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June 6, 2008
An Attack on Iran and U.S-Israel Relations

How would the public react to the consequences of an attack on Iran.

Here is a one scenario I can imagine but have not seen discussed in any analysis.

  • The public does not want an attack on Iran.
  • The public would see any attack on Iran by Israel and/or the U.S. to be launched for the sole benefit of Israel.
  • Any attack on Iran would double crude oil prices and gas in the U.S. would shot up to $8/gallon, guaranteeing a deep recession.
  • While the media would not point it out, the people would know who to blame for such prices and their consequences for the ‘American way of life’.
  • Voters would demand from their representatives to distance themselves from Israel and pro-Israel funds.
  • Over a few years Israel would lose most U.S. financial, diplomatic and military support.

How plausible is this?

Have the U.S. administration or the Israeli government or the Iranian government made such calculations?

Posted by b on June 6, 2008 at 13:30 UTC | Permalink
Comments

I’d say over the last 60 yr public opinion re Israel has not mattered. Smooth talk, implied threats to the right power holders has kept a (rational?) public pretty much on the sidelines.
Sure, now we the public have better communication and therefore more power, but also more exposure to disinfo etc.
Gut feeling tells me that your scenario is unlikely – the public doesn’t have that kind of power, at least not here in USA.

Posted by: rapt | Jun 6 2008 14:41 utc | 1

Not remotely plausible.
While some would connect the dots as you have laid them out, anyone who voiced that conclusion would be immediately labelled an antisemite and discredited. Those who indiscriminately apply that label will hear no criticism of Israel… for whom they have quite a religious fetish (odd, since most of the most rabid pro-Isrealis in the USA belong to an entirely different Abrahamic sect than the one ruling the theocracy they so zealously support).
Your first three bullet points are extraordinarily likely. Bullet points four, five and six will never happen in my lifetime. A simple false flag or media distraction is enough to derail the entire scenario at point number four. Five and six represent nothing more than extremely wishful thinking.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jun 6 2008 15:35 utc | 2

The American Empire cannot back down, cannot back off of on this war for oil. Dubya bet the farm on us gaining and holding control over the Iraqi and Iranian and Caspian oil and gas, and using those resources to keep America on top of the world’s other economies.
What the American public thinks about it is a matter for a good public relations to arrange, not a matter to fear or worry about.
There are terrors in store for us as soon as we go into Iran, sure. But they are still less than the terrors that await our ruling elites if we give up our superpower status and start living within our means.
The Pentagon and all it represents will never permit that to happen.
We’re going into Iran, and we’re going north of Iran once we have a compliant government in Tehran.

Posted by: Antifa | Jun 6 2008 16:15 utc | 3

You sound like a pentagon planner. So where’s the evidence that *going into Iran and then going north* can work as planned? Oh scuse me, the Iraq experience; yr right.

Posted by: rapt | Jun 6 2008 16:46 utc | 4

There won’t be any war anytime soon. Bush is just doing what Zionist Israeli asks him to do; they are real government of USA. Every presidential candidates even vice president nominees not only had to be obedient to Israel but they had to publicly express their undisputed loyalty to Zionist government.
Coward Zionist regime fear Iran and they will use all resources in USA disposal for protections. Bush no longer is useful instrument for them they are planning for next election. They prefer Hillary or McCain but even they can manage Obama, they have so many resources including Media and cultural centers. They know they can not start war now but they will look for another window of opportunity.
Way to stop Zionist power is information and awareness and that is how they will be defeated.

