with American officials — he had an hour-long conversation with the president the other night — and things are also said not for public consumption. And they are part of this very intimate, candid and continuous dialogue that we have with the United States.

Is there any remote likelihood that Israel feels the need to resort to military action now, before the American elections?

I’m not going to go into any details about operations. I would like to say that the American elections don’t play any role in our calculations. The only issue that is crucial here is the speed with which the Iranian nuclear program is accelerating, both in terms of its accumulation rate — the rate at with which they are producing enriched uranium, both at 3.5% and 20% — and the rate at which the Iranian nuclear program (is being moved) underground (with) its facilities beyond our capabilities to interdict.

On that second point, is there an estimate? Is Israel incapable of having a substantive impact on the Iranian program if nothing is done within the next six months, or year? Or three months?

All I can say is that our window is small, and it’s growing much smaller.

The counter-argument to why there is no Obama-Netanyahu meeting in the context of a military warning about complicity might be that Israel is about to do something, and therefore the last thing the president wants to do is be complicit by meeting the prime minister. Do you think that’s possibly the case?

I think that what happened there was a scheduling problem. I know it sounds mundane but the fact is these are two busy individuals and the prime minister was coming to New York between Jewish holidays (in between Yom Kippur and Succot) and the president couldn’t be in New York at that time.

They’re not going to move the heavens and the earth and cancel, I don’t know, the president’s meeting with the leader of Egypt, who’s a 9/11 semi-denier, for the sake of a meeting with Mr Netanyahu?

You have to ask the Egyptian ambassador but I think that (Obama meeting with President Mohammed Morsi) is happening prior to Netanyahu’s arrival in New York.

So the meeting’s a lost cause?

The prime minister will meet with the secretary of state (Hillary Clinton).

And you don’t think that ultimately there will be an Obama-Netanyahu meeting, maybe in Washington, at some stage on this trip?

As far as I know there’s a scheduling difficulty.

It seems remarkable. It wouldn’t seem as remarkable at any other time, but at a time when the window, as you put it, is closing, and therefore if Israel doesn’t act it is placing its destiny in American hands, it seems astonishing that the president and the prime minister would not be able to get together in America.

I think I answered all these questions. I’d like to talk about other things we deal with besides dealing with scheduling issues.

I’m happy to talk about other things. Netanyahu talks about wanting “red lines” (which, if crossed by Iran in its nuclear drive would prompt military intervention). One red line that’s been suggested to me, that America could be able to set quite easily, is if the Iranians start enriching beyond 20%. Do you have any sense of what red lines Israel would like to hear, that would reassure Israel?

I’m not going to go into details about the actual location of this red line. What I will say is that we believe the Iranians can discern the color red. We’ve seen them do it in the Strait of Hormuz, for example.

They understand what a red line is. And we believe that the redder the line, the less the chance the Iranians will actually cross it. We think that the clearer the red lines, the less the chance that anybody will be drawn into a military engagement. By drawing them, you diminish the chance of a military engagement. You also diminish the kind of scope of a military engagement. Because if you wait until a much later stage, to a time when the Iranians have advanced this program in multiple facilities in places that we may not know, the scope of your interdiction is much greater.

Do you share President Peres’s public faith that the American administration will stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons?

The issue is not whether we trust the United States, or don’t trust the United States. They are a great ally. The issue is our responsibility as a sovereign state, as a sovereign Jewish state. Previous Israeli governments, in 1967, 1956, 1948, have faced very similar situations, where they were asked to wait for longer periods of diplomacy. And diplomacy wasn’t succeeding. The leaders of the (Israeli) governments during those years perceived an existential threat to the country. And you know the Americans didn’t agree to everything we did in 1948, 1956 and 1967, but we acted to defend ourselves, and to assure our continued existence as a sovereign Jewish state.

David, it’s the reason why we came home, after 2,000 years — to assume that responsibility.

I understand. And that makes it sound as though, holding to that determined, independent assertion of sovereignty, Israel could not allow its window of opportunity to close. That’s the conclusion one might draw from this history.

One should never forget at the same time that no country in the world has a greater stake in resolving the Iranian nuclear threat peacefully than  the state of Israel. We have the most at stake. My kids babysat for your kids, David. We have those kids to think about… We seek to exhaust all diplomatic options.

We’ve been preternaturally patient over the last 20 years that we’ve been warning about this program. It took the world 10 years to take us seriously, till (the uranium enrichment facility at) Natanz was revealed in 2002.

