Panetta Tries To Hold Israel Back From Attacking Iran

October 4, 2011

U.S. Secretary of Defense Panetta was in Israel today meeting with Defense Minister Barak for a second time in only two weeks.

Before his arrival the newspaper Haaretz in its Hebrew version (via Richard Silverstein) headlined that the meeting as an "Urgent Consultation on Iran".

Silverstein suspected that Bibi Netanyahoo and Ehud Barak were planing a surprise attack on Iran and that Panetta was send to whistle them back.

I thought that a bit outlandish but this Haaretz piece now at the end of the visit makes is theory quite believable.

It starts with a former Mossad chief, who had earlier warned against an attack on Iran, but then adds a long part on Panetta and his press conference with Barak:

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Monday that a military strike on Iran was "far from being Israel's preferred option," telling the Council for Peace and Security that "there are currently tools and methods that are much more effective."

Dagan also said Iran's nuclear program was still far from the point of no return, and that Iran's situation is "the most problematic it has been in since the revolution" in 1979.
…
Dagan made his remarks on the same day that visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta passed on a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

At a joint press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta stressed that any steps against Iran's nuclear program must be taken in coordination with the international community.

The United States, he said, is "very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary" to keep Iran from posing "a threat to this region." But doing so "depends on the countries working together," he added.

He repeated the word "together" several times in this context.

As the U.S. for strategic reasons has currently no interest at all in bombing Iran Panettas "together" means "we won't and you won't either".

It seems that Netanyahoo and Barak really had some crazy ideas here. An Israeli attack now would indeed have some preferable circumstances that are likely to vanish. The U.S. still controls airspace and flies over Iraq and could let Israeli planes take that route, the current weather before the onset of winter is favorable, Obama is under pressure to support Israel and succumbed to it before the UN. An attack would of course also let the issue of the Palestinian statehood bid in front of the UN vanish from the international agenda.

A surprise attack on Iran by Israel alone, while useless against Iran's nuclear program, would inevitably be followed by some acts from Iran against Israel to which the U.S. would than be pressed to respond by the Israel-firsters in Congress and the media.

Let's hope that Panetta has given his warning in such a way that it really deters Netanyahoo. With carzies liek Netanyahoo and Barak simply saying "no", without some believable threat in case the no is not followed, will likely not be enough.

Posted by b on October 4, 2011 at 17:37 UTC | Permalink

Comments

b: do you know the actual debt and financial situation of Israel?
The strength of USA over Israel could be in the money.

Posted by: an idiot | Oct 4 2011 17:49 utc | 1

[off topic – the comments currently take quite long to appear after “Post” is hit. The reason is code change in the Typepad system which requires a code change in the templates of this blog. I know how to do that but it is error prone and I have to find time to try it out in the testbed.
b.]

Posted by: b | Oct 4 2011 18:07 utc | 2

This all assumes the secondary sources leaking this information are being honest. In other words, it assumes that Israel really is sincere in its desire to attack Iran (I would bet this is true) and that the U.S. really doesn’t want Israel to attack (I am less sure about that).
After all, the U.S. may decide it is beneficial if Israel attacks and may distance itself from that attack–pretending that it opposed it while secretly giving Israel a green light. The U.S. can protect Israel so it really won’t make much of a difference if the rest of the world gets angry–the U.S. will be there to prevent anything of consequence from happening.
If the U.S. was serious about stopping Israel there would be real consequences if Israel acts against the wishes of the U.S.–for instance, I would imagine the U.S. would threaten some sort of punishment in the U.N.–but it tellingly hasn’t done so. In fact, if I remember correctly, the U.S. has used language that suggests Israel has a “right” to defend itself by engaging in similar attacks.

Posted by: Walter Wit Man | Oct 4 2011 18:44 utc | 3

Remember report of those 10000 lost surface to air missiles? it seems the truth is that Gaddafi army captured them from rebels.
“The Libyan Armed Forces have managed to counter NATO’s technological superiority – Apache helicopters, used against US Congress rules to strafe civilians, are being shot down and the filth flying them captured (and well-treated), Moussa Ibrahim (Jamahiriya Government spokesperson) has not been captured, Khamis al-Qathafi has not been killed (despite reports of his death no fewer than six times).
The TNC is in utter disarray and chaos, now with in-fighting in Misurat and in Benghazi, and with Abdelhakim Belhadj vowing that he takes orders from nobody as he sets up his private army of terrorists. Bani Walid is Green (Libyan Jamahiriya Government control), Sirt is Green, Tobruk is Green, Ghadames is Green, Al Jufra is Green, Sabha is Green, Fezzan is Green, Tarouna is Green, all the South is Green and the huge majority of the tribes are with Colonel Gaddafi. Al-Zawiyah is Green. Large parts of Tripoli are Green. Areas along the Tunisian frontier are Green.
At Ras Lanuf the US 82 Airborne detachment suffered heavy losses (there are not supposed to be boots on the ground…US breach of UNSC Resolutions) and an AC-130 Hercules transport aircraft was torched.”
http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/04-10-2011/119217-libya_nato-0/

