Our “Friend” in the White House is obsessed with the Palestinian narrative.

Here are my thoughts about today’s big speech designed by the White House to ‘reach out to Israel’.

First let me say that we are honored to have had the VP Joe Biden visit with us, he is the Vice President of what has been until now our closest & most trusted ally, The United States of America. Sadly, it remains to be seen if that legacy will carry forward.

Mission Unaccomplished

It’s hard to escape the fact the speech was heavy on lecturing us in Israel, the bulk of it was seemingly devoted to this, Biden’s personal anecdotes of friendship aside.

• How we don’t do enough for peace
• How we don’t risk enough for peace
• How we endanger peace.
• How hard Peace is & how we are making it harder.

As I listened to it, even the parts extolling our long friendship, I couldn’t help but be struck at how superficial it all was. The personal anecdotes were the same ones delivered by Biden previously to AIPAC in other speeches, that’s fine & understandable. It may have effected me nonetheless. I can’t even fault Joe, he delivered his speech well. But I felt it’s as if this White House is just going through the motions when it comes to Israel.

It’s such a stark contrast to the genuine warmth we felt from Bush. When he spoke you could hear it in his voice & see it in his eyes he was true friend. You could feel the alliance pulsing, the passion that real friends or brothers have for each other. Shoulder to shoulder, thick & thin.

This passion & friendship at a leadership level is long gone.

Try as they may to write it out, the White House speech writers, the advisers, down to the President himself they hold no passion for Israel. It’s evident. Biden tried to deliver it for them, but making us wait 45 minutes collectively as a nation for him to get it started certainly did not help. TV stations, radio, all of it live..  Filling in dead air time for nearly an hour making up for the fact Biden was so late!? It contributed to this feeling we have, that we are a chicken or fish bone stuck in the White House throat. That’s how they feel about us and we can sense it, we’re an errand, an annoyance or something to knock off on a post it note.

Obama’s stumbling block to greatness

That’s the reason Obama is so unpopular here. We know that for Obama, in his mind we are a roadblock preventing him from greatness. He feels no doubt the same way about nearly everyone. The US House, the American people, the Congress. It’s very sad, he’s clearly an egomaniac and I won’t mince words. We all know the type, they blame their failures on everyone else, like a slighted Hollywood star who’s acting simply sucks.

So how can anyone here in Israel feel assured, or entrust our very existence to such a ’friend’? It’s frankly beyond me. Truthfully this America Israel stuff should be easy as apple pie. This is not a difficult mission, we love America! We want to be swept off our feet by her, the fact Obama can’t accomplish even this simple task is astounding. It’s speak much more than words can.

Nonetheless, what we really needed to hear is how we would stop Iran. That part was painfully short and passed by all too quickly. Instead we mostly heard how we should stop figuratively abusing the Palestinians and begin delivering for Obama a big win. Indeed, when Obama spoke in Cairo and embraced the Arab narrative it is clear now more than ever, he wasn’t humoring them. This dribble is what he actually believes. It’s 20 years of Jeremiah Wright coming home to roost, and he’s humoring us instead.

This one line from the speech says it all.

It was in reaction to the housing plans announced in Jerusalem which caused such a scandal.
Jerusalem, the territory we made sure everyone understands is not subject to settlement talk, not subject to freezes..

I — and at the request of President Obama, condemned it immediately and unequivocally.

That’s the real story. We had once again dared to stand before President Obama and his failed legacies. We are, and have always been in his mind condemned unequivocally and we know it. If someone had intended to convince us otherwise today, they failed. The speech went out with a whimper, it’s hardly being spoken about or even reported about hours later. I suspect thanks to this Administration, much the same can be said about the American Israel alliance for the next 3 years.

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Obama’s Failed Foreign Policy Has Everyone Spinning

There’s a mountain of activity, editorials, blog posts, opinion pieces & think tank rhetoric exploding outward this week regarding Iran. With Obama’s signature foreign policy of engagement crashing & burning, and no direction in sight the spinners are out in force at every level.

