Netanyahu Preempts Diplomacy, Attacks Iran

For twenty years, Netanyahu has wanted to drag America into a war to overthrow Iran's government. He may have finally succeeded.

Note to Subscribers: I have not written a newsletter for a month. Some of what I’ve been saying and writing elsewhere is included at the end of this newsletter.

In September 2008, President George W. Bush rebuffed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to drag the United States into war with Iran. Every president since, including Donald Trump in his first term, has done the same. Until now.

At the beginning of last week, Trump apparently told Bibi Netanyahu not to strike Iran. He did it anyway. After seeing the tactical success of the first day of Israeli attacks — and desperate not to expose his weakness — Trump appears to have embraced the new war, acting as if it was part of his “plan” all along.

Today, I talked with MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera and retired Gen. Mark Hertling about the war and the dangers of its expected escalation.

The attack represents a major victory for the Israel lobby in Washington. This war and what is to follow is the results of Trump’s foolish withdrawal in 2018 from the strongest non-proliferation agreement ever negotiated: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015, popularly know as the Iran Deal. Bibi hated it because it solved the nuclear crisis with Iran. It blocked all of Iran’s pathways to the Bomb. It prevented the war Bibi wanted. It had to go.

My friend, MJ Rosenberg, writes in his Substack newsletter titled “Good Job, Israel Lobby”:

The nuclear deal was working—verifiably. Iran halted its weapons program, sanctions began to lift, and for once, that arena edged toward stability. But Israel hysterically opposed the deal, not because it was failing, but because it was succeeding. Netanyahu and his allies lobbied Trump and Congress to kill it, and the U.S. obliged. Why? Because AIPAC and its donor network made it politically dangerous to do otherwise.

Iran waited a year after Trump withdrew and then slowly ramped back up the enrichment of uranium the deal has curtailed. Under the deal, it would have taken Iran a full year to produce the highly-enriched uranium for one bomb, and another year or two to construct the weapons, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.

Now, Iran could enrich enough uranium for ten bombs in under two week. It could build one or more bombs in a few months. In other words, Trump and Bibi created the problem they now propose to fix with a new war.

Israeli strikes can damage, perhaps severely, Iran’s enrichment capabilities. But they cannot stop Iran from building a bomb. Bibi seems to know this. By day three of his new war, it is clear that damaging or eliminating Iran’s nuclear material production capabilities is the excuse for the war, not its primary strategic objective. It is similar to the lie that we had to invade Iraq in 2003 to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The lie was an excuse for the war neoconservatives (backed by Bibi and the Israel Lobby) want to overthrow Saddam’s regime. We never found any WMD.

Now, they are doing it again. Israel’s target list has rapidly expanded to focus on political and economic targets in an attempt to topple the clerical rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This weekend, Bibi address the Iranian people, urging them to overthrow the government — a prospect that most analysts believe highly unlikely despite the numerous failures and unpopularity of Iran’s odious, autocratic government.

Bibi’s “preemptive attack” didn’t preempt an Iranian attack or a dash to a Bomb. There is no evidence that Iran was preparing to attack Israel or this it was close to a decision to build nuclear weapons. This has nothing to do with “defending Israel.”

Rather, the attacks preempted a new nuclear deal with Iran. Just last week, Trump said that such a deal was “fairly close.” I, for one, believed up until last Thursday that a new deal was likely. That, more than anything else, likely motivated Bibi. He saw his window to attack closing, his grip on power loosening. He struck while he still could.

So, what now? No one can reliably predict what is going to happen next. There are simply too many uncertainties, too many unknowns.

As with many military attacks, there will be in Israel and elsewhere a short term burst of adrenaline, a short term burst of support for Netanyahu. Advocates of war with Iran on cable news and streamed panel discussions can barely contain their excitement. The war fever is burning hot. But it is unlikely to last.

As with its initial attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has been brilliant tactically but deeply confused strategically. What is the endgame in Gaza? How does its conflict with Lebanon end? What is the endgame with Tehran? Israel has proven itself to be one of the most capable militaries in the world. But it is a nation plagued with some of the worst leaders in the world. It is skilled at launching attacks but utterly incapable of building off ramps.

It is highly unlikely that that if the Iranian regime collapses a better more moderate regime will take its place. Don’t expect an Iranian George Washington or Alexander Hamilton to emerge. Power will flow to those with the guns. That would likely be the Revolutionary Guard. Do you think the Ayatolah's regime was bad? Wait till you see what could come next.

It will very possible that it will be nuclear armed. Many of us have warned, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in 2012:

“[A]n attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert…The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”

It was true then, it is true now. I agree completely with my friend and colleague, Mark Fitzpatrick. This is not going to stop Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear option; it may accelerate it. He writes this week for the International Institute for Strategic Studies :

“With President Trump’s failure to persuade Prime Minister Netanyahu not to start what will likely be a long-term conflict, Israel’s multi-targeted attacks against Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes will likely push Iran into more secretive and dangerous nuclear pursuits.“

This is going to get much worse. We have to do all we can to convince the U.S. government not to let Netanyahu drag America even deeper into the war. We have to do all we can to pressure Israel to stop the attacks and — as Trump says — get Iran and the U.S. back to the negotiating table. That is the only know way to prevent an Iranian bomb.

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NOTES on a few interviews and articles from the past few weeks:

Interview with Zerlina Maxwell Mornings with Zerlina on Sirius/XM Radio on Israel’s war with Iran.

Interview on Bloomberg News The Close, “Stocks Sink, Oil Jumps as Mideast Tensions Build.”

Interview with Bloomberg’s Ashraq Media on prospects of an Israeli attack on Iran (in Arabic).

Interview on Deep State Radio on nuclear threats, including the prospects for a new deal with Iran, “The Scary Episode You Need to Hear.’

Interview on NPR’s On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti, “President Trump’s Proposed Golden Dome vs. the Laws of Physics.

Interview with Ian Masters Background Briefing, “Golden Dome: A Massive Boondoggle and Payoff to Musk and Thiel.”

Article in The New Republic, “Golden Dome Won’t Work, but It Will Make Elon Musk Richer.”

Interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “The 15-minute Interview: Joe Cirincione on Golden Dome and the long-running US missile defense debacle.”

There were more interviews and discussions, but I think this captures the major ones. I promise to publish more regularly in the future.