Should Israel Strike Iran Pre-emptively?
By Sherwin Pomerantz

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu left for the US last night to both address the AIPAC conference scheduled for Washington next week (with a record 13,000 participants expected) and for a pre-arranged meeting with US President Obama at the White House.

The newspapers here this morning have underscored the fact that Netanyahu’s aim on this trip is to convince the US to play the military option card more seriously, to play it with sufficient resolve so that the Iranians understand it, and, if all else fails, to actually launch an attack. Personally, I don’t think that the Prime Minister will be able to convince the President to move in this direction, the pro-military action remarks of the Republican presidential hopefuls and the Israel-friendly US Congress notwithstanding.

Obama has, for the three years of this presidential term, been all about reducing the US’ military activities abroad, not engaging in new military operations and, to a large extent as well, doing whatever he can to pacify the Muslim world. That, as we saw last week, even to the extent of apologizing profusely for inadvertent US actions that demanded no apology at all (witness the accidental destruction of volumes of the Koran as the US prepared to leave a military base in Afghanistan).

My sense is that the best Netanyahu will get out of the President is a repeat of the statement that the security cooperation between our two countries has never been more intense and that the US will standby Israel given our role as an important ally in the region. But I don’t anticipate that the President will be ready to put US lives at risk in an attack on Iran nor do I believe he wants to put the US as a whole at risk of higher oil prices and/or retaliatory attacks on US installations abroad. Certainly not in an election year where he is holding most of the cards in the face of a Republican opposition that does not seen to be able to present a candidate who could give him a reasonable run for his money.

So where does that leave Israel? Should we make good on our claim that we cannot stand by and allow Iran to develop an operational nuclear bomb? Or should we wait and see what happens with an Iranian leadership that, at every possible opportunity, raises the specter of its desire to see Israel disappear from the face of the earth?

My response today, as it has been for the past year, is not to attack Iran. Polls published this week show that just 19% of the Israeli population favors a unilateral attack on Iran by Israel, 34% said they were against any attack on Iran while 42% favored an attack but only with US backing. (see http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/03/01/3091922/majority-of-israelis-oppose-iran-strike-poll-finds)

For many of us living here, it is obvious that a pre-emptory attack on Iran will not be like our bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 or the bombing of the Syrian nuclear facility in 2007. First of all, Iran is neither Syria nor Iraq. Everyone seems to agree that Iran’s nuclear development cannot be stopped by an Israeli attack, only delayed at best. Secondly, Iran has the capability to retaliate “big time” and, in order to save face at home, will need to do so, according to most analysts. A retaliatory attack by Iran on Israel will cause significant death, injury and devastation to this country clearly beyond anything we have seen in the 64 years of the state’s existence. So it is no wonder that most Israelis vote “no” because none of us want to sign our own death warrants.

Those who agree that we should attack in any event because we cannot abide the risks inherent in an Iran with a nuclear attack capability argue that point in a cogent manner. Certainly none of us here have any guarantees that the Iranians won’t use that capability against us if they could. On the other hand, the Iranian leaders too, know that we have significant retaliatory capabilities, that if we are attacked we still have some friends left in the world who would support us, and that the resultant devastation to Iran and its population would make earlier wars in which we were involved look like kid’s play.

I don’t hold any hope that the US or any other country will immediately come to our defense. That has only occurred when, if we lost a war another country felt that as a result their interests would be harmed as well, as happened with the 1973 war when the US came to our aid. We would most likely stand alone. But Israel has a formidable military arsenal at its disposal and, if attacked, we would not be afraid to use it to its fullest. I believe that the Iranians understand this as well and that even their leaders acting in the name of religion would be loath to unleash what would end up as a bloody regional war.

None of us have a crystal ball. But while it is frightening to contemplate a nuclear Iran it is equally frightening to contemplate an Israel after a retaliatory attack. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, Ellen Tauscher, has stated: “Pre-emption is the right of any nation in order to preserve its National Security; however, pre-emptive war is a tactic, not a strategy. When used as a strategy pre-emption dilutes diplomacy, creates an atmosphere of distrust, and promotes regional instability.” That approach leads one to believe that we need to keep the military option on the table as a tactic but think 1000 times before we let it become a strategy.