American envoys, like Admiral Mullen, Kerry, even VP Biden are & have been shuttling to Israel to hold off any Israeli strike. Sec. Clinton jetted off to Latin America, doing whatever it is she does to unsuccessfully rally for sanctions. On the media front, articles galore delegitimizing strikes as a possible solution..

None of it is on the level

If it were, there would be a credible strategy put forth to counter the military option. But as we’ve seen, the refined fuel blockade combined with IRGC sanctions are nowhere to be found, if anything deadlines which passed months ago are only pointing to sanctions many more months away. Those sanctions are neither a given nor are the odds very good either.

Clearly, the Obama administration is stalling for time, waiting for the Iranian nuclear bomb to become a reality because the President like so many before me have claimed, is rather weak. He was weak on tough engagement, weak on supporting regime change in Iran, and now he’s weak on stopping the Iranian nuclear drive. If he weren’t, the multiple US House & Senate resolutions for fuel sanctions now sitting in drawers nearly a year would have been long ago realities, instead they are blocked by the Administration at every turn..

There are basically three courses open to the Obama administration with respect to Iran. It can do the Full Leverett (drop all pretense of hostility toward Iran and engage them on all issues in the hopes of a grand bargain); it can pursue the course it’s on now, a slow roll of diplomacy towards possible sanctions and international condemnation of Iran that probably won’t alter their nuclear progress; or it can start a war with Iran, which may or may not fully stop their nuclear program but would open the door to a host of consequences, most of them negative.

In contrast to their neoconservative critics, the Obama administration, including senior figures in the military, apparently sees the “hard realities of the world” as mitigating against starting a third war in the Greater Middle East – even if it means conceding some nuclear weapons capability to Iran. Of course, the administration can’t publicly acknowledge this, and so they have pursued the diplomatic and sanctions track, to demonstrate that they are least trying to address the problem.

“Hard Realities of the World”

That above is ‘realism school of thought’ euphemism for weakling, its testament to the overblown Iranian rhetoric. In reality Iran is the weak link, a regime forced to beat its own peoples to remain in power who’s unending glorious pronouncements of strength do little to buttress the fact that the only outlet they have is terror. So far so good, they seem to have terrorized the Obama administration into submission. Unfortunately for him, the American public is a different story..

“Do not even think about bombing Iran,” wrote Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Reidel in yesterday’s Financial Times.  Pointing out that the US has two unpopular and unfinished wars in the region already, and that the damage from any military strikes on the Islamic Republic would be unlikely to do enough damage to its nuclear program to justify the military and political cost, and also that Iran would have many opportunities to retaliate against US interests in the region, they urge President Obama to take this option off the table completely.  Living with a nuclear Iran won’t be fun, but it’s better than the alternatives, so let’s start making plans for the inevitable.

I actually agree with O’Hanlon and Reid that military strikes against the Iranian nuclear program aren’t likely to get us anywhere good, but that doesn’t mean we can stop thinking about them. Sixty-one percent of Americans asked called Iran’s strength a ‘critical threat’ in a Gallup poll last month;  an additional 29 percent said the Iranian threat was ‘important.’  With 90 percent of the public feeling threatened by Iran — at a moment when nothing special was happening — it’s not clear to me that domestic politics will allow the Obama administration to steer clear of hostilities with Iran even if it wants to. [...]

The Israel Factor

It is worth noting that many of those advocating strategies of retreat are the same people who so boisterously argued for engagement, their track record leaves much to be desired. They argued for shelving the military option before engagement, that worked well as we’ve seen. Now they argue for shelving the military option after engagement.. One begins to suspect their true goal is not solving the Iranian nuclear riddle – But merely shelving the military option at all costs. Good luck with that.

All these pundits may want to stack the shelves & put things in drawers, but those same ‘Hard Realities of the World’ are also in operation in Israel. Here those realities tend to be even harsher than they appear in the local American think tank, filled with lazy chairs & academic tenures. Obama may be trying to stall, his advisers may even think he’s succeeding. Kerry quipped in Israel this week how the US & Israel are on the same page. But he was speaking in the language of fuel sanctions which Israelis understand.. So far, it’s a dialect Obama seems to be unable to comprehend.