Posted by: nikon | Oct 4 2011 19:19 utc | 4

http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/04-10-2011/119217-libya_nato-0/

Posted by: nikon | Oct 4 2011 19:24 utc | 5

If I were to go out into the front yard to pick up the newspaper and saw Bibi Netanyahu on the front page, then I would know that he’s outdone Barry Obama at being the lunatic on the grass:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nuzdzSJlZo

Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 4 2011 20:46 utc | 6

@Walter Wit Man: “This all assumes the secondary sources leaking this information are being honest.” Indeed!
Given the current state of affairs, it’s more likely that Panetta was SUMMONED to Israel to be told in no uncertain terms what he must do to get rich Jews’ support for BO’s election. After all, Israel has nukes, and they’re not afraid to use them for blackmail.

Posted by: JohnH | Oct 4 2011 21:32 utc | 7

I can hardly wait for Israel to bomb Iran and breathe new life into the expression ‘suicide bombing’.
The only aircraft Israel has with sufficient range to complete a circuitous non-stop Israel-Iran-Israel round trip are 7 or 8 Gulfstreams – not the ideal bomber. Gulfstreams will require a military escort and any plane Israel deploys in this role will require refuelling. And that’s when (and where) the problems begin and the mission ends.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 5 2011 5:55 utc | 8

Er, wasn’t Israel supposed to be bombing Iran ( again ) last month?
Walter
The assumption that Israel sincerely wants to attack Iran constitutes a fundamental misunderstanding – the Israelis sincerely want the US to attack Iran, as it is well understood that they lack the capacity to do it themselves in any meaningfully decisive way.
b
The fact that the US wholly controls Iraqi airspace ( and has done since 2003 ) is not helpful to Israel – the US has been operating under the terms, initially, of its UN mandate over Iraq, and subsequently according to the terms of its SOF agreement; permitting a third party to use Iraqi airspace for an attack on a fourth party without Iraqi sovereign consent – which we all understand would never be given – would constitute an explicit and egregious violation of these agreements. Awkwardly, this would make the US a belligerent co-party, and would entail a whole host of unpleasant and difficult consequences for it. For starters, it would signal globally that the US was no longer sovereign – ie a third party could “force” it to break a UN mandate/SOFA; this is not a situation that the US can place itself in.

Posted by: dan | Oct 5 2011 10:55 utc | 9

Reminds me of the fable about “The Boy who Cried Wolf” after a while he had falsely cried wolf so much times that when the Wolf finally did attack his sheep the villagers didn’t believe him. Given the new realities on the ground Israel would be even crazier to attack. They have now lost Egypt which was an Iran hawk and will now be friendly to Iran. If Saudi Arabia backed the US-Israel Iran could also now get payback by arming the Shia in Bahrain and Yemen. Also Hezbollah now has a friendly President of Lebanon and has a majority alliance in the parliament. Iran has alot more options to retaliate than it had even 1 year ago.
As for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities it is doubtful at this stage that it would make much differance. From my research into it, it seems that the most important aspect of nuclear development is having the knowledge more than the infastructure. Once they learn how to enrich uranium and learn the processes involved and work out all the kinks it is very hard to destroy the knowledge. You can blow up facilities but it is harder to blow up the knowledge that the scientific community has learned.
Anyway Ray McGovern also has a piece about the new warnings from Netanyahu and Co.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29291.htm

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Oct 5 2011 13:08 utc | 10

“In Tripoli the population is defiant with regards to Abdelhakim Belhadj´s appeal to surrender the weapons that have been passed to them. When it became obvious for the Libyan Government that it was facing an all out assault, 1.2 million weapons were provided to the population to defend the country, and so they do. After the appeal to surrender weapons, yesterday was the first day in Tripoli where road blocks had been erected in an attempt to control the flow of weapons in the areas under TNC control. During the evening the troops manning those roadblocks came under sniper fire from silenced rifles resulting in heavy casualties.”
http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/libya-brief-update-before-nato-meeting/

Posted by: nikon | Oct 5 2011 15:08 utc | 11

If this Libyan thing were a “popular uprising” on the order of Egypt’s, wouldn’t a sane person think, with the air support provided by NATO, that it would all be over by now? I’m still of the opinion this is an “Astro-Turf” uprising funded by the West.

Posted by: ben | Oct 5 2011 15:25 utc | 12

The Libyan rebels exaggerated the number of death tolls and protesters to give NATO a pretext for invading Libya. Americans think anything an opposition group says is true.

Posted by: nikon | Oct 5 2011 16:59 utc | 13

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