Iran The Numbers And It's Not Good

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has a long piece based on a number of interviews with both Washington and Israeli insiders and puts the odds of a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran more likely than not.  He concludes:

Based on months of interviews, I have come to believe that the administration knows it is a near-certainty that Israel will act against Iran soon if nothing or no one else stops the nuclear program; and Obama knows—as his aides, and others in the State and Defense departments made clear to me—that a nuclear-armed Iran is a serious threat to the interests of the United States, which include his dream of a world without nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, I agreed with those, including many Israelis, Arabs—and Iranians—who believe there is no chance that Obama would ever resort to force to stop Iran; I still don’t believe there is a great chance he will take military action in the near future—for one thing, the Pentagon is notably unenthusiastic about the idea. But Obama is clearly seized by the issue. And understanding that perhaps the best way to obviate a military strike on Iran is to make the threat of a strike by the Americans seem real, the Obama administration seems to be purposefully raising the stakes. A few weeks ago, Denis McDonough, the chief of staff of the National Security Council, told me, “What you see in Iran is the intersection of a number of leading priorities of the president, who sees a serious threat to the global nonproliferation regime, a threat of cascading nuclear activities in a volatile region, and a threat to a close friend of the United States, Israel. I think you see the several streams coming together, which accounts for why it is so important to us.”

When I asked Peres what he thought of Netanyahu’s effort to make Israel’s case to the Obama administration, he responded, characteristically, with a parable, one that suggested his country should know its place, and that it was up to the American president, and only the American president, to decide in the end how best to safeguard the future of the West. The story was about his mentor, David Ben-Gurion.

“Shortly after John F. Kennedy was elected president, Ben-Gurion met him at the Waldorf-Astoria” in New York, Peres told me. “After the meeting, Kennedy accompanied Ben-Gurion to the elevator and said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I want to tell you, I was elected because of your people, so what can I do for you in return?’ Ben-Gurion was insulted by the question. He said, ‘What you can do is be a great president of the United States. You must understand that to have a great president of the United States is a great event.’”

Peres went on to explain what he saw as Israel’s true interest. “We don’t want to win over the president,” he said. “We want the president to win.” 

In other words, denied under Bush, the Israelis will no longer be denied under Obama and we get back to the Kristol/Krauthammer angle:  Iran's going to get attacked by Israel unless we do it first, and if we do it first we at least get to control how it plays out instead of Tel Aviv.

(More after the jump.)


It's depressing.  Obama so far is keeping Israel in check but the question is how long he can continue to do so.  There's no way we can afford a third war right now.  If we attack Iran, we will be in a depression, period.  All they have to do is close the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices triple, and the game ends.  Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, Iran can do some serious damage to us.

There has to be another way out of this mess, and this President has to find it, or we're not going to make it.  I reject the notion that an attack on Iran by Israel is inevitable.  I have to, otherwise that means that Israel is going to basically destroy our economy.

There must be a solution here.  It has to involve diplomacy, or there really is no hope.  Steve Clemons has more in his own detailed and considerable response:

What Jeffrey Goldberg has put out for us is an early treatment of what may be Barack Obama's "Cuban Missile Crisis" moment -- in which tensions are high, in which many in the room on all sides are engaged in extreme brinkmanship, and in which disaster looms for all parties.
We don't know what the outcome will be -- but my gut instinct pulls a different direction than Goldberg's.

I think based on the interviews he has shared with all parties that more rational heads will prevail in finding a way to contain or redirect Iran's course.

Otherwise, as in a simple game theory exercise, both Israel and the US may end up in the box of very worst outcomes with none of their basic strategic objectives achieved.

His response is actually better than Goldberg's article, and he lays out exactly why we should all be hoping that Obama's cooler head prevails here and continues to do so.