A War of Choice or Necessity?

So are we all really on the same page? It doesn’t look like it, but sooner rather than later we are all going to find out. I suspect those flimsy locks on the military engagement drawers won’t stop Israel from doing whatever it deems necessary. Therein lies the rub, those opposed to using every tool in the arsenal cast this as a war of choice, just like Iraq they might argue.

Sadly they are gravely mistaken in my opinion. Here in Israel where the threat is seen a existential in every way – Stopping Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons is a war of necessity, not choice. If Obama keeps stalling and we start shooting, the Iranians themselves will force the President to quickly realize just how wrong many of his advisers often are. With American support for Israel at record highs, and anathema for Iran in similar territory - He may not have that luxury of choice, if or when Iran attacks American interests.

Then the question inevitably becomes – Does America want to strike on its terms, or Iran’s?

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Maybe we can walk to Iran?

Israel is still negotiating the endless contract for the JSF fighter, who’s sky rocketing price & endless delays are now becoming the stuff of legends.

Via the Weekly Standard we visit Aviation Week where rumors now abound of what some are calling the JSF manufacturing disaster, the fighter is now years behind due to problems and delayed flight testing. We will never see it by the 2014 time frame envisioned, which itself is two years behind what Israel had initially projected..

If February was a bad news month for the Joint Strike Fighter, with the program boss fired, a 13-month delay in test and a two-year slip in Air Force initial operational capability, look out for March. A Government Accountability Office report is rolling down the tracks, along with a Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) which, as we told you in Defense Technology International a month ago, is almost certainly going to record a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.

Meanwhile, the flight test program continues to log an all-time slow record. [...]

The Obama administration along with Sec Def Gates have nailed the F-22 coffin shut. Despite claims to the contrary and attempts to soft pedal the issue officially in Israel – Our arms purchases from the US are moving at a glacial pace. We still don’t have resolution regarding Apache Longbow attack helicopter upgrades which I maintained were frozen by the Obama administration along with access to several other platforms. It’s now been a year that we are negotiating for half a dozen chopper upgrades for a helicopter we already fly, can you say deep freeze?

All this JSF woe leaves Israel, not too mention US forces in a bit of a lurch. There’s no JSF any time soon, and interim replacement platforms are simply seemingly not even on the menu for Israel to look at (F-15SE). None of it bodes particularly well when one considers the chorus of voices ever rising that the JSF simply ain’t that great in the 1st place..

The fighter is, and has been, plagued by delays, cost overruns, spats with allies, all underscored by the fact that the JSF isn’t that great of a jet. The Russian PAK-FA, which took to the skies this month, is already purported to be a superior air-to-air platform — though it won’t be fully operational for a few years. Moscow has no problem exporting their best gear to second and third world nations, and the Russians take particular delight in providing nations hostile to U.S. interests with advanced weaponry. Considering that proclivity to sell to bad guys, we could be facing the PAK-FA in air-to-air combat in under a decade.

So will we be ready? The F-35’s long list of failures is opening up some critical planning issues, problems that could end up critically degrading America’s abilities to fight and win wars a few miles down the road. The Obama administration is taking a colossal risk in canceling the F-22 program and sticking all their eggs in the Joint Strike Fighter basket. [...]

Did we screw the pooch on this one?

Israel faces much of the same, only we are more boxed in. We don’t have the minimum allocation of F-22s the USA has in stock & on order before the program runs its course. We may be looking at a few decades where our new superiority fighter (If it is ever delivered) is seemingly inferior to what our enemies can buy on the open market. That would be disastrous. The Obama administration maintains its claim that Israel’s military superiority is a top priority, while selling everything we have to the Gulf like it is going out of style.. In parallel we are being limited on purchases, a perfect storm.

One day we might have to call in the Cavalry

Americans who dislike Israel often claim they don’t want America fighting our wars for us. To date that has never been the case, and haters have just been blowing off steam. Going forward however, if we can’t get our hands on the best tech with the ability to customize it to our needs – Precisely the scenario now unfolding with the JSF contract, that may very well change. A situation which is just as unacceptable to us as it is to America.

