Israel Continues to Act Like the World's Brat Little Brother (Ya, I went there...)

This week's NY Times Magazine features the provocatively titled article "Will Israel Attack Iran?" that outlines the thoughts and feelings of those intimately related to the decision making process (**SPOILER ALERT**: Author Ronen Bergman, as well as everyone else in the world, thinks that they will. Further, and somewhat more boldly, he thinks that it will happen this year). The interesting bits, to me, were when officials not named Benjamin Netanyahu were discussing the possibility of an attack on Iran and, especially, when talking about the United States. In discussing the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, the article points out that he:

dislikes this kind of criticism of the United States [about their unwillingness to attack Iran], and in a rather testy tone in a phone conversation with me on Jan. 18 said: “Our discourse with the United States is based on listening and mutual respect, together with an understanding that it is our primary ally. The U.S. is what helps us to preserve the military advantage of Israel, more than ever before. This administration contributes to the security of Israel in an extraordinary way and does a lot to prevent a nuclear Iran. We’re not in confrontation with America. We’re not in agreement on every detail, we can have differences — and not unimportant ones — but we should not talk as if we are speaking about a hostile entity."

This is almost directly contra to the view of the Obama administrations Israel policy being espoused on the right. A view that Mr. Netanyahu seems to carefully, and never quite explicitly, encourage among certain sectors of the American body-politic. Further, the GOP candidates seem pretty cavalier with American foreign policy asserting that Israel and American priorities are one in the same and virtually assuring that an attack on Iran would happen in a GOP administration. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, clearly the priorities of Israel and the United States are not one in the same. If you replace Israel with any country in the world and you can see how it is a priori false (or even simpler make the statement that my priorities are the same as x). Secondly, although a certain sect of Israeli officials, led by Mr. Netanyahu, believe that there would be a muted response by Iran, most of the rest of the world thinks that Iran retaliate with both barrels blazing and would recommit, to an even greater degree, to developing a nuke. It seems like the hawkish, Likud, portion of the Israeli government are stacking the deck for an Iranian strike with favorable intelligence estimates. Thirdly, and most importantly in my view, many, many people believe that an attack would be ineffectual. Former head of Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency), Meir Dagan, stated:

“The use of state violence has intolerable costs,” he said. “The working assumption that it is possible to totally halt the Iranian nuclear project by means of a military attack is incorrect. There is no such military capability. It is possible to cause a delay, but even that would only be for a limited period of time.” 

He warned that attacking Iran would start an unwanted war with Hezbollah and Hamas: “I am not convinced that Syria will not be drawn into the war. While the Syrians won’t charge at us in tanks, we will see a massive offensive of missiles against our home front. Civilians will be on the front lines. What is Israel’s defensive capability against such an offensive? I know of no solution that we have for this problem.”

This is a huge problem. Dagan is out and out saying that the current leadership of Israel is looking to provoke a war with Iran that will not even accomplish it's goal of stopping the Iran nuclear program. It will only slow it down. Minorly. Starting a was to create hiccup is not good policy, in MHO, and definitely not a policy that the U.S. should co-opt.

Listen, I totally get Israel's position (seen here: “Take every scenario of confrontation and attack by Iran and its proxies and then ask yourself, ‘How would it look if they had a nuclear weapon?’ ” a senior official said. “In nearly every scenario, the situation looks worse.”). It is eminently reasonable to worry about a nuclear Iran if you are Israel (or anyone else in the world for that matter). But what exactly is the point if your attack is just going to piss of Iran rather than stop them and create an anti-Israel, anti-US upheaval in a Middle East in transition in the process?

I'm going to have to go with the old hand Rafi Eitan's assessment on this one...

Asked if it was possible to stop a determined Iran from becoming a nuclear power, Eitan replied: “No. In the end they’ll get their bomb. The way to fight it is by changing the regime there. This is where we have really failed. We should encourage the opposition groups who turn to us over and over to ask for our help, and instead, we send them away empty-handed.”

It's the Arab Spring Summer Fall and Winter y'all... Israel should take a long look at encouraging that route instead.

(Image From: http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html via Google Images [as always])

Are the GOP Primaries Acting as an Early Policy Referendum by Accident?

No, Santorum does not count. As the State of the Union Address is tonight, I could venture a guess at each candidates odds agains President Obama or just pull some Nate Silver ish about who I think might win; but, as it is really Obama v. the Economy for who'll win this fall, it doesn't really matter.

The interesting part of the GOP nomination contests, for me at least, is that they are bringing to the fore issues that you wouldn't expect until the general election; namely, super PACs in the post-Citizen United world and, in a roundabout way focusing on Mitt Romney's reluctance to release his tax returns, the appropriateness of the 15% capital gains tax rate (especially as it is applied private equity shops). These are focal points you would expect to see from President Obama's team but not from internecine fighting between republican candidates. Romney and Gingrich have been going back and forth biatching about each other's super PACs. Super PACs that have already spent $30 million so far amongst the Republicans. Just today, Dr. Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate and super Israel supporter Sheldon Adelson, donated $5 million to Gingrich's super PAC. Between the husband and wife, team Gingrich has pulled in $10 million for negative adds in the past month. Despite the claim in Citizens United that the money is just speech and would have a negligible influence on politicians, quite the opposite seems to be true as I could've told you the second that opinion came out. As Barrett seems to point out, Gingrich's 90 degree rightward shift on Israeli/Palestinian issue could be from any number of reasons, including the general rightward shift in the GOP recently due to the Tea Party and the partisan shift that comes during a nominating process. However, it is hard to deny that it stinks to high heaven. As the NY Times points out,

The Adelsons’ contributions on Mr. Gingrich’s behalf illustrate how rapidly a new era of unlimited political money is reshaping the rules of presidential politics and empowering individual donors to a degree unseen since before the Watergate scandals.

The wealth of a single couple has now leveled the playing field in two critical primary states for Mr. Gingrich, a candidate who ended September more than $1 million in debt, finished out of the running in Iowa and New Hampshire and, unlike Mr. Romney, has yet to attract the broad network of hard-money donors and bundlers that traditionally propel presidential campaigns.

It boggles the mind.

Meanwhile, the very attacks on Romney that Gingrich's super PAC has financed have recently (in South Carolina at least) concentrated on his time at Bain Capital and how it affected the working man. The long and short of it being how the cold-hearted, Gordon Gekko-like, Romney acquired a vast fortune off the plight of the workers laid off by companies that had to fold after Bain Capital saddled them with too much debt in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). The companies suffered, but Bain prospered after using some of the debt to pay off their investment and management fees. This led to a further attack on how Romney refused to release his tax returns, an attack which he failed to respond to effectively, forcing him to release his returns for the past two years today. They show that he pays a rate of 13.9% as most of his income is seen as capital gains. Though most of the Republicans on the stage want either that rate or even lower, this talk is undoubtedly going to illuminate this country's income inequity and call into question whether a lower capