Iran War: Is Israel shifting its position on war with Iran?

"God may smile on us, but I don't think so." - anonymous Pentagon adviser quoted by Seymour Hersh April 2006 on Bush administration plans to pressure Iran militarily

The following article is an illustration of one major reason why I'm so suspicious of theories that represent Israel's influence on American foreign policy as consistently pernicious.  If the analysis in this article is correct, Israel may be exerting what I would consider to be a constructive influence on American policy toward Iran:  Israel Fears High Price for U.S. Strike on Iran by Trita Parsi, Inter Press Service 07/05/06.

Parsi argues that the Israeli government has seriously reassessed the risks to themselves of the regional war that an American attack on Iran would almost certainly generate, compared to the risk from Iran's nuclear program:

According to Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution, the Israelis "assume they'll be struck first in retaliation by Iran." In fact, a top Revolutionary Guards commander, Gen. Mohammad Dehghani, said as much to the Iranian Student News Agency earlier in May. "We have announced that wherever [in Iran] America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel," he said.

By threatening retaliation against Israel, Iran increases the cost of Israel's pressure on the U.S. while framing the conflict as a U.S.-Israeli aggression against an Islamic state by dragging the Jewish State into the fighting.  ...

Israel does not take these Iranian warnings lightly. According to Israel's own intelligence, Iranian capabilities in Lebanon via the Hezbollah are considerable and the Iranian presence in the Palestinian territories has increased significantly over the last few years. Though Iran's military is unlikely to pose a major challenge to Israel, its unconventional capabilities can still cause much damage to an already war-weary Israeli population.

Parsi also writes of the effects of the disaster known as the Iraq War on Ehud Olmert's government's evaluation of the military and political situation in the Middle East:

As the Iranian nuclear stand-off has taken its turns and twists, the initial Israeli calculation of either forcing an Iranian capitulation through U.S. political and economic pressure, or -- if worse came to worst -- by eliminating the programme through clean and surgical military strikes, have all proven to be pipe-dreams, primarily due to the disastrous consequences of the Iraq war.  ...

In addition, the Iraq experience has shown that no "clean and surgical" military option exists. Even though the military dimension itself may not be too complex, Washington is poorly placed to deal with the political aftermath in the region. Rather, increasing the pressure on Iran is more likely to lead to a prolonged and bloody conflict that may very well engulf the entire region -- including Israel.

This was one thing that opponents of the Iraq War prior to Bush's 2003 invasion pointed out again and again.  Of Bush's "axis of evil", both North Korea and Iran had much more active nuclear programs than Iraq.  Iran was also generally recognized as the chief "state sponsor" of international terrorism, although most of it was directly against Israel, and little or none against the United States.

But Bush and Cheney and Rummy went after what they thought would be easy pickings in Iraq.  And now their options in dealing with Iran are far more restricted, not enhanced.

And Parsi reminds us once again that the famous/infamous American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Israeli goveernment or of American Jews on particular issues:

Israel's strategic reassessment may not yet have affected all of Israel's strong supporters in Washington, even though Olmert privately asked Jewish groups to lower their profile on the issue. The American-Israel [Public] Affairs Committee, for instance, remains at the forefront of pushing for the Iran Freedom Support Act in the U.S. Senate, which risks sabotaging the sensitive negotiations with Iran even before they begin, according to administration officials.

Still, rumblings in the U.S. Jewish community reveal that Olmert's message largely fell on receptive ears. As the unpopularity of the Iraq war has peaked, many in the Jewish community fear that the U.S. public will turn their anger towards Israel. Perceptions of close ties between Bush administration neoconservatives and the Israeli Likud party,as well as Israel's support for the Iraq war, fuel these fears and render a tough stance on Iran even more difficult.

Jewish organisations have no interest in becoming "the lobby for war with Iran", one official told the Forward earlier in June.

And even though the Bush administration was rigidly "pro-Israel" during Sharon's tenure as prime minister, that doesn't mean that the Israeli government urging restraint will necessarily sway the administration's decision-making.  The anti-Iran rhetoric from the Bush administration has also been ratcheted down recently.  But, as we know from 2002, they don't consider summer to be the best time to roll out "new products", e.g., attacking Iran and expanding the Iraq War into a regional war.

Israel is a factor in US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.  That in itself is neither good nor bad; it depends on the effects.  I would argue that the Bush administration was far too cooperative with the Sharon government, and even now too passive about Israel's lastest military strikes against the Palestinians.  But Israel's influence is not always sinister nor always benign.  Conspiracy theories that assume otherwise are going to miss some of what's really going on.