It is dangerous entrusting our security to others, and only more so entrusting it to President Obama – His priorities simply lie elsewhere. Unfortunately for us, we sleep in the bed the American voters made.

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Much better than the new season of Smallville..

The Hudson Institute may not be a team in the MLB, but they sure know how to crack one out of the park.  The topic? Particularly timely and suitably riveting for political junkies such as myself:

U.S.-Israeli Relations - Challenges to the Special Relationship.

Hudson's 3rd Panel - But they were all very very good!

The Panels? One after the other some of the most balanced I have ever seen, fantastic stuff.

Even the opening speech (usually a borefest) was particularly good, with Ambassador Oren delivering a surprisingly interesting and frankly illuminating speech clearly written specifically for the event – Unlike the usual stump speech.

Highlights:

Certainly included Daniel Levy (of Yossi Beilin, Obama tuchus licking fame) making a total ignoramus of himself (I could watch that all day), but that was just the cherry on top of what can only be described as delicious overall viewing. Look at some of these experts lined up..

Ambassador Oren; Aaron David Miller, Douglas Feith, Robert Lieber, Marty Peretz, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Martin Indyk, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Makovsky.

I love it, only complaint is the oddball video player at the Hudson website which makes access to this excellent content a bit difficult. If you have been following the US / Israel relationship in the age of Obama, or have had concerns over recent US policy, these panels will certainly please!

It should also be noted that one of the panels was clearly designed with the controversial J Street in mind, but J Street founder Ben-Ami was a no show. Judging by Levy’s pitiful display this was probably for the best.

I’ve seen video of dozens of think tank symposiums, hundreds of hours of c-span etc etc. This is definitely memorable stuff imho.

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Back in late 2007, I wasn’t alone while tripping out over what was clearly highly politicized intelligence. The American National Intelligence Estimate released on Iran at the time went against the prominent views of the US Bush administration, the NIE released just prior in 2005, and stood in contrast to the intelligence estimates of a number of key western allies; Including Israel, the UK, Germany and even France.

The NIE made the absurd claim that Iran had ceased the military dimensions of its nuclear program. Worse it did so in the cagiest of manners with buried footnotes, selective declassified wording, topped off with media briefings. It resulted in a derailing of effective US policy on the Iranian issue buying Iran plenty of precious time, a respite which continues.

Dishonest sorta means lying doesn’t it?

Alan Dershorwitz writes..

In December of 2007, I wrote an article about the National Intelligence Estimate that had just concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. The immediate effect of this pollyanna-ish report was to diminish the need for tough sanctions against Iran and take the military option off the table. We now know that the conclusion reached in the report was categorically false, and that those who issued the report knew it was false. [...]

It now turns out that at the time this “stupid intelligence” estimate was released, our intelligence agencies were aware that the Iranians were building a secret military facility buried deep in the mountains near the holy city of Qom. The United States recently disclosed the existence of this facility (after Iran was forced to acknowledge its existence) together with its firm conclusion that it could be used only for the development of a nuclear weapons program. If the intelligence community knew then what they know now, then its 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was not only stupid, it was dishonest.

Pretty damning, and justifiably so. Ed at Hotair commenting on a scathing WSJ Opinion piece, states matter of factly that it seems clear enough bureaucrats at US intelligence pulled off a full fledged sabotage of then President Bush’s foreign policy..

As Glenn Reynolds says, the NIE has been exposed as an effort by a handful of people at the CIA to kneecap Bush on national security. It deliberately misled Congress and the nation on the threat posed by Iran, a lie that has cost us valuable time in stopping the nuclear threat. If Iran gets the bomb, we can thank Tom Fingar and his colleagues for distracting the US long enough to allow them to do so.

Jennifer Rubin goes right to the source, raising a number of questions while commenting on remarks by CIA Director Leon Panetta to Time Magazine – She concludes..

Both the 2007 NIE report and the behavior of the Obama administration betray a concerted aversion to confronting Iran and doing what is needed to halt its nuclear ambitions.

