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53284
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Israel's long held goal = war with Iran fought by the USA(NT)
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53292
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War?
URL: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-hamas-hezbollah-iran/
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WORLD / JANUARY 3, 2024 Will Israel Drag the US Into Another Ruinous War? President Biden refuses to pursue the most obvious way of de-escalating tensions and avoid American deaths: a cease-fire in Gaza. TRITA PARSI "America and Israel’s interests have never been fully aligned on Gaza. But as Israel’s bombardment of the narrow strip has continued for almost 100 days, the Netanyahu government is shifting in a direction that directly threatens the stated goals of the Biden administration: Israel wants to expand the war into Lebanon and appears to welcome open warfare against so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran. The assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday makes that clear. So far, President Joe Biden has refused the one step that can prevent both this escalation and the US from getting dragged into yet another war in the Middle East: a cease-fire in Gaza. Since October 7, the assumption of the White House’s strategy was that in order to have credibility with Israel, Biden must first show unconditional support. Only then, the logic goes, will he have the leverage to rein in Israel. This reasoning allows the possibility that Biden wanted a cease-fire but had to earn credibility before he could press Israel. And that pressure would of course only be applied privately. Before the cameras, there would be no daylight between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But as the war has progressed and more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed—almost half of them children—with weapons that Biden provided, the image of an American president that wants a cease-fire but is stumbling to find the leverage to force an end to fighting has fallen apart. Biden has shipped more than 10,000 tons of weapons and ammunition to Israel, twice sidestepped congressional oversight to expedite the arms transfers, twice vetoed resolutions at the UN Security Council calling for a cease-fire, and even studied how to permanently transfer 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza to the desert in the Sinai. While Biden has condemned Israeli cabinet ministers when they openly speak of their plans of ethnic cleansing, it has become increasingly clear that he’s never wanted a cease-fire, because he has bought into the feasibility and legitimacy of Israel’s maximalist war objective: the complete military destruction of Hamas, come what may. Biden wants Israel to do to Hamas what the US couldn’t do to the Taliban. Of course, there was never a need to build credibility to pressure Netanyahu. The United States already had massive credibility with Israel, particularly after Biden openly contemplated offering Saudi Arabia a defense pact and access to the nuclear fuel cycle if it normalized relations with Israel. No other American president had ever given such concessions to Israel’s Arab rivals to secure an agreement for Israel. Even Trump, who began the normalization campaign that explicitly sought to “move beyond the Palestinian issue,” never offered defense pacts to the four Arab countries he brought into the so- called Abraham Accords. The other myth propagated by the Washington foreign-policy establishment to excuse Biden’s inaction in face of what the South African government convincingly asserts is a genocide also disintegrates with a closer look: The United States, some D.C. analysts conveniently argue, simply does not have leverage to stop Israel. History suggests otherwise. In 1982, President Ronald Regan was “disgusted” by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. He stopped the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel and told Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in a phone call that “this is a holocaust.” Reagan demanded that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Begin caved. Twenty minutes after their phone call, Begin ordered a halt on attacks. Indeed, it is absurd to claim that Biden has no leverage, particularly given the massive amounts of arms he has shipped to Israel. In fact, Israeli officials openly admit it. “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US,” retired Israeli Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Brick conceded in November of last year. “The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability.… Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” But Israel cannot destroy Hamas militarily, just as the United States couldn’t rely on military-only solutions to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert admitted as much just last month.d “The odds of achieving the complete elimination of Hamas were nil from the moment that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared them to be the chief goal of the war,” he wrote in Haaretz at the end of December. Instead, Israel appears to be taking advantage of Biden’s near-total deference to Netanyahu to do what previous American presidents have prevented Israel from doing—drag the US into a regional war with Iran and its allies. Another former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, argued in The Wall Street Journal only a week ago that “the U.S. and Israel need to take Iran on directly.” There is little doubt that war with Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis would be ruinous for the region and for the United States. Though Biden opposes a widening of the war, he has been nonchalant about the risk of escalation. That risks exists on four fronts: between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah, in Syria and Iraq due to attacks on US troops by militias aligned with Iran, the Red Sea between the Houthis and the US Navy, and between Israel and Iran following both the assassination of an Iranian general in Syria and the explosion in Kerman today at the commemoration of the death of General Qassem Soleimani that has killed more than 100. (It remains unclear whether Israel played a role in that attack, but it has nonetheless increased tensions in the region.) Increased attacks on US troops are directly linked to Israel’s war in Gaza. Between January 2021 and March 2023, Iraqi militias targeted US personnel around 80 times. Since October 7, 2023, however, more than 100 such attacks have been conducted. While Biden has sought to deter Iran and its allies by moving more US troops and ships to the region, he has refused to pursue the most obvious and effective way of de-escalating tensions and putting American troops out of harm’s way: a cease-fire in Gaza. Indeed, during the six days in November that a cease-fire was in place, attacks by Iraqi militias on US troops stopped. Only a day before the cease- fire, the militias targeted the US in six separate attacks. The Houthis also dramatically decreased their targeting of ships in the Red Sea during the cease-fire. Still, Biden refuses to budge. If the question earlier was how many innocent Palestinians would have to die before Biden would come to his senses and finally demand a cease-fire, the question may soon become how many Americans must die before he musters the courage to say no to Israel." |
Responses:
[53293]
53293
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Hawkish Israel Is Pulling U.S. Into War With Iran
URL: https://theintercept.com/2023/03/01/us-israel-iran-war/
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Hawkish Israel Is Pulling U.S. Into War With Iran The Biden administration is appearing to endorse Israel's escalations against Iran — a move that would necessitate U.S. involvement in a new Middle East conflict no one wants. ALMOST TWO DECADES after the U.S. launched the disastrous invasion of Iraq, the Biden administration is on the verge of sleepwalking into yet another major armed conflict in the Middle East. Last week, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides appeared to endorse a plan for Israel to attack Iranian nuclear facilities with U.S. support. “Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with [Iran], and we’ve got their back,” he said at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Nides’s words come after recent high-level military drills between Israel and the United States intended to showcase the ability to strike Iranian targets, as well as recent acts of sabotage and assassination inside Iran believed to have been carried out by both countries. It was not clear whether Nides was speaking on his own behalf or outlining an official change in U.S. policy, though the Biden administration has not walked back the remarks. In a press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the remarks reflected consistent U.S. support of Israeli security. The U.S. has continued to support Israel’s increasingly hawkish Iran policies, including its “octopus doctrine” of strikes inside Iran as well as at Iranian targets throughout the region. Meanwhile, at first blush, the U.S. has little to lose, diplomatically speaking: The Iran nuclear deal is dead, thanks in large part to the Biden administration’s hesitance to reenter the agreement. On closer examination, though, the Israeli escalations mean that the U.S. now faces the unsavory prospect of a major crisis flaring up in the Middle East at the exact moment when its bandwidth is already stretched thin because of a major war in Europe and its deteriorating relationship with China. Related Pentagon Developed Contingency Plan for War With Iran “It’s now abundantly clear that the decision to leave the JCPOA was a blunder of enormous proportions, because it allowed Iran to restart its nuclear program and raise once again the question of what the U.S., Israel, or anyone else might do about it. This is exactly what many people warned about, and it’s exactly what’s happened,” said Stephen Walt, an international relations professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, referring to the nuclear deal by the initials of its former name, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “One of the reasons that you want to try to negotiate settlements to issues in dispute is that there are always new issues that come along. Now, while the administration has its hands full in Europe and elsewhere, it is possible that they will have another major crisis to deal with in the Middle East.” The nuclear deal was intended to avoid the Middle East confrontation now visible on the horizon. Signed by President Barack Obama in 2015, the deal traded strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for its reintegration into the global economy. When President Donald