Jerusalem Post asked me: “Why can’t Israel make unilateral decisions on its multifront war?”

I was asked by Debbie Mohblatt for the Jerusalem Post on Thursday: Why can’t Israel make unilateral decisions [i.e., as to whether and how to attack Iran]? Two other geopolitical experts interviewed were Jack Kennedy, head of Middle East and North Africa Country Risk at S&P Global Market Intelligence, and Noa Meir, founder of the Gideon Meir Diplomacy Center. My quoted remarks follow, the full article is here, and farther below I put today’s performative Israeli response in perspective..

Israel dependent on American decisions

Dr. Thomas O’Donnell, a global fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who teaches in Berlin, told The Media Line that Israel was very dependent on American decisions. He added that in this case, Israel could carry out some small-scale symbolic response that would not necessarily draw an additional Iranian attack leading to escalation.

“Israel has always gotten huge amounts of support from the United States—military and otherwise. It’s quite clear that it [Israel] can’t sustain a protracted war, especially a protracted war of the nature it would be against Iran, without the United States’ support, and there’s no other country that is capable or willing to give that support,” he said.

O’Donnell added that very few of the world’s countries can make these kinds of decisions without considering their allies. “A small country can go to war with another small country. But if this is going to bring in larger powers, they have to be very careful,” he continued.

… O’Donnell explained that ever since President George W. Bush’s administration, which came before Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the United States has been very clear that it made a mistake by putting too many boots on the ground in the Middle East and that it must get out of the region. “It has to focus on great power competition against Russia and China. And this is becoming more urgent by the day,” he continued, explaining part of the rationale behind the US not wanting a major escalation between Israel and Iran. (Read the entire article for the others’ comments.)

Some further framing of these events:

It seems Netanyahu and his War Cabinet have, for a change, faced reality and listened to the warnings of the Europeans, his Arab neighbors and the USA president that he not escalate vs. Iran. Biden warned, after the Iranian drone and missile retaliation had been neutralized, “You got a win, take the win.” and not to further retaliate against Iran’s performative retaliation (i.e., Iran’s drones and rockets were launched with three or four days of forewarnings, thereby insuring they would virtually all be shot down),

This barrage was in retaliation for Israel having bombed Iran’s diplomatic compound in Syria on 1 April,, killing several IRCG officers. Which, by the way, we learned only Thursday, from the New York Times, that the Israeli War Cabinet had picked up the phone to let the USA know it was about to kill these Iranian officers only minutes before the bombs were to fell, sending National Security Council and other officials into a frantic scramble to stop the raid.

This further Israeli detached-from-strategic-reality attitude undoubtedly added to Biden’s motivation for his direct and very public assertion after the Iranian retaliation was neutralized that Israel should not further escalate, making clear that the USA “would not participate in” any further retaliation and “would not support” Israel if it started a regional conflict.

And, according to reports this morning (Friday), only a rather minor Israeli drone attack came overnight indicating Netanyahu and his extremist, ultra-nationalist War Cabinet partners have taken heed of Biden’s warning.

Now, the Israeli leadership needs to also take heed of everyone’s demands to halt what has become an clear case of collective punishment of the Gazan population as an intrinsic part of its war to eradicate the Hamas terrorists. In particular Israel must not attack Rafah, the last refuge of some one million displaced Palestinians along with the city’s usual population, all of whom have nowhere else to go, and are bordering on starvation.

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