Game Changing Diplomacy

Questions which tie in the current administration seem apt. The politicization of the intelligence had an important role supporting and nourishing the floating think tank engagement theories which were emerging. Those theories have become the hallmark of Obama’s foreign policy strategy, and called for ‘putting the military option in the drawer’. The think tanks termed it Game Changing Diplomacy, after a brief by The Center For A New American Security (CNAS) on US Iranian strategy in 2008. CNAS members then went on to staff Obama’s administration in a big way, including  the Deputy Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy.

Today, CNAS policies are closely associated with the Obama White House, so it should come as no shock that the Game Changing Diplomacy / Grand bargain strategy has become the blue print for Obama on Iran. However, it is somewhat shocking that apparently part of the effort to usher in ‘Game changing diplomacy’, may have involved a little nudging best effectuated by ‘game changing intelligence’.

A game that seemingly has continued to this day.

* UPD - I futzed with the title a bit and corrected a typo.

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Denials abound, but so do the many causal links & leaks..

Signs: Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia align

When Obama’s administration first tabled the ideology behind its mid east peace efforts, a core argument was the driving need to take advantage of what was termed ‘a rare opportunity for consensus’. The argument was that the Iranian rush to nuclear technology which must be stopped, had created a rare spot of common ground for often feuding parties all around the Middle East. I recall Senator Kerry, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee waxing lyrically about it at the time, and the need to urgently re-examine the Saudi Peace Plan as a result.

A policy of convenient linkage was put forward by the White House quite publically - The peace process was key to solving the Iranian riddle, and as such a massive effort toward Palestinian Israeli engagement was necessary. The Saudi’s weren’t all that interested however, they rejected the notion that forging Palestinian peace was a pre-requisite to stopping Iran. They further quickly doused any talk of concessions to Israel, a key component of Obama’s linkage plan.

Israel also rejected the notion, Netanyahu in fact argued the opposite linkage. The only way to facilitate an eventual peace he said was to remove a main instigator preventing peace, Iran – World’s most prolific sponsor of terror, and patron of the Hezbollah & Hamas radical Islamic terror groups. All three openly sworn to Israel’s destruction.

Thus, in a most backhand manner, it appeared that there was indeed Saudi Israeli consensus. Consensus which was shared with Egypt as well, that Iran must be stopped and more effort toward that goal was needed. The quiet consensus seemingly emerged that America was not being aggressive enough toward that goal. We heard rumblings about it after expansive tours of the Gulf by Sec Def. Gates & Admiral Mullen, the senior US defense officials sent by Obama to brief Gulf leaders.

Signs: The Saudi Strike Path

Not once, but twice now we have heard rumors involving the Saudis spill over into the international press. Rumors regarding possible overflights Israel might employ to cut the distance involved striking the Iranian nuclear weapons programs.  Both rumors linked talks with Israel’s Mossad chief Meir Dagan, and the Sauds possibly turning a blind eye to any Israeli aircraft which might be headed to Iran across the vast Saudi deserts & kingdom.

On both occasions, these rumors were flatly denied by both the Saudis & Israel. Of course, that would be the case whether they were based in reality or not. If anything even in the best case scenario this would be a marriage of convenience, not love or lust that is for certain. But, against the odds another compelling sign has emerged.

Signs: Saudi Largess

The House of Saud is on a military spending binge, a world leading one at that. They are buying up tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware, a lot of it is advanced US equipment. Israel doth protest, but not all that loudly which suggests a tacit understanding on the international level of sorts that these weapons and systems are not aimed at the holy land. This last point I am arguing may seem somewhat weak in the signs department, but I’ll up the ante and solidify the link by bringing in Russia.

Israel, assisted somewhat by the USA has been vigorously petitioning Russia not to sell Iran advanced Russian S-300 Anti Aircraft missile systems. This has been ongoing for a few years. Escalating to the point where Israel has in its own leaks & rumors threatened that such a weapons system delivery to Iran, could spur an immediate Israeli strike. Clearly, the issue is regarded with the utmost of seriousness as such weapons in Iran could remove a strike option from the table entirely. Thankfully we can suddenly add Russia to the pot of Israeli & Saudi interests seemingly converging.

