It was a night of strategic hints: What might have been had Israel truly wanted, what might have been had the US truly let it, what might have been had Israel been free to give rein to its desires and whims, what would have happened had the US elections not been approaching their finishing line?
The effect of hints is entirely dependent on the ability to read them. Are the readers pragmatic people with the gift perceiving nuances; or are they fanatical revolutionaries and recalcitrant politicians? There are both kinds on both sides. The day after the attack on Iran, we don’t know who is prepared to take a hint. The strategic dilemma for all concerned is real, with fateful potential.
We have reasonable grounds for assuming that Israel did not have a monopoly on the choice of targets in Iran. One result is at least a slight sense of anti-climax. Only those sensitive to nuances could immediately grasp the significance of a large fleet of aircraft crossing the airspace of the Middle East without difficulty, penetrating the skies of a regional power with global pretensions, and taking out narrowly defined targets, making it easy for the regime to pretend that nothing had happened.
We hope you got the hint, is the parting line. One day, we’ll know whether the hint was sufficient.
Americans fed up with military commitments
The closeness of the drama-non-drama in the skies of the Middle East to the election in the US is a source of misunderstandings. Although US politics and public opinion are divided on almost every issue, the fear of a global conflagration is common to both political parties, even if they express that fear in different ways.
The Americans are fed up with military commitments overseas that compel them to place forces on the ground and to finance huge war budgets. Kamala Harris would have lost out in the event of all-out conflict in the Middle East, but mainly in the sense that such a conflict would have validated Donald Trump’s repeated warnings that the Democratic administration was dragging the US into World War III. It would be foolish to assume that a Trump administration, if he is elected, will grant Israel broader license to act against its enemies.
Let’s recall Trump’s behavior in June 2019, when the US Air Force was about to punish Iran for downing an American UAV over the Persian Gulf. The president was in the situation room, with his generals, and they awaited his final order. Minutes before he gave it, he asked them how many Iranians would be killed in the attack. 150, they estimated. He decided that the price was too high. One American drone is not worth the lives of 150 Iranians.
It was an important and interesting message. Many sins could be counted against that president, but on that day it emerged that he is not a warmonger, and is not quick to squeeze the trigger. Some of his predecessors, Democrats and Republicans alike, would not have hesitated. Although Trump himself did not hesitate a few months later to assassinate Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. officer General Qasem Soleimani, we are entitled to assume from the incident of June 2019 that he at least has substantial doubts. Unlike all his predecessors, he has no sense of mission to save the free world. The very notion arouses revulsion in him, or ridicule.
The Israeli government should not complain that it has become caught up in the US election calendar, to its detriment. In fact, I don’t think that it’s complaining. It could have waited a couple of weeks, and hoped that the election results would release it from the constraints. Better to hope that one of the main reasons that it did not wait was the recognition that there is a limit to Israel’s (virtuosic) ability to manipulate the US political process.
That limit is of course made tangible by the constant erosion of Israel’s standing in the US, but also by the realization that the US order of priorities in the Middle East is not about to change fundamentally. The Democratic administration expresses that order of priorities in strategic language, while Trump expresses it with crude levity (Israel and Iran are "like two kids fighting in the schoolyard"). Neither the Democrats nor Trump are prepared to lift the constraints on Israel. The Middle East will not burn, whoever is president.
As for who that will be, the likelihood of a Trump victory is now higher than at any point since Biden withdrew from the race. Calculations of probabilities are not the same as opinion poll results. Although the gaps between the candidates in the polls are microscopic, organizations that specialize in forecasting now put Trump’s chances of winning at around 60%. Polls in critical states give him an almost complete advantage, even if within the boundaries of statistical error. We are living in a twilight zone. This is a time for caution, not euphoria.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 27, 2024.
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