Netanyahu's Warning

Writing in Jerusalem, the Washington Post's George F. Will provides a compelling examination of the threats to Israel's existence today as perceived by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his article "Netanyahu's Warning". Will takes readers on a very brief journey through Israel's tumultuous struggle for existence and concludes with a profoundly unnerving assessment that "If Israel strikes Iran, the world will not be able to say it was not warned."

As Iran is set this week to launch its first nuclear reactor at the Bushehr power plant with the help of Russian engineers, Will's article is both timely and perceptive. It is unlikely that Israel would undertake air strikes to stop the launch, as the nuclear site itself is likely an entirely peaceful enterprise. Iran would not be so stupid as to hide any military applications of its nuclear technology inside this location, one which has undergone rigorous IAEA scrutiny.

Of course it is the numerous other nuclear research sites, scattered throughout Iran, many buried deep underground, which provide the substance for Will's ominous title, "Netanyahu's Warning", no doubt implicitly directed at the Iranian leadership.

One must not forget that the Washington Post is arguably one of the pre-eminent American newspapers internationally, alongside the New York Times. If there were any paper to be actively observed by the Iranian leadership, the Washington Post is certainly one of them.

Thus an article such as this, emerging likely from an interview with Netanyahu, serves two important purposes: First, is clearly to remind the Iranian Regime that Israel means what it says about stopping Iran's nuclear program. Second, is to send a strong signal to the Obama administration to ratchet up its own efforts to halt Iran's drive for nuclear weapons, or else Israel will take the matter into its own hands, on its own watch.

Nothing could be more politically and internationally destabilizing for President Obama than for Israel to unilaterally bomb Iran's nuclear facilities some time before this November's mid-term Congressional elections. An Israeli strike could spin the sputtering global economy into a tail-slide on the back of skyrocketing oil prices. The American voter would likely blame Obama for both failing to press Iran hard enough and for failing to persuade Israel not to act alone.

So what might Obama do with Netanyahu's warning? Surely this warning is not the first iteration of the Israeli government's fears and intentions toward Iran. Obama is well aware of Israel's intensive pre-occupation with Iranian nukes. What is disturbing however, is that Obama appears unwilling to either publicly assuage Israel's fears, or to call Iran to heel for its international disobedience and dishonesty. Netanyahu is left to make his case in American newspapers so that the American populace at least tacitly understands what may soon transpire.

In what is an increasingly shrinking time frame, Will says that Netanyahu may decide to undertake targeted air strikes against Iran "within two years." Diplomatically, this does not leave much more time for Obama to bring Iran to the table, nail the Iranians to their seats, and force a peaceful resolution to this nuclear stand-off. For years the Iranians have been playing a deceitful game of diplomatic chess, both with the Americans and the rest of the P5+1, throughout negotiations over its nuclear program. But tiny Israel has not blinked for a second, it's eyes firmly fixated on Iran's growing stockpile of enriched uranium and ongoing construction of yet more underground nuclear military facilities.

The West long ago called the Islamic Republic's bluff when Iran's secret underground uranium enrichment at Qom was revealed last September. The West knows Iran is building nuclear weapons. The question is whether the West has the guts to do anything to stop Iran from completing the development of their very own Persian Bomb.

For Israel, and for Netanyahu, the question is not if they will stop Iran, but when. For Obama, this looming reality should keep him up at night.

"Netanyahu's Warning" : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081304474.html