The Saudi S-400s

When Israel most recently petitioned the Russians (again) about the S-300, the Ruskies were rumored to have replied something along the lines of.. ‘If you don’t want us delivering these S-300s to Iran, why don’t you buy them from us instead?‘

The implication being clear enough. The Iranian contract was lucrative, but the Russians might be prepared to take the billion plus dollars such a sale would ring up for them someplace else. That sticker price however is a bit steep for Israel to absorb, especially since such a system cannot be integrated into Israel’s defenses which are based entirely on Israeli & American design.

Video: Saudis Buying S-400s?

Which brings us oddly enough back to the Saudis. Their systems and the many billions of dollars more they have pledged to purchase are also mostly American designs. Which makes their recent moves to purchase a big S-400 order from Russia quite interesting. Unlike Israel, the Saudis can afford a billion here or there to prevent the delivery of said missiles to Iran. Maybe the offer was to Israel, but in the interests of détente in the face of a common threat - the Saudis have yet again come in to close the deal on keeping the pressure on Iran.

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Yaakov Katz at JPOST has an interesting piece about the 2006 Lebanon war up today. It’s a report on an IDF research article and it comes to some ugly conclusions..

• Israel failed to execute the last war as well as Hezbollah
• Israel needs to prepare for hundreds of 5 man Guerrilla teams infiltrating Israel in coming conflicts
• Hezbollah is armed to the teeth with advanced weapons
• Israel needs to prepare for a possible scenario where it has “No US Ally or Support”

We’ve already seen a waning of our US alliance under Obama, and a crimp on weapons from the US.

What is of particular interest is the guerrilla raiding teams aspect.

One notes that the catalyst for the last war itself was in fact two or three such teams carrying out a similar attack across the northern border against an IDF patrol, with the goal of killing & capturing IDF soldiers. Using the rocketing of Israeli civilians as a diversion, two such teams ambushed IDF humvees on patrol with RPGs and weapons fire, killing at least three soldiers & abducting Goldwasser & Regev – Who themselves were probably either dead or mortally wounded in the ambush.

Other raiding teams were lying in ambush within Lebanon itself, waiting for the IDF Tank response to cross the border in hot pursuit – Directly toward the intricate Hezbollah bunker & mine networks leading to further IDF losses. The result was the full outbreak of war, where Israel faced village after village stocked with these small teams armed up with advanced RPGs & anti-tank weaponry, complete with advanced armor piercing shaped warhead charges.

In 2000, another similar ambush occurred. That time however Hezbollah were wearing UNIFIL / UN uniforms and driving UN vehicles as their diversion & cover. They attacked a smaller IDF patrol destroying their vehicle, and hauled off three IDF soldiers who again were most likely either dead or mortally wounded.

Large scale raids

The prospect of Hezbollah scaling up this strategy is clearly a serious threat, dozens of such teams or even hundreds as mentioned in the article could create havoc in Northern Israel – Even a mini insurgency going on for some time, in a frightening hide & go seek manner relying on local ‘Arab Israeli infrastructure’ & villages for shelter or supplies, while seeking to kill untold numbers of Israeli civilians.

Unlike traditional threats, Israel could not rely on choppers, heavy weaponry or tanks to counter this terrorist rush. They’d have to be engaged by elite combat forces in close quarters. It should also be noted that these teams would not be Hezbollah regulars, but Iranian trained Revolutionary Guards serving Hezbollah as proxy fighters, these are the most heavily armed & best trained fighters terrorism can currently buy.

Hezbollah is in reality an army with the full Iranian weapons arsenal that employs terrorist tactics, this differentiates them somewhat from traditional guerrilla threats like those faced by the US in Iraq or Afghanistan, and represents a serious challenge. Hezbollah’s heavier weapons & longer range rockets require full logistics & abilities beyond any terror group to maintain & launch, light years beyond what any normal insurgency can muster. How do you engage with an army that does not follow any rules of war on any level? Worse, one who’s main goal is the killing of civilians and causing civilian damage / casualties as opposed to engaging in normal warfare.