Posted by: Loyal | Jun 6 2008 17:26 utc | 5

It has been proven repeatedly that the American people are easy to deceive.
The propaganda machinery is already running at full clip preparing US public opinion. Note the themes – Iran is on the threshold of nuclear weapons. All the major political leaders – Obama, Clinton, McCain – stating they will do anything to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capability providing legitimacy to such claims. Israel threatening force even though they don’t have the long range air attack capacity to make a dent. Olmert and Cheney trying to get Bush to repudiate the NIE that Iran has stopped nuclear weapons programs. Syria allowing IAEA inspectors. Israel’s bombing of an alleged Syrian nuclear site. You will see more and more talking heads on TV spouting Defcon3 fear messages.
No one in the US has the capacity to take on the AIPAC led Likudnik lobby at this point in time. They are in full control of the US political landscape. Every presidential candidate pledged allegiance to the Israeli flag at AIPAC this week.
Yes, the people will get pissed when gas hits $8/gal but they’ll never connect it to Israel and the AIPAC lobby in the US as those voices that do connect it will be denounced for being anti-semitic mullah lovers.
The only way this scenario changes – the American jewish community who are largely progressive start to push back on the power and influence of the minority Likudniks.

Posted by: ab initio | Jun 6 2008 17:31 utc | 6

rapt, even though there have been some hiccups and a lot of dead people in Mesopotamia, you cannot deny that the US is in control of the territory that was once Iraq. The US will not relinquish this prize without a major struggle. Some might be content to merely have one major oil producing region but that is not how capitalists play the game these days. Once you have your opponent on the ropes, you go in for the kill.
Sadly, I must agree with Antifa, today Iraq, tomorrow Iran, and then onward to the Stans.
what other options are there? is it remotely possible that the people who sell war and destruction will see the folly of their ways and have peace break out spontaneously? Perhaps, if we were to suddenly discover a plentiful supply of dilithium crystals.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 6 2008 17:40 utc | 7

There’s not going to be any attack on Iran as long as the U.S. is in occupation of Iraq. If Israel were to attack Iran, the government in Iraq would turn on the occupation, and the U.S. would essentially have 2 hot war scenario’s it is in no way able to cope with, let alone deal with the additional economic fallout. I think its quite likely, if it were Israel to initiate this kind of thing, that there would be a serious backlash against Israel in the U.S. – especially if serious economic consequences were to have an immediate impact. Even the dullest of minds could cypher this equation: Israel attacks Iran, Iraq desintigrates into anti-U.S. rampage, U.S. economy grinds to a halt with 10 dollar a gallon gas. Who’s to blame? There’s a long history of antisemitism in the U.S. (much of it within living memory) that in spite of recent mollification, could just as easily rear its ugly face provided the proper narrative (an immediate and severe ECONOMIC thrashing) were in place. Which it is.

Posted by: anna missed | Jun 6 2008 18:14 utc | 8

Well, today I thought war was inevitable. Then some minor Israeli politicians announced that war with Iran was inevitable. Oil promptly climbed $10 a barrel – its highest one day rise ever – and the Dow fell 400.
I’d need to know how this was reported in the States, but b might have something. If I was a Republican politician facing re-election in November I sure as hell wouldn’t be wanting any war. Not even rumours of wars.

Posted by: johnf | Jun 6 2008 22:57 utc | 9

Antifa@3,
you are entirely correct about the plot. If the Iraqi’s & Iranians would only submissively play along.
if theres a point past which a USA tangle with Iran is just absolutely not worth the cost and potential downside, the question is — have we passed that point ?
so far the USA planners have declined, and insofar as they have declined, they will probably continue to do so.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jun 7 2008 1:52 utc | 10

As I wrote earlier I believe that the ‘last straw to break the camel’s back’ over amerikan preference for the needs of the Likud party in Israel ahead amerika’s interests, is probably going to come out of Iraq, well before any attack on Iran has legs.
There has been so much clandestine Israeli involvement in the illegal invasion of Iraq we can be sure there have been instances when the lives of amerikan soldiers have been wasted pursuing objectives which suit Israeli interests though counter to amerikan citizens’ interest.
The current BushCo administration has used it’s phalanx of neo-con political operators (Feith, Wolfowitz et al) to caulk any rumour of any leaks about Israel’s involvement.
A change in administration will cause that tight denial to collapse firstly because Obama is unlikely to have suffiecient neo-Zi operatives with the skills to hit the ground running covering israeli ass, secondly because his replacements won’t know where the bodies are buried and are unlikely to be told that since the risk of information being used to embarass the previous rethug regime is too great. Lastly transitions are exactly when some whistleblower frustrated by the way he/she has been treated by a previous management team is likely to use the arrival of a ‘new team’ to justify fessing up big time. The new administration, looking for all the cover it can get on an issue as contentious as iraq would initially welcome any situation that smelt like a fubar which had emanated from the previous administration’s prez or veep.
Some sort of scandal over amerika’s sacrifice of military personnel and resources to further israel’s interests is inevitable, of course it is not certain to happen in the changeover to the next administration, but I bet there are plenty concerned that it could.
What initially seemed to be an issue over neo-con competence and respect for the military’s human lives could have the media trampling all over it before it became known to be an israeli op.
If israel was stupid enough to try and conceal their involvement, then get caught out covering up, israel’s exceptionalist position would be eroded overnight. If nothing in the way of a cover up had occurred it would be only a matter of time before the citizens started asking why amerika had gone to these lengths that needlessly sacrificed amerikan lives in the interest of israel. The rot would have set in.
israelis have come to rely upon the support of the looney xtian right with all their talk of end times and israel’s involvement in the second coming.
However as the rev john hagee has so accurately illustrated having Israel around doesn’t mean these xtian fundies have any love or respect for israelis or jews in general who they regard in the same hateful way they look upon catholics or muslims.
The fundies would pull out their support for israel in a heartbeat if it suited them, as it would likely do if a scandal over the lives of good white xtian boys being wasted in the interests of ‘jews’ did erupt.
Bush 1 enjoyed laying a trap for Clinton to get caught up in militarism by sending the marines into Somalia in late ’92, Bush II would like to do something similar but he is hamstrung. Whatever he does do is something that will explode in the incoming prez’s lap. Somalia was a pretty small op as these things go. But since Iraq is so big anything to distract from Iraq would have to be huge and need a long lead-up, but he won’t know whether Obama has got the gig, or mccain who he wouldn’t want to trap, until november which would be too late to initiate a big adventure whose point of no return had passed by inauguration.
The elements for an attack upon Iran just aren’t in place. I’ve said that so many times I’m not gonna do a stuck record on it. The best BushCo can hope for is the Iraq capitulation agreement and the oil deal and frankly I’m with Gary Leupp on that. Iraq is in a far better negotiating position than the BushCo regime on that issue and it is difficult to see the Iraqi’s capitulating. Even sock-puppets like Maliki have little to gain and much to lose if they capitulate.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that secretary gates had been put in place by old guard republicans to ensure that bush and cheney don’t do anything silly.
Bush’s last days are starting to look more and more like Nixon’s. mccain is only seeing him when he needs cash and even then bush is regarded as a used diaper, something to be dealt with discretely and only when using tongs.
During Nixon’s last days secretary Schlesinger had a quiet word to the Joint Chiefs telling them that any big prez orders had to be cleared through him first, as the prez was no longer up to snuff. He even drew up contingency plans for the Airborne to step in if Nixon refused to step down.
Gates prolly aint gonna go that far but we do know the old guard republicans who gates has ties to are opposed to war with Iran in the near future.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 7 2008 2:54 utc | 11

DoS: you get all bent out of shape when i muse about voting for McPain to accelerate amerika’s inevitable global demise, yet you agree with antifa’s matter-of-fact scenario? i agree with rapt, antifa seems to be uncritically perpetuating the extremely delusional conventional thinking of the amerikan empire.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 7 2008 3:31 utc | 12

i realize there is a wide margin of sarcasm to be taken into consideration when reading posts here at MoA, but using the rhythm of the war drum driving amerika toward another criminal military engagement to make a point could be construed as a waste of time.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 7 2008 3:57 utc | 13

