World Citizen: Events Move Israel, Iran Small Step Back From Brink
WPR Article | World Citizen: Events Move Israel, Iran Small Step Back From Brink.
The past two weeks have brought major political and strategic changes to the Middle East, particularly in Israel, which saw a military confrontation with Hamas-ruled Gaza as well as a feverish pace of political activity in advance of upcoming parliamentary elections.
Developments in Israel on both the military and political front have implications for the prospects of a much-discussed war with Iran. The question is whether the changes on the ground make a war with Iran more or less likely.
The war with Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza pitted Israel against groups linked and partly armed by the Islamic Republic, and the conflict saw a showdown between Iranian-supplied missiles and Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield. On the political front, the selection of candidates to run in the January elections and, more importantly, the announcement by Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he will retire from politics after Jan. 22 could have a direct impact on Israel’s strategic calculus regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel used the Pillar of Defense operation to target some of the weaponry that Iran has provided to Israel’s foes in Gaza. The conflict also allowed Israel to measure the effectiveness of its Iron Dome missile shield against those weapons that Israeli air strikes did not eliminate.
If Iran and Israel went to war, Israel would face a much more sophisticated array of weaponry from Iran than that deployed by Hamas and the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Still, Israel can feel reassured by the performance of its evolving defensive systems against the short- and medium-range rockets, including the Iranian-made Fajr missiles, fired during the conflict from Gaza.
The success of Iron Dome, which shot down more than 80 percent of the missiles it targeted, gave further impetus to Israel’s efforts to quickly develop other anti-missile systems, such as the David’s Shield and Arrow systems, designed to counter longer-range attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, Tehran’s ally in Lebanon, just across Israel’s northern border.
If Iran were to decide that its missiles are not effective weapons against Israel, how would that affect the chances for war? Some have argued that it would add to Iran’s incentive to develop nuclear weapons. That may be true. However, if Tehran decided to use nuclear weapons against Israel, it would surely trigger the kind of overwhelming retaliation that would spell disaster for the Islamic Republic. Assuming that Iran is not “suicidal,” the net result of the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas is thus to diminish, if only marginally, the chances of war.
Meanwhile, Iran could not have overlooked the fact that Washington sided unequivocally with Israel during the Gaza campaign. If Tehran had expected, as others might have, that U.S. President Barack Obama’s pro-Israel statements in the past were purely designed to win votes, and that once he secured re-election his support would waver, then the Gaza fighting proved doubly disappointing. Given the solidarity shown by the U.S. to Israel, the risks for Tehran of a conflict with Israel also look greater. That, too, could make Tehran more willing to compromise with the West on its nuclear program.
So far, however, there is no evidence of that. On Wednesday, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said that Iran will continue enriching uranium “with intensity,” including by substantially increasing the number of centrifuges in operation.
Meanwhile, the changes on Israel’s political front also have important, if somewhat ambiguous implications.
The most significant development was Barak’s retirement announcement. Barak, after all, has teamed up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to develop Israel’s strategy on Iran — a strategy predicated on raising international awareness of the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose and creating pressure for strict international sanctions backed by the threat of military action to take out Iran’s nuclear installations. That strategy probably includes contingencies for a unilateral Israeli attack if international measures do not work, although only Barak and Netanyahu know just how far Israel is willing to go.
The question now is whether Barak’s retirement will make Israel more or less likely to attack.
Israel’s most decorated soldier and a man of legendary intellectual powers, Barak has found politics to be a difficult and disappointing pursuit. For months the pollsters have predicted he would not gain a seat in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in the next election. The 70-year-old’s resignation was a way to avoid humiliation at the polls.
It is Barak who crafted the notion of a “zone of immunity,” a point in Iran’s nuclear development after which Israel would not be militarily capable of inflicting significant damage, and the point before which Israel would have to attack if other measures have not produced results.
As an advocate of military action, his withdrawal from the government could diminish the chances of an attack, depending on who takes over as defense minister when he’s gone.
There is great speculation about who might replace him.
One of the most likely candidates is Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief and the current minister of strategic affairs. Yaalon, the country’s vice prime minister, belongs to Netanyahu’s inner Cabinet, the eight-member group that makes the country’s most important decisions.
According to a number of unnamed sources, Yaalon and Barak clashed inside that kitchen cabinet. Although Yaalon supports military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program, he reportedly opposes a unilateral move by Israel and favors giving international sanctions more time.
Should he become the next defense minister, that would diminish the chances of a military confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Other political changes inside Israel create the opposite result. The Likud primary election proved disastrous for two members of the inner cabinet who had opposed a unilateral strike. Ministers Benny Begin and Dan Meridor lost their slots to more hawkish party members. Given Likud’s commanding lead in the polls, that means the next government’s inner council will lean more toward military action.
In the end, Israel’s position regarding Iran will depend more on the prime minister than on anyone else, and Netanyahu’s path to re-election looks rather easy.
On balance, the recent developments in Israel constitute a very small step back from the brink. But the chances of a military confrontation with Iran could be most easily removed by decisions made in Tehran. If Iran decides to show flexibility in the face of crippling international sanctions, changes in the region and in Israel’s internal politics will become irrelevant in determining whether the two countries will go to war.
Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly WPR column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.
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