The Syria Factor

Also of note, comments by Syrian President Bashar Assad to the effect that this is the manner Syria intends to fight Israel going forward. In 2006, Assad & Syrian Ministers hinted that Syria could resort to ‘Armed Resistance’ & Guerrilla Warfare to retrieve the Golan Heights.

Unable to defeat Israel with their conventional forces the Arabs & Iranians have now fully also invested themselves in terrorism & missiles that target civilians, instead of just tanks or planes to fight. It’s not very honorable, but it sure can kill a lot of innocent people.

Serious Challenges

Let’s hope IDF reforms past, present & future are gearing up to counter these realities. Its no small challenge as Israel needs to counter traditional warfare threats from tanks & planes. Missile & rocket threats from tens of thousands of short medium range weapons on multiple fronts. Missile threats from large long range ballistic weapons probably armed with WMD. A full terrorist threat comprising of gunmen & suicide bombers, and now a combination Guerrilla / Terrorist threat armed with conventional advanced army weapons.

SoccerDad provides a stunner of a Link update:

Using his rather impressive encyclopedic knowledge, SD points out to me that he has read something similar to the report being referenced here on Hezbollah previously! - In fact reading the link he sent my mouth kinda opened a bit. Written a decade ago, Israel’s current Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz warned of a nearly identical threat from Israel’s seam line with Judea & Samaria in reference to the Oslo accords, and the arming of PA security forces by Israel.

Reprinted from Commentary Magazine, December, 1999:
WHEN THE PALESTINIAN ARMY INVADES THE HEART OF ISRAEL

Yuval outlines in very specific terms the dangers to critical infrastructure, civilians, the military and the entire state that small groups of Palestinian guerrillas in a mass assault could  inflict. It’s a prophetic & sobering analysis, one which has left me with an entirely new facet of respect for Mr. Steinitz, while equally leaving me scratching my head somewhat as well.

Where were the IDF big thinkers?

Spanning all that time until now? How come these issues have not been addressed seemingly on multiple borders, and why have we seen in many ways now more than a decade of mediocre IDF strategic thinking, culminating in the painful 2006 Lebanon war? Is it merely complacency or something far more troubling.

Israel’s own Lebanon War Winograd Report blasted the IDF for their lack of out of the box strategic thought, compounded by having a Labor Union chief playing Defense Minister & a negligent Prime Minister. We’re going to need a better effort from our political echelon, regional commands & our upper mid level commanders. Hopefully, the mere fact that we are finally seeing the IDF internalizing, thinking & discussing, while simultaneously reporting & researching means the IDF has come to the same conclusion.

Ehud Barak’s sad Lebanese legacy

Equally, I would like very much to point out that the current Defense Minister Ehud Barak, while serving as the Prime Minister around the time Steinitz penned his own analysis above compounded this situation badly. Barak opened up this second northern front by precipitously & delusionally withdrawing from the Lebanon security corridor in the middle of the night. A move which was stunning in its lack of strategic planning or thought on so many levels it left me in tears when I watched it unfold on the news a decade ago.

He did so with no political deal whatsoever to fill the void left by the dismantling of the Phalange (Israel’s Christian Lebanese Militia allies) and withdrawal of IDF forces from Lebanon, let alone a secured peace deal. Without a doubt the single biggest strategic bungle of the last decade by far. We already know the results of that poor strategic thought on the part of Barak – It’s known as South Lebanon, now a mini self enclosed Iranian terror state which manifested itself in less than 5 years. One imagines he took something away from this & other stunning failures like Camp David II, which resulted in the most brutal terror assault Israel has ever seen.

I’m going to stop now, I’m feeling disillusioned & I have so much more to say I could go on forever. You could write a book about the issues in this post but I promised my readers I would hold post lengths and I’ve already doubled this post’s word count.

It’s not my fault, Gerstman found Pandora’s Box!

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Thanks.. But No Thanks

Plenty of action on the rogue regime front this week, with Iran delivering what it calls a ‘new proposal’ to the p5+1 for “Negotiations”. There are a number of interesting aspects to this proposal.

