Abrabanel: Musings on the Jewish condition

Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton both announced today that, in fact, they oppose Iran’s evil intentions vis-a-vis Israel. The silly stunt Hillary pulled of cancelling her appearance at today’s anti-Ahmadinejad rally in New York because Sarah Palin had been invited too – and the Jewish planners’ subsequent disinvite to all politicians, including Palin – was disheartening to those of us who genuinely believe the regime in Teheran is dangerous.

What is to prevent the Iranians from concluding that American politicians’ bold rhetoric is subservient to – so perhaps only meant for? – local consumption. Is Iran an American politician’s tool to court Jewish voters, or a matter of genuine concern and strategy?

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is publishing a new book on Monday, his fourth on the Bush administration. According to a review in, well, the Washington Post:

The book also says that the U.S. troop “surge” of 2007, in which President Bush sent nearly 30,000 additional U.S. combat forces and support troops to Iraq, was not the primary factor behind the steep drop in violence there during the past 16 months.

Rather, Woodward reports, “groundbreaking” new covert techniques enabled U.S. military and intelligence officials to locate, target and kill insurgent leaders and key individuals in extremist groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Woodward does not disclose the code names of these covert programs or provide much detail about them, saying in the book that White House and other officials cited national security concerns in asking him to withhold specifics.

We haven’t read the book, so we’re commenting in the dark here. But it seems to us, as former IDF soldiers who observed (and, rarely and peripherally, participated in) such operations, that this is a plausible argument: it isn’t the number of troops that brings down insurgent activity, but an aggressive, ongoing covert action that exacts a steep personal price from terrorist leaders.

But why would giving credit to the one (opening a new covert front) involve dismissing the other (conventional troop buildup)? Extensive covert operations – we know this from personal experience – demand a serious conventional “envelope.” Woodward himself apparently notes this:

Overall, Woodward writes, four factors combined to reduce the violence: the covert operations; the influx of troops; the decision by militant cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to rein in his powerful Mahdi Army; and the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and allied with U.S. forces.

That is: a covert element, a conventional troop buildup, an Iranian decision to quiet the arena and a Sunni realization (in part because of the first two elements) that their lives will be better in the US-built Iraq than under Al Qaeda. So why, in Woodward’s book, isn’t the surge “the primary factor” in the recent successes in Iraq, particularly since the buildup was almost certainly the “umbrella” under which the other factors could develop?

Perhaps because the Republican presidential candidate has taken credit for the surge, while the Democratic candidate predicted an abject failure. Are Democrats looking for something, anything, that could take the surge success away from McCain? Is Woodward trying to supply that?

The book is out Monday and includes other interesting insights, including Rice-Rumsfeld tensions and the claim (which seems to us blindingly obvious) that the US spied on Iraqi leaders.

The Jerusalem Post printed a nice juxtaposition today of Ehud Barak and Barack Obama talking about Iran.

Barack at an event in Iowa yesterday:

“My job as president would be to try to make sure that we are tightening the screws diplomatically on Iran, that we’ve mobilized the world community to go after Iran’s program in a serious way and to get sanctions in place so that Iran starts making a difficult calculation. We’ve got to do that before Israel feels like its back is to the wall.”

Is he getting it? Possibly:

Obama said in Iowa that after visiting Israel last month, he believed Israel’s “general attitude is we will not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. They recognize there are no good military options but they also recognize that from their perspective it is unacceptable to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he added.

Contrast this to the equally important statement Ehud Barak (ours, that is) delivered last week after a meeting with Condoleezza Rice. The content of the meeting is not public, but Barak’s people told reporters afterwards that the Bush administration was opposed to a military strike. While the defense minister took pains to note that Israel would not tolerate a nuclear Iran, he also expressly acquiesced to American diplomacy in the near term:

“Our position is that no option is to be taken off the table, but in the meantime we have to make diplomatic progress.”

This isn’t too strange. The liberal Obama must demonstrate he understands the danger, while the hawkish Bush administration must demonstrate they are pursuing peace. It tells us little about the actual thinking on Iran of either Obama or Bush, and therefore little about any imminent Israeli or American plans vis-a-vis Iran, but it does at least demonstrate that everyone is speaking a common language.

We’re going to speculate here that Obama’s comments were meant to indicate that on Iran, at least, he is thinking strategically rather than ideologically, distancing himself from running mate Joe Biden, at least on this issue. This is a good thing.

When word of Biden’s selection as VP got to Israel, analysts here started thumbing through the man’s lengthy legislative record and digging up old speeches. We sure did. What does Biden think about Israel? What’s his relationship to the Jews? More urgently, what about Iran?

It seems we’ve missed the point. Little has been said here about Biden’s significance inside America. Let us correct this mistake by bringing to your attention a New York Times piece from yesterday, according to which Obama campaign advisors have already laid out Biden’s task in the run-up to the November 4 election: campaigning in the four swing states of Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Come again? These states all went for Hillary Clinton by wide margins (though of course in Michigan Obama wasn’t on the ballot). Specifically: Florida: Clinton 49.8, Obama 32.9; Michigan: Clinton 55.2, Uncommitted 40.1; Ohio: Clinton 54.3, Obama 44; Pennsylvania: Clinton 54.6, Obama 45.4. (Source: NYT. Click on the state names for percentages.)

Not only did these states go for Clinton, but more specifically, Obama had a tough time gaining traction among “working-class whites,” that amorphous demographic that, one would think, accounts for at least half of America. He was, the pundits opined, too “aloof” and “detached.”

Now consider Biden: a Catholic, grew up in a working-class family, considered close to the unions. Bingo. The Times even lists in detail Biden’s plan of attack against McCain, which will focus on McCain’s allegedly pro-Bush Senate record and the danger of McCain-appointed Supreme Court nominees. Biden’s Judiciary Committee record and 36 years in the Senate are expected to make his attacks more credible, and presumably the Obama campaign believes anything Biden says won’t count toward Obama’s efforts to appear above the fray.

Those are some clever folks running that campaign.

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.