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Saudis Prefer US Military Preemption

Iran’s nuclear program aims to advance Iran’s 1,400 year old strategic goal: domination of the Persian Gulf as a first step toward regional and global hegemony.

A nuclear Iran would be a clear and present threat to pro-US regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf,
would lead to a violent, regional and global slippery slope, thus severely undermining the US economy and national security. Israel would be a target for Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but not a primary target.

A top official from Bahrain told me, at the office of a senior member of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, that “Saudi Arabia and Bahrain expect the US to alter its policy, and resort to steps which are required to remove the Iranian nuclear threat.” A national security advisor to a senior member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee shared with me that “Pro-US Persian Gulf leaders are panicky about the rising Iranian nuclear threat.” A prominent US Jewish leader visited the UAE, reporting that President Khalifa Bin-Zayed dreads the devastating impact of a nuclear Iran upon the UAE’s subversive Shiite minority.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf regimes are aware that, unlike nuclear Pakistan and North Korea, the Ayatollahs of Iran have imperialistic-megalomaniac aspirations to dominate the Persian Gulf, the Middle East and (at least) the entire Moslem World.  According to “Wikileaks,” and in contrast with public pronouncements, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain yearn for a military preemption – even by Israel – in order to remove the Iranian nuclear cloud. Iran considers Bahrain its own 14th province, just as Saddam Hussein viewed Kuwait Iraq’s 19th province. In 1971, The Shah of Iran occupied the UAE’s Tunb and Abu Musa islands, which are located at the entrance to the critically-strategic straits of Hormuz. The Wahabi Saudi Arabia represents the most anti-Shite Sunni sect, while the Ayatollahs condemn the House of Saud as an apostate.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States realize that “effective sanctions” is a contradiction-in-terms, since Russia and China, as well as India and Japan, and probably parts of Europe, do not cooperate with the US. Forty years of diplomacy and sanctions have paved the road to a nuclear North Korea and are paving the road to a nuclear Iran.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States presume that the current multi-lateral policy towards Iran leads to a lethal slippery slope, featuring a belligerent nuclear Iran; a meltdown of pro-US Gulf regimes; a breakdown of the oil supply system; a collapse of global economies; an escalation of nuclear proliferation in the Middle Eat and beyond; a radicalization of Islamic terrorism against traditional Muslim regimes and Western democracies; an eruption of local, regional and possibly global wars; or, a submission by pro-US Gulf regimes and Western democracies to Iranian demands.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are convinced that a unilateral US policy is required to prevent the slippery slope. They vie for a massive military preemption – with NO boots on the ground – to devastate Iran’s nuclear, air defense and missiles infrastructures, minimize Iran’s retaliatory capabilities, and preclude the calamitous ripple effects of a nuclear Iran.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are concerned that avoiding military preemption would further erode the US posture of deterrence and military power projection, which constitute the backbone of their national security. It would fuel fanaticism on the Arab Street, and would doom pro-US Saudi and Gulf regimes.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States assume that a decisive military preemption – with no ground troops – is a prerequisite to a regime change, which failed in 2009 due to Western vacillation. One cannot expect the domestic opposition to defy the Ayatollahs, while the US and/or Israel refrain from defiance. In 1978 and 2011, the US deserted the Shah of Iran and President Mubarak, thus facilitating anti-US regime change. In 2012, a military preemption would expose the vulnerability of the Ayatollahs, providing a significant tailwind to a pro-US regime change.

During the 1960s, the US failed in its attempt to appease Nasser and snatch him from the Soviet Bloc. It was the 1967 Six Day War – and not US diplomacy – which devastated Nasser and aborted his efforts to topple the pro-US regimes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

In 2012, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States expect the US to recoup its posture of deterrence and avoid past critical errors, which have jeopardized their survival and have advanced the nuclearization of North Korean and Iran.

Will the US fulfill such expectations by altering its policy? Or, will the US sustain the failed policy of sanctions and diplomacy, which will force Israel to preempt, in order to avert a clear and present danger to global sanity?




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President Biden’s pressure and Israel’s Judiciary Reform

Israel’s proposed Judiciary Reform ranks very low on President Biden’s order of priorities, far below scores of pressing domestic, foreign and national security threats and challenges.

Therefore, he has not studied the various articles of the reform, but leverages the explosive Israeli domestic controversy as a means to intensify pressure on Israel, in order to:

*Gradually, force Israel back to the 1967 ceasefire lines;
*End Jewish construction and proliferate Arab construction in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank);
*Advance the establishment of a Palestinian state on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which overpower the coastal sliver of pre-1967 Israel;
*Re-divide Jerusalem;
*Prevent game-changing Israeli military actions against Palestinian terrorists and Iran’s Ayatollahs.