Chiefly among them is the fact that Iran has flatly refused to discuss or cease its nuclear program, or table uranium enrichment issues which constitutes the number one demand from the West.

Clearly, this is a stalling & delay tactic. But the Iranians in charge over there in Iranistan are a clever bunch. They’ve zeroed in specifically on comments made by the Obama administration, and used them to their own advantage in order to build on some unlikely allies – The hard left in the US and even within Obama’s own administration. The proposal has been leaked and within we can glean some interesting insight into Iran’s squeeze play..

The proposal, submitted by Teheran on Wednesday to representatives of the P5+1 group of nations – - the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – says Iran is prepared to enter into dialog and negotiation in order to lay the ground for lasting peace. It lists a wide range of issues for discussion, including nuclear disarmament, trade and investment and protecting human dignity.

Although the proposal makes no mention of Israel, it calls for “joint efforts and interactions to help the people of Palestine draw up a comprehensive, democratic and equitable plan in order to help the people of Palestine to achieve all-embracing peace, lasting security and to secure their fundamental rights.”

It also calls for “promoting the universality of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” and “putting into action real and fundamental programs toward complete disarmament and preventing the development and proliferation of nuclear chemical and microbial weapons.” [...]

Iran seizes on issues publicly declared by Obama as priorities, cynically portends to be champions of these issues while attempting to replace itself in the hot seat with Israel. The complete disarmament mentioned is in regards to ALL nuclear weapons on the planet, a stated (somewhat absurd) pet project of President Obama himself, and a clear call to focus on Israel’s own nuclear capabilities. The innocent Iranian regime playing international moral leader.

Even more classic, this is exactly what apologists for the Iranian regime want to hear. Iran is clearly banking on those same apologists to be champions in their delay tactics. Lacking any credibility internationally whatsoever of late, the hard left & those that champion engagement with no real end game are Iran’s only outlet. So Iran lays it on mighty thick just for them, with ample bait to the softies in the Obama administration to boot!

Apparently in some quarters it is already working..

According to the document, “The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that within the framework of principles of justice, democracy and multilateralism, a wide range of security, political, economic and cultural issues at regional and global levels could be included in these negotiations with a view of fostering constructive cooperation for advancement of nations and promotion of peace and stability in the region and the world.”

The US and Russia were at odds on Thursday over Teheran’s proposals, with American officials saying they fall short of satisfying international demands, and the Russians saying there was something to talk about. [...]

Justice, Democracy MULTILATERALISM. All the buzzwords and music to engagement eager grand bargainers ears are hear.  In return for some appeasement everything can be magically solved! Security, political, economic problems, cultural issues.. PEACE ON EARTH!!!

This is some pretty devious & clever stuff. Iran delays for 8 months after previously delaying in talks for 6 years, and just as things look ugly for them sanction wise they pull the steak off the table entirely, while baiting the biggest suckers with all the trimmings instead.

All the while the not so subtle offering of a juicy dessert for Iran & its proponents – the focus on Israel in particular, in combination with a cynical play on Obama’s own declared sensitivities regarding nuclear weapons, disarmament and overall Hope & Change. This US Admin already lit a fire under the Israel nuclear pot this spring, Iran is just stepping up & stirring it. After all, how could they disregard that very large Obama gift? Instead they’ve wrapped it in a pretty hope & change bow & re-gifted it right back.

Obama’s Administration is vulnerable

In a normal world we could dismiss it all out of hand, but so far US foreign policy is not operating in a normal world. Months of engagement failure have only now just barely begun to contain Obama’s hope & delusion. Most of that reality slowly creeping in is as a result of Congressional & European displeasure, not any overt acknowledgment that the policy is naive despite the protestations of Denis Ross.

The door is still wide open, and even the September deadline is already slipping back to 2010 in regards to implementing any sanctions. If Iran’s play can whip up enough support in the ‘US engagement at all costs community’ with their little switcheroo – We could be right back at square one, and Iran will be pleased as punch along with having the ability to deliver a nuclear one.

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