Lizard, there is a small difference. The US has been expansionist for its entire lifetime. We have been invading lands since the beginning….starting in fact with North America. in some two hundred years the US was able to take almost all of the north American continent. There are plenty of islands scattered around the world that are now also US possessions.
When you look at the great prize which is oil, you must also consider what you would do to control that resource should you be able to do so. If you had the means to directly influence production and the sale of said oil to or not to whomever you liked, at no personal risk to yourself, using men and equipment happily and freely provided by willing citizens (remember support for the war was over 80%), what exactly would you do? If you assume, as I do that many corporate bosses have no conscience and feel no remorse, then the answer is blaringly obvious.
That is the way I see things going down. I do not agree with it. I think it is brutal. but then, life is hard, in spite of wars and conflicts, life is still a helluva lot easier for us than it is for a whole lotta others on this planet.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jun 7 2008 4:52 utc | 14

Debs is dead, post#11,
This was a comment on the Jerusalem Post today:

AIPAC and America: Natural Allies
As an AIPAC attendee at this years conference, I had an incredible time as the U.S.-Israel relationship became stonger yet again. Senators Obama and McCain offered incredible speeches and are both stalwart allies to Israel and in obtaining stability in the Middle East. No matter who becomes President, Israel will have a strong ally in the White House. As we have all come to learn, embracing Israel as a strong ally is just as American as baseball on the 4th of July.
Marc – USA (06/06/2008 07:35)

Unfortunately, this philosophy is the only politically correct viewpoint in the U.S. regarding Israel at this time. More significant, the economy (recession/inflation/income) has now become the #1 issue and even though U.S. economic troubles may be associated with the Iraq war, Israel is exempt from any association and criticism. This viewpoint is so entrenched that it will take a lot more than straws to break this camel’s back. There will be no change in opinion regardless of any scandal involving Israel/American soldiers in Iraq, regardless of a new U.S. administration, and regardless even in the extreme circumstance where Israel initiates an attack on Iran. The economy will remain the dominant presidential campaign issue unless violence ratchets up significantly in Iraq or some other significant foreign incident.

Posted by: Rick | Jun 7 2008 4:55 utc | 15

Oil Prices Take a Nerve-Rattling Jump Past $138

The rise in oil prices turned into a stampede on Friday with futures jumping a staggering $11 a barrel to set a record above $138 a barrel. The unprecedented surge came as the dollar fell sharply against the euro and a senior Israeli politician once again raised the possibility of an attack against Iran.

First graph in the NYT – some will note this …

Posted by: b | Jun 7 2008 4:56 utc | 16

Looks like the White House is taking B’s theorem seriously

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Friday that the United States was committed to solving the Iranian nuclear threat through diplomatic multilateral means.
Perino was responding to comments made earlier Friday by Transportation Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, who said that an Israeli attack on Iran appeared “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential.

Posted by: Lysander | Jun 7 2008 6:12 utc | 17

Thanks to b for launching a good thread. I find myself
in agreement with some of the points made by ab initio and debs, and alas, also with monolycus. As b points out @ 16, “the market trend” might be interpreted as “just saying no” to aggression against Iran. I suspect Debs is right about Gates: the recent Air Force purge has to have a “deeper meaning”. (By the way, it’s a surprise to see discipline enforced for something other than sexual transgressions combined with insufficient “loyalty”.)

If a casus belli against Iran is concocted before the U.S. elections it will certainly be an attempt to act as a “game changer” in those elections. Yet the stench of corruption and treachery emanating from ostensible U.S. anti-proliferation activities could equally upset the electoral balance. The latter eventuality would,of course, require that such matters become “mentionable in polite company”,
not, alas, a likely scenario. That U.S. media will ventilate the reports of anti-proliferation spooks having attempted to “enable” adversaries the better to pillory them and justify attacks on their installations is highly unlikely, indeed probably “forbidden”. Nevertheless, the emerging skein of complicity between anti-proliferators and their “prey” seems straight out of the pages of Catch 22. The war in Iraq has been a major success for Halliburton shareholders and other defense contractors, so if a bit of subterfuge is necessary to extend their profitable game to Iran, “rogue” elements in the power elite may be quite willing to do so. There seem to be any number of crackpot ideas (naval blockade, Israel strike to trigger U.S. involvement, attack on “Iranian weapons suppliers to the Iraq resistance”, nuclear bunker busting, etc.) floating around just waiting for the necessary “incident” to put them in motion. So, despite firm and widespread opposition to war with Iran, fateful decisions may arise not from an open political dialectic, but rather from the same murky realms of treachery and corruption cited above.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 7 2008 8:57 utc | 18