Trump violated the deal, in an apparent fit of personal pique at Obama, this pragmatic arrangement went out the window — not only removing limits on Iran’s nuclear program, but also politically empowering hard-liners inside Iran who had balked at negotiating in the first place and helping them to victory in Iran’s 2021 presidential elections. “From the Iranian perspective, Trump’s decision to leave the JCPOA made it look like the moderates inside Iran had simply been fooled — taken to cleaners by the Americans. They did all the things we asked them to do, they were in compliance, then we reneged on the deal,” said Walt. “That allowed the hard-liners to come in and say that we should not talk to Washington anyways because they’re untrustworthy.” With the Iran deal buried, there is no realistic prospect of dialogue with an increasingly hermetic and repressive government inside Iran. THE U.S. CONFLICT with Iran is, in many ways, a product of Iran’s conflict with Israel — a resolution to which was never part of the initial talks around the nuclear deal. Today, both Middle Eastern countries find themselves in a state of crisis. Iran is reeling from mass protests, economic turmoil, and domestic repression. Israel is experiencing widespread civil unrest over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the Israeli judiciary, alongside moves to formalize apartheid-style annexation and military control over millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank. It is not uncommon for governments to deflect their citizenry’s ire by directing it at a foreign adversary — something both the Iranian and Israeli governments could benefit from. However much the U.S. public may not want it, a conflict between Israel and Iran would inevitably draw the U.S. military into the fray, as Nides’s recent comments recognized. Far from keeping Netanyahu in check — as past administrations, including Republican ones, sometimes did — the Biden administration appears to be giving tacit approval for steps likely to lead to war. “Israel can’t meaningfully strike Iran’s nuclear program themselves — they know they can’t, and we know they can’t. We would have to get involved.” “What we are seeing now is the Biden administration being very relaxed about threats from Israel that they would have to pay for,” said Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute. “Israel can’t meaningfully strike Iran’s nuclear program themselves — they know they can’t, and we know they can’t. We would have to get involved.” With anti-government protests inside Iran ongoing, hawkish analysts in the United States recently began arguing that the Iranian people would jump at the opportunity to overthrow a government that has increasingly lost its legitimacy. A similar notion motivated Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to invade Iran in the 1980s, with international encouragement. At the time, there was a widespread belief that the 1979 revolution had thrown Iran into turmoil and that many Iranians would be glad to take the opportunity to overthrow their new theocratic leaders. Despite these predictions, the regime has remained in power. ”An attack that is supposed to be the coup de grâce against the Iranian government could actually strengthen their position and help them stay in power,” said Sick. “We can have a considerable degree of confidence that that is what would happen. People may not like the supreme leader and his government, but when their friends are being bombed, they can react in a very different way.” A conflict between Iran and Israel could have other geopolitical costs. The United States is currently expending all the diplomatic energy it can to maintain a coalition to isolate and confront Russia over its war in Ukraine, including by severing Russian access to global oil and gas markets. After a full year of war, this effort is already showing severe strain. If the U.S. finds itself dragged by its client states into a new war in the Middle East, it is unlikely to win many hearts and minds around the world, let alone at home. “The idea of a new war in the Middle East is not really popular anywhere,” said Sick. “If Israel carries out a raid and the United States gets involved, a lot of Americans are going to be questioning why we are getting ourselves involved in another major war that we can already tell isn’t going to be a good idea.” “I don’t see this as another Ukraine where everyone rallies to the side of the West,” he added. “It would be seen as another war of choice in the Middle East.” |
Responses:
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53290
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Israel's long held goal not that.
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Are you serious? They move to the ME, struggle for 70+ years, immigrating from all over the world, restore, research, all to get a war going with Iran... Most people want to wake up, breakfast with family and spend a day in productive endeavor. Unless totally perverted, people just want to be happy. But if you were raised Palestinian where Hamas and Islamic militants ensure what you read is hate, what you play is war, what you learn is predatory, and they feed you your meals with threats of death if you try to get them another soource, yeah. You'd believe anything as a matter of habit and safety. |
Responses:
[53291]
53291
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Israel's long held goal not that.