Israel’s Judiciary Reform and US democracy

If the President and his advisors had studied the proposed reform, they would have noticed the Israeli attempt to adopt key features of the US democratic system, which would end the current situation of Israel’s Judiciary as Israel’s supreme branch of government. The reform aims to provide Israel’s Legislature and Executive branches with the effective authority (currently infringed by the Judiciary) to exercise the responsibility accorded to them by the constituency.

For example:

*Israeli Supreme Court Justices should not be appointed – as they are today – by a committee, which is controlled by Justices (who possess a veto power) and lawyers, but rather by a committee, dominated by legislators;

*The Attorney General and the Legal Advisors of Cabinet Departments should be appointed (and fired) by – and subordinated to – the Executive, not the Judiciary. Their role should be to advise, and not to approve or veto policy matters, as it is today. Their advice should not be binding, as it is today.

*Supreme Court Justices should not be empowered to overturn Basic Laws (Israel’s mini-Constitution).

*Supreme Court Justices should have a limited power to nullify and overturn legislation.

*Supreme Court Justices should decide cases according to the Basic Laws and existing legislation, and not resort to the reasonableness of the legislation (which is utterly subjective), as is the case today.

*The Supreme Court should not be able to overturn legislation by three – out of fifteen – Justices, as is the case today.

*The Supreme Court should be supreme to lower level courts, not to the Legislature and Executive, as it is today.

President Biden’s pressuring Israel

*President Biden’s pressuring Israel reflects the return of the US State Department to the center-stage of policy-making. The State Department opposed Israel’s establishment in 1948, has been a systematic critic of Israel since then, and has been consistently wrong on crucial Middle East issues.

*This pressure on Israel represents the multilateral and cosmopolitan worldview of the State Department establishment, in general, and Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan, in particular. This worldview espouses a common ideological and strategic denominator with the UN, International Organizations and Europe, rather than the unilateral US action of foreign policy and US national security. It examines the Middle East through Western lenses, assuming that dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures would convince Iran’s Ayatollahs and Palestinian terrorists to abandon deeply-rooted, fanatic ideologies in favor of peaceful-coexistence, enhanced standard of living and good-faith negotiation.  Middle East reality has proven such assumptions to be wrong.

*President Biden’s pressure mirrors the routine of presidential pressure on Israel since 1948 (except 2017-2020), which has always resulted in short-term tension/friction and occasional punishment, such as a suspension of delivery of military systems and not vetoing UN condemnations of Israel.

*However, since 1948, simultaneously with presidential pressure on Israel, there has been a dramatic enhancement of mutually-beneficial defense and commercial cooperation, as determined by vital US interests, recognizing Israel’s unique technological and military capabilities and growing role as a leading force and dollar multiplier for the US. Israel’s unique contribution to the US defense and aerospace industries, high tech sector, armed forces and intelligence has transcended US foreign aid to Israel, and has eclipsed US-Israel friction over less critical issues (e.g., the Palestinian issue).

*The current bilateral friction is very moderate compared to prior frictions, such as the Obama-Netanyahu tension over the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran; the US’ brutal opposition to Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear reactors; the US’ ferocious resentment of Israel’s application of its law to the Golan Heights; the US’ determined opposition to the reunification of Jerusalem, and the renewal of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and Greater Jerusalem; and the US’ strong-handed pressure for Israel to withdraw to the suicidal 1947 Partition lines; etc.

*In hindsight, the US pressure on Israel was based on erroneous assumptions, which could have undermined vital US interests, if not for Israel’s defiance of pressure.  For example, Israel’s refraining from bombing Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear reactors in 1981 and 2007 would have confronted the US and the world at-large with a potential nuclear confrontation in 1991 and a potential Syrian nuclearized civil war since 2011.

*Rogue Middle East regimes consider US pressure on Israel as an erosion of Israel’s posture of deterrence, and therefore an inducement to the intensified threat of terrorism and war, which gravely destabilize the region and undermine US interests (while advancing the interests of China, Russia and Iran’s Ayatollahs), threatening the survival of pro-US vulnerable oil-producing Arab regimes.

*Most Israeli Prime Ministers – especially from Ben Gurion through Shamir – defied presidential pressure, which yielded short-term friction and erosion in popularity, but accorded Israel long-term enhanced strategic respect. On a rainy day, the US prefers allies, which stand up to pressure, and are driven by clear principles and national security requirements.

*Succumbing to – and accommodating – US presidential pressure ignores precedents, overlooks Israel’s base of support in the co-equal, co-determining US Legislature, undermines Israel’s posture of deterrence, whets the appetite of anti-US and anti-Israel rogue regimes, and adds fuel to the Middle East fire at the expense of Israel’s and US’ national security and economic interests.

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Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb