Sunday, February 01, 2009

Reining in Israel — an Obama priority

February 1, 2009

Reining in Israel — an Obama priority



THERE was fear hanging in the air that Israel was planning to launch military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities after the Nov.4 presidential elections in the US and before the Jan.20 inauguration of the new president, Barack Obama. The operation did not take place because George W Bush did not have the stomach to do so in his final days at the White House, and Obama, obviously aware of the dire consequences of military action against Iran, whether Israeli, American or joint Israeli-American, had sent a strong warning against such a move. It has been reported that one of the first things he did after being elected president was to contact the then US vice-president, Dick Cheney, with a warning that the US should not launch military action against Iran and should not encourage Israael to do so. It has to understood here that Cheney had been at the forefront of the Israeli-engineered campaign for US military strikes against Iran with a view to bringing about regime change in Tehran.
Now that it failed to coax or persuade the Bush administration to stage military action against Iran, Israel is going ahead with plans for its own strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
A report says that at a recent gathering, Israeli Ambassador to Australia Yuval Rotem engaged in a "very frank" discussion about the recent Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, calling it “a preintroduction” to an attack on Iran that Israel apparently expects within the year.
Before he made the "disclosure," says the report, Rotem had ordered a cameraman to turn off his camera saying “the best thing to do is to have a very open dialogue if there are no reporters or journalists here,” adding “I am far more reserved in the way I am saying my things (on camera).”
However, Sarah Cummings, a reporter for Australia’s Seven News service, was actually present at the meeting after having been “accidentally” invited and hence the disclosure of what Rotem told the gathering.
Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran.
Israeli officials have been tryingt to link the Iranian government to its brutal assault against the Gaza Strip with a lost of confusing reports.
The latest charge against Iran is that the aid ship Iran Shahed, a Red Crescent aid ship loaded with humanitarian and medical supplies for the Palestinian population, has been turned into a floating logistical headquarters for the Hamas leadership, with Hamas frogmen using fishing boats to keep them connected.
Earlier, Israel charged that the ship was carrying weapons for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip but was ordered back into international waters by the Israeli navy on Jan.13.
According to the US military, American naval forces had boarded the vessel and found arms aboard it, but could not seize them because international law did not permit such seizure. Subsequently, reports said, the ship headed for Syria.
The Israeli reports are confusing because there is no certainty of the identity of the "suspect" vessel and that more than one ship seemed to be involved. And the confusion seems to be deliberately created.
In any event, concerns are high in the region that Israel is definitely planning military strikes against Iran and its efforts to link the Iranians with the Gaza Strip are part of the build-up.
It is time for Obama to act if he were to pre-empt a course of events that would find the US submerging too deeply into yet another quagmire in the Middle East.
His first action should be to restrain Israel from launching military action against Iran and then to engage Tehran in diplomacy with a view not only to settle the nuclear dispute but also to address the host of differences between the two sides.