Betting on Iran
Joe Biden
We suspect that Obama might turn out to be a strategic problem for Israel in facing its greatest immediate threat: Iran.
Consider this: Even if Obama agrees with Israel that Iran’s leadership is genuinely unpredictable (Ahmadinejad publicly gloats that he speaks to the Hidden Imam, the Shi’ite messiah), the simple fact is that his election would dangerously extend the window of opportunity Iran has to develop its nuclear weapon. Besides the months-long process of appointing thousands of top civil servants as the 1.8 million-strong American federal government undergoes a change in leadership, Obama has vowed to pursue a diplomatic course with the Iranian leadership.
That makes for January 2009 + perhaps 4 months of putting an Obama federal government in place + at least eight months of diplomacy before he could bring himself to declare said diplomacy “ineffective” = early 2010. During that time, with serious high-level US-Iranian diplomacy underway, Israel would find itself trapped between a developing Iranian bomb and an American administration that cannot acquiesce to an Israeli action that would torpedo its well-meaning statesmanship.
So, even assuming Obama understands – or comes to understand – the vastness of the danger facing the Middle East’s balance of power, his election grants more than a year’s breathing space for the Iranian program.
Does he understand?
Then Saturday happened, and with it the announcement that Joe Biden, talented, honest, pro-Israel and liberal, would be Obama’s running mate. Suddenly, problematic became downright dangerous.
Biden has consistently held out for a diplomatic solution with Iran, refusing even to upgrade sanctions in 1998 because he didn’t believe Yeltsin could implement them, and just last year slamming Bush’s anti-Iran proposals as “mindless.” On the campaign trail he issued a public threat to move for impeachment if Bush bombs Iran without Congressional approval. He’s even presented a plan for Iraq that converts the country into a decentralized federal republic – the sort of republic that could be free and stable in Europe but would be almost helpless as a counterweight to the centralized, driven Iranian dictatorship next door.
In short, Biden, a good man and unquestioned friend to Israel, is betting the farm on his assessment that the Ahmadinejad regime isn’t as bad, as immediately dangerous, as all that.
Now he’s Obama’s no. 2.
