Obama makes the case of an Israeli strike on Iran

From Caroline Glick:

In his commentary in Maariv's Friday news supplement, the paper's senior diplomatic commentator Ben Caspit laid out a hypothetical lecture that Obama might give Netanyahu when the two leaders meet alone in the Oval Office this afternoon. In Caspit's scenario, Obama used the one-on-one to set out the law to the Israeli premier. If you bomb Iran's nuclear installations before the November elections, in my second term Israel will no longer be able to buy spare parts for its weapons systems from the US. So too, Caspit's Obama said, the US will end its support for Israel at the UN Security Council if Israel dares to take it upon itself to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold before the US elections.

Perhaps Caspit wrote his article after hearing about a meeting between American Jews and Vice President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Anthony Blinken. According to Commentary's Omri Ceren, Blinken told the assembled Jews that if Israel's supporters discuss Obama's hostile treatment of Israel in the context of the election, they can expect to suffer consequences if Obama is reelected.

It is important to keep Blinken's threats and Caspit's scenario in mind when considering Obama's speech to AIPAC on Sunday morning.

Obama's speech was notable for a number of reasons. First, this was the first speech on an Israel-related theme that Obama has given since the 2008 campaign in which he did not pick a fight with Israel. And it is due to the absence of open hostility in his address that Obama's supporters are touting it as a pro-Israel speech.

While he didn't pick a fight with Israel on Sunday, his speech did mark a clear attempt to undermine Israel's strategic position in a fundamental - indeed existential - way. As many commentators have noted in recent weeks, Israel and the US have different red lines for the Iranian nuclear program. These divergent red lines owe to the fact that the US has more options for attacking Iran's nuclear installations than Israel.

From Israel's perspective, Iran's nuclear program will reportedly become unstoppable as soon as the Iranians move a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and/or centrifuges to the Fordow nuclear installation by Qom. Since Israel reportedly lacks the ability to destroy the facility, Israel's timeline for attacking Iran will likely end within weeks. The US reportedly has the capacity to successfully bomb Fordow and so its timeline for attacking Iran is longer than Israel's.

The reason this is important is because it tells us the true nature of Obama's demand that Israel give more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work. When one recognizes Israel's short timeline for attacking, one realizes that when Obama demands that Israel give several more months for sanctions to work, what he is actually demanding is for Israel to place its survival in his hands. Again, once Iran's nuclear project is immune from an Israeli strike Obama will effectively hold the key to Israel's survival. Israel will be completely at his mercy.

To understand just how dangerous this would be it is worth considering the other issues Obama covered in his speech. Obama's speech essentially boiled down to three assertions, which he argued prove that he is the best friend Israel has ever had and therefore can be trusted to ensure its survival.

More...