We waited for all these years. We’ve supported the sanctions. The sanctions have unfortunately not set back the Iranian nuclear program. According to the IAEA report of August, the program is speeding ahead. The 20% enrichment has tripled. The amount of centrifuges in the fortified underground facility in Qom has doubled. They are also building a plutonium reactor at Arak. All of this they’re doing in the face of sanctions. And all of this they’re doing in the face of diplomacy… There’s been nothing whatsoever from the Iranians. Not a millimeter of concessions.

The question then is how long you wait? And those are profoundly weighty questions for the decision-makers of Israel.

How do you think this is going to play out? I can’t imagine the Iranians are going to change course. We’re coming to the moment of truth, aren’t we?

I think Israel faces moments of truth all the time, and has since its founding in 1948. Because I came to this job as a historian, I always approach a contemporary situation through a historic lens. And I see how different Israeli leaders, including Israeli leaders from different parties, acted very similarly at different junctures. It’s the nature of Jewish sovereignty. It’s the responsibility that comes with it.

From a historian’s perspective, do you think the United States gets the Middle East? Do you think the administration gets the Middle East, when the secretary of state professes herself confounded by the killing of the US ambassador to Libya? For us in Israel, it was not hugely surprising that there are some terrible people in our ruthless region who go around killing.

I think the Middle East is an enormously complex region and fluid place. Anybody who says they understand the Middle East has to be regarded with a sense of skepticism. In Hebrew, you say “the things you see from here, you don’t see from there.” The same is true for what is going on in Washington. The distance, the cultural divides, all make it very difficult…

I think many Israelis fear that maybe this administration thinks that it sometimes knows better than Israel, but doesn’t understand this region sufficiently?

I disagree. The same day that we have these riots, and the terribly tragic death of our colleague (US Ambassador Chris) Stevens, the State Department led a delegation of 50 very senior industrial heads to Egypt, encouraging investment in Egypt. They understand, and I think we would agree, that a strong Egyptian economy is in our interest. A stable Egypt is in our interest. The Administration is working in all different ways to address a truly dizzying array of rapidly changing challenges in the Middle East.

How troubled are you by the reality that Israel is becoming a factor in the US presidential elections — which each party accusing the other of not being as supportive?

The president’s Rosh Hashanah letter to Ambassador Oren (photo credit: Courtesy)

Bipartisan support for Israel is a paramount national interest for us. Several days a week, including today, I go up to Capitol Hill, and I go visit Republican and Democratic representatives — congressmen and senators. And wherever I walk in, I am greeted enthusiastically, with great understanding. That part of my job is making sure that we remain aligned with both parties, and with the American people. I got a beautiful Rosh Hashanah letter from President Obama this week — very personal.  It talks about my kids, by name. It has this great line — “Not bad for a guy from New Jersey.” I’m from New Jersey. I am very touched by it. I have very good and close working relations and many personal friendships with people in the administration.

It’s not just part of my job. It’s part of my privilege to be able to serve in this capacity. We tend to see things through the prism of headlines. Here (In Washington), certainly through the prism of a tough election. In Israel, through the prism of an existential threat. But beyond those prisms, there is a vista of relationships which are very deep and very close. And they are bipartisan.

You don’t think Israel is rising to become some sort of wedge issue?

I don’t think it’s becoming a wedge issue.

How do you defend this Israeli government’s fairly empathetic policy on settlements to Americans — Jews, politicians — who think it is destructive  for the prospect of resumed negotiations and progress?

History comes in handy. In 2000 and 2008 we made serious offers for the creation of a Palestinian state, and the Palestinians turned that down — not because of the settlements. You could say that Israel tried to create a Palestinian state in 1967, or an autonomous entity, right after the Six-Day War. There were no settlements. But the Palestinians turned that down too. They turned down the Partition Resolution of 1947 and 1937 (a reference to the Peel Commission). The settlements are not the issue.

On a personal level, I participated as a reserve officer in the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. And it was one of the most traumatic  experiences not just of my military career, but of my life. And we did that to advance peace, and we didn’t get peace. We uprooted 21 settlements and we didn’t get peace. We got rockets.

It’s not about settlements. We understand that settlements is an issue that will be determined within negotiations with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu got up in front of both houses of the Congress and said that he understood that in the event of peace with the Palestinians there would be settlements that would lie beyond Israel’s borders.