@Rick as I said it is by no means certain that a revelation of israeli malfeasence in the next 12 months is going to bring the aipac edifice down, but I do stick by my comment that eventually something like that will occur.
The reason is that the dynamics of the Israeli/amerikan alliance are too unstable to have any real permanence. The relationship is just too one sided and history has shown us that long term relationships between nations are like any other permanent entanglement, that is they must have an element of symbiosis. The deal must be mutually beneficial. Not just beneficial to the leadership but to the populations on both sides, otherwise the iniquity begins to rankle and the deal collapses in acrimony.
I saw last week’s aipac obscenity on TV too, and it struck me more like a nuremburg rally than anything else. All the plasterboard and lathe constructed in a way to give the impression of monolithic strength and unity, was deliberate, but it was erected by an organisation that wants to conceal the termites eating away at it’s foundations. The jerusalem post is not a good indication of how amerikans feel about things.
If you study the amerikan media you will find far more questioning of the role of the israel lobby and israeli involvement in amerika’s foreign policy than ever before. aipac know this hence the facade and the rent-a-crowd.
I believe that some sort of national epiphany on israel is inevitable, which will spell a great deal of trouble for a lot of peeps far removed from aipac. If the backlash against israeli deceptions really takes off it could spell problems for jewish amerikans who have been anti-zionist as well as those who have been pushing israel’s barrow.
The people whom the zionists have been using are dangerous, they are proud of their ignorance and they advocate violence at the first sign of confusion. I think the plan to get the fundies on board was insane and it is a plan that will come to haunt it’s architects for the rest of their lives.
As I pointed out above many of these people have been judeo-phobes a lot longer than they have been supporters of Israel. They don’t like anyone who is different to them and it would not take a great deal to get the fundies to swing from being israel’s greatest supporters back to the jew-hating of old.
hell many of em have started out jew baiting before they decided israel needed to be around for rapture or whatever, and swinging back to hating and fearing jewish people would come just as easy.
If the backlash were just to get the zionists who have been demanding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Southern lebanon it would be merely ironic. But that is never how these things work, especially not with the type of bigot that the neo-zi’s have been using. If the fundies discover they have been had, all that anti-jewish vitriol that rednecks were spouting 20 years ago will return.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 7 2008 12:32 utc | 19

As I have written before, I am leaning towards the perspective that it is the US that uses Israel and not the other way around. I suspect Israel will be dropped like a wet towel the day the US establishment no longer needs that outpost in the middle east. AIPACs role is to serve as a vehicle for kickbacks.
In short, I suspect that it is the dog wagging the tail, and blaming the tail for it.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Jun 7 2008 15:12 utc | 20

DoS: sadly i agree, and pointing out the 80% support of the war before the ball of lies unraveled is one reason i am skeptical anything short of a crippling catastrophe will have the sobering effect this nation of addicts requires.
i know amerikans aren’t good with “reality” but here it is: the business of extracting and refining a finite resource has a predictable and unavoidable consequence we are finally being forced to realize. that resource is the fatal weight that’s currently sinking the global economy
money is a language we all speak, so that’s how the message will finally get through. i wish b’s scenario above was plausible, but it isn’t. in this country people just want a solution. they don’t want to reflect on how we have gotten to this deplorable moment in our short history, nor are they capable of thinking critically about their programmed support of israel. there are too many institutional and social alarm bells that blare when such criticism arises.
unfortunately the ensuing chaos that will result with 200+ barrels of crude will have us begging for some kind of new world order to save us. maybe then they’ll key us in to limitless energy supplies and our many galactic neighbors–seems about as plausible as voters demanding their representatives distance themselves from supporting israel.

Posted by: Lizard | Jun 7 2008 20:04 utc | 21

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