WarSclerotic

Both the U.S. and Israel have been embarrassed following comments by the head of the Research Division at IDF Military Intelligence that the Syrian army used chemical weapons against rebel forces. The public differences of opinion with the U.S. administration have painted Israel into an uncomfortable, and mainly unplanned, corner. All this amid the flourishing strategic relations the two countries have enjoyed recently.

Brig. Gen. Itai Brun’s comment needs to be viewed in two ways: The visible and the essential. On the visible level, Brun erred egregiously. As someone who is privy to all the state’s secrets and decisions, he should have known he was crossing a red line and walking into a minefield. The fact that his superiors — the head of military intelligence (currently abroad), the chief of staff, the defense minister and the prime minister — were taken by surprise only made things worse, and his attempts behind closed doors Wednesday to clarify that his comments were only based on his own judgment and analysis were akin to putting out a forest fire with a few buckets of water.

One can assume that officials in Washington were not the only ones following this matter: It’s reasonable that Syrian officials were also wondering how Israel knows what weapons have been used and against whom. Offering a public appraisal of the situation, which normally takes place only behind closed doors, did not help solve the chemical weapons problem in Syria at all and merely served to create unnecessary suspicion between Washington and Jerusalem (which was forced to work overtime yesterday to reassure the Americans that they weren’t being manipulated into taking military action).

However, alongside the visible fallout, there is also a fundamental aspect underlying Brun’s comments — namely, for those who still need more evidence, the U.S. simply does not want to use military force in the region.

The rhetoric still seems to be clear: We won’t allow chemical weapons to be used in Syria or for a nuclear armed Iran. The translation of these words into action, however, is lacking. The Obama administration, which has just pulled out of Iraq and is still bleeding in Afghanistan, doesn’t want to be dragged into another conflict zone. It is searching for any excuse to avoid military action, even if this means casting doubt on a trustworthy ally’s seemingly solid intelligence information.

Israel must now navigate between these two levels in the hopes that Washington acts, but while avoiding unnecessary head-butting with it. The way to do this is to be synchronized, operationally, with intelligence information, and also with words.