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"Are you serious? They move to the ME, struggle for 70+ years, immigrating from all over the world, restore, research, all to get a war going with Iran..." Your logic is baffling. and if you're gonna whitewash history, do it without me. The draconian law used by Israel to steal Palestinian land Analysts say all outposts are a backdoor to keep claiming Palestinian land after Israel committed to freezing settlements in the Oslo Accords in 1993. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/8/how-israel-backs-settlers-to- confiscate-palestinian-lands Stealing Palestine: A study of historical and cultural theft By Roger Sheety https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/stealing-palestine-study-historical- and-cultural-theft |
Responses:
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53288
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Biden Inches Toward War with Iran, Makes Israel Full Military Partner
URL: https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-inches-toward-war-iran-makes-israel-full-military-partner-1768600
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my bad - with the US above: General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, made his fourth visit to Israel in mid-November, here visiting the northern border alongside commanding general of the IDF Northern Command, Major General Ori Gordin. Joe Biden Inches Toward War with Iran, Makes Israel Full Military Partner Published Dec 21, 2022 By William M. Arkin "Preparing for any potential war against Iran, the Biden administration has formally elevated Israel in military planning. Israel's changed status comes as the U.S. military refocuses from the 'war on terror' to potential combat with the big four—China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. As Israel has become a full-fledged military partner, the U.S. intelligence community is also putting more emphasis on its Hebrew language program to spy on its number-one Mideast ally. For the Pentagon, Israel is the most prized military and intelligence partner in the Middle East, with its vast combat experience and advanced technologies. With the end of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the brokering of the Abraham Accords by the Trump administration, Washington sees an opportunity to incorporate Israel into a new regional alliance. The Accords established diplomatic relations between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors. "Israel is coming out of the closet, allowed now to openly cooperate with the [U.S.] military while at the same time being denied access to another closet," says a senior intelligence official, referring to the world of American intelligence. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss military planning, says that for some things, such as targeting, exchanges are part of the new military alliance. But where U.S.-Israeli interests might diverge, such as counterintelligence against Israeli spying, or uncovering secrets about Israel's own nuclear arsenal, the United States has redoubled its collection efforts. President Biden signed a major change of the biennial Unified Command Plan last year, codifying the change in Israel's position in U.S. military planning. The Unified Command Plan is the highest level document that determines every command's area of operations. UCP 2021 shifted Israel to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the command responsible for the Middle East from its previous assignment as part of European Command (EUCOM). European Command oversaw the military dimensions of the special relationship, working with the country to defend it in very specific circumstances against its neighbors. According to the Pentagon, the previous system of special channels outside the Middle East allowed CENTCOM to build a coalition among Arab allies without having the complication of a relationship with Israel—a sworn enemy to many of those countries. But it segregated Israel from formally partnering with CENTCOM and contingency planning against a common enemy. "CENTCOM will now work to implement the U.S. Government commitment to a holistic approach to regional security and cooperation with our partners," the Tampa-based command said after it was given responsibility over Israel. "The easing of tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors subsequent to the Abraham Accords has provided a strategic opportunity for the United States to align key partners against shared threats in the Middle East. Israel is a leading strategic partner for the United States, and this will open up additional opportunities for cooperation with our U.S. Central Command partners while maintaining strong cooperation between Israel and our European allies," the Pentagon announced. biden israel military partner iran US President Joe Biden and Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a security pledge in Jerusalem, on July 14, 2022. MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Government sources tell Newsweek that behind the seeming bureaucratic adjustment, the new assignment is the most profound change for the U.S. military since Israel's founding. The hope, some might say pipedream, is to pave the way for a regional military alliance similar to NATO in Europe, not only to prepare for war with Iran but also thwart Russian and Chinese encroachment in the region. Intelligence on Israel New status and cooperation notwithstanding, Israel is consistently at the top of U.S. intelligence priorities. Israel is a world military leader and an expert in many forms of modern warfare—air and missile defense, directed energy weapons such as lasers, and unmanned systems—that the Pentagon perceives are crucial in any future battle. Israel possesses nuclear weapons and has unilateral policies and plans against its adversaries that are of interest to the top decision- makers in Washington. In dealing with Israel, Washington has followed two, sometimes dueling tracks of cooperation and rivalry. The CIA is responsible for relations with Israel's intelligence agencies—and with collecting information on the Israeli leadership. The U.S. armed forces are responsible for military intelligence on everything from Israel's technology to its capabilities and plans. Within the military, the NSA eavesdrops on Israeli communications—while also cooperating with its Israeli counterparts, who in term spy on its Arab neighbors and Iran. About 1,000 qualified Hebrew linguists in the U.S. government work on questions related to Israel. Most of these Hebrew linguists have overt functions—in diplomacy, as defense attaches, and liaisons. But about one- third work in intelligence collection and analysis specifically related to spying on Israel. The NSA—responsible for signals intelligence—currently has some 250 Hebrew linguists who translate secure Israel government dispatches, military communications, and highly targeted cell phone traffic. A significant number also monitor and analyze Israeli press, social media and other open source communications in Hebrew. (Hundreds more Hebrew linguists work under contract, both at the NSA and other intelligence agencies, assisting government employees and members of the armed services.) By 2025, according to intelligence sources, the number of qualified military Hebrew linguists is programmed to double. That number is increasing, according to intelligence documents and government sources, partly to service the increased cooperation. Hebrew language intelligence training is centered at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where prospective linguists also learn Jewish and Israeli history, cultural studies, and historical and "modern antisemitism analysis." From there, the eavesdroppers go to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia, where the NSA operates its massive Middle East eavesdropping and analysis center in support of the military. (The most sensitive political intelligence is handled at Ft. Meade in Maryland.) Most Hebrew linguists in the intelligence field are assigned to these two bases, as well as to ship- and air-based collection platforms. China Targets Israeli Technology in Bid for Global Dominance As U.S. FretsREAD MORE China Targets Israeli Technology in Bid for Global Dominance As U.S. Frets Israel is a difficult country to spy on, not only because of its technical expertise and its routine focus on "operational security" against its neighbors and other adversaries. That means that it practices good communications and cybersecurity discipline and uses sophisticated cryptography in coding its messages. Much of the U.S. intelligence collection effort consequently is focused on micro-targeting of individuals (i.e., their cell phones, computers and other devices) where intelligence can be gleaned from more easily exploitable devices. "The more that Israel is a credible military opponent of Iran, the very reason for this shake-up, the more that they are also suspect for the very capabilities that we are helping to create and improve," says the senior intelligence official who has worked on the relationship. "This is a case of 'keep your enemies close and your friends closer,'" the official says. (Israel has consistently denied spying on the United States since relations were soured by the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, who pleaded guilty of selling military secrets to Israel, but allegations of different forms of espionage have continued over the years.) Newsweek reached out to the Israeli Defense Forces for comment but had not received a response at time of publication. Making friends Only the amicable aspect of the U.S.-Israeli relationship was on show when chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley hosted his counterpart, incoming head of the Israeli General Staff Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi, at the Pentagon on December 5. According to the Defense Department readout, the two discussed "coordination to defend against threats posed by Iran" among other issues. The meeting between the two military heads wound up a whirlwind of joint military activities in the past year since President Biden approved Israel's new status, including similar exchanges by high-level commanders, joint exercises and bilateral meetings regarding everything from cyber security to missile defense. The December meeting followed a Washington visit by Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, current chief Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, where he met with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. According to the White House readout of that meeting, their discussions "emphasized their shared determination to address security challenges impacting the Middle East, including the threats posed by Iran and its proxies." American CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael ("Erik") Kurilla then went to Israel to meet with Kohavi, making his fourth visit in just seven months since he had become commander of CENTCOM. Calling the military alliance "ironclad," Kurilla said that the Middle East "is at the center of America's strategic competition with Russia and China." The true focus for CENTCOM, though, is Iran. Speaking of Kurilla's visit, Kohavi said that the two countries were "developing joint military capabilities at an accelerated rate" against Tehran. According to the Times of Israel, the military-to-military exchange included discussion of the "joint use of force" against Tehran. "Our mutual commitment is demonstrated on a weekly basis. We are operating together on all fronts to gather intelligence, neutralize threats, and prepare for various scenarios in either one or multiple arenas," Kohavi was quoted as saying. As part of Kurilla's visit, he went to Nevatim airbase, which hosts Israel's new wing of American-made F-35i fighter jets, the most advanced in the U.S. arsenal, which the United States has sold to Israel. "Israel maintains a remarkably impressive airpower capability," Kurilla said at Nevatim. Days after Kurilla's visit, U.S. Air Force and Israeli fighter jets took to the skies above the eastern Mediterranean Sea to practice combined operations. The Air Force package included KC-10 "Extender" aerial refuelers, planes that can extend the range of fighters for long-range strikes. (In March 2020, the State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of up to eight KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft to give the country its own long-range strike capability.) General Kurilla Israel military partner General Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, made his fourth visit