The Real Enemy

I think I understand why Barack Obama is being so tough on Israel, on March 20 leaving Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stew and fidget for over an hour while Obama had dinner with his family elsewhere in the White House.

Democrats simply aren’t going to go to war with Iran’s leadership over Ayatollah Khamenei's determination to take Iran nuclear. This even though all we have to do is allow Israel to employ whatever resources we collectively have between us to bomb Iran’s centrifuges into oblivion. We don’t have to undertake any sort of ground war with Iran. Israel previously destroyed nuclear facilities in Iraq and in Syria. It’s harder to knock out Iran's multiple, fortified sites, but an air war certainly seems preferable to a nuclear-armed Iran.

Except Democrats don’t want war of any kind. So Israel’s efforts to get us to help stop Iran from going nuclear are embarrassing Americans. If we make Israel instead of Iran the chief Middle East problem, we can shift our agenda there away from war against Tehran.

That’s what I think is going on.

Anyway, here's what Amos Harel, in the leading Israeli newspaper Harretz, reports:

The key question is how far the world powers are prepared to go to stop [Iran’s] nuclear program. . . Sources in Jerusalem say that behind closed doors, American and European officials are already discussing how to face the "day after" Iran attains nuclear weapons. Although publicly Israel is downplaying the crisis in its relations with the United States, the rift will have an impact on the attempt to keep Tehran in check, making bilateral coordination more difficult.

Israel wants to focus on Iran. We don’t.