to Israel in mid-November, here visiting the northern border alongside commanding general of the IDF Northern Command, Major General Ori Gordin. U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND In addition to numerous visits and exchanges by other CENTCOM commanders, additional components of the U.S. military have also accelerated visits and training. The Army has increased air defense cooperation. This includes an updated Juniper Cobra exercise and a new Combined Air Defense Working Group. The Missouri National Guard has a training partnership with Israel. The U.S. and Israeli navies have increased their level of joint training and port visits. In January, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency and its Israeli counterpart also conducted a flight test of the jointly developed Arrow 3 missile interceptor. The military exercise Cyber Dome VIi was also held between the two nation's cyber commands earlier this month. The Ukraine war, in particular, has focused U.S. military attention on missile defense and counter-drone operations, both of which are areas of expertise for the Israel military. This summer, for example, the U.S. and Israeli navies conducted the bilateral exercise called Digital Shield to test out future unmanned "swarming" and artificial intelligence warfare. Kurilla, formerly commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, has been a fan of increasing the use of artificial intelligence in warfare. "We can take large pieces of terrain and rapidly identify hundreds of targets, prioritize them based on a high priority target list that determines which ones we should strike with the resources that we have," Kurilla said in May. "... That happens in seconds versus what would take hours normally, or sometimes even days to be able to develop these targets. And it's doing it in real-time at the edge in our command posts and not being tied just back into a garrison computing environment." As part of its new status, Israel has also participated in a number of multinational exercises, including the American-led Rim of the Pacific 22 exercise in Asia and Global Sentinel 22, a war game focused on space warfare. Neither of those two exercises included any other Mideast nations, though military sources say that such match-ups will soon include both Israel and Arab states as participants. Bahrain, one of the Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel, has allowed Israeli government and military delegations to visit and work with the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet, which is based there. Last December, an Israeli government national security delegation arrived in Bahrain to meet at Fifth Fleet headquarters, an unprecedented visit. In March, Fifth Fleet commander Vice Adm. Brad Cooper also hosted Lt. Gen. Kohavi at its headquarters. US navy Israel military exercise The U.S. and Israel navies held Digital Shield in the Gulf of Aqaba in September, focusing on the latest technologies and techniques of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence. Conducted by the new Task Force 59,... More U.S. NAVY Israel as partner Israel has always been a perplexing country for the U.S. military: in war plans, it was a country to be defended in the case of the big "if" but never acknowledged as such. As a result, Israel was treated as special, different and secret, assigned to a command outside the Middle East. After the Israel- Arab war in 1973, the oil embargo that followed, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution, the idea of creating a special command for the region solidified into a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force. To help defend U.S. interests in the region, the new Florida-headquartered CENTCOM was set up with President Ronald Reagan's approval in December 1982, but because of the complexities of the region EUCOM retained responsibility for the so-called "confrontation states of Israel, Syria and Lebanon" as well as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. That arrangement remained in place until 9/11 and the start of the war on terror, when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that Israel, Syria and Lebanon be added to the CENTCOM portfolio. Everyone except the Air Force rejected the idea, arguing that change might influence the "peace process" and that EUCOM and Israel had built a strong working relationship. Overruling the generals and admirals, Rumsfeld came up with an end-run, getting President George W. Bush to agree to move Syria and Lebanon to CENTCOM. Only Israel would stay a part of the European command. With the end of the war on terror, at least formally, the Joint Chiefs again took on the question of Israel. An African Command had been created and was now responsible for North Africa, leaving Israel as the sole anomaly. What is more, CENTCOM needed relevance in the post-terrorism world of military planning. The discussions were already underway when President Biden took office. Military sources agree that the Abraham Accords facilitated the change, even if the main objective behind the renewed military alliance was focused on Iran. "Israel brings some very unique capabilities in terms of their military component that they believe they can share with their Arab partners in the region," General Kurilla said in May in his Senate nomination hearing to become the next CENTCOM commander. Kurilla sees a closer military coalition between Israel and the Arab states over Iran. If he and other Pentagon leaders are successful in this goal, a region-wide military alliance will be brought to the Middle East. "Finally, the U.S. military is openly reaping the benefits of Israel's military prowess and technology," says a Pentagon planner who has been involved in the Israel changes. "Openly ... that's the key word." The United States already deploys logistical support units, radar and an air defense unit in Israel, says the planner, granted anonymity to discuss classified matters. "Next up is more visits and joint training and eventually military bases and then a NATO-like military alliance. All in the name of Iran and Russia and the transition to major war. But will Israel's neighbors go along? Will all of the region unify to prepare for war with Iran? That's the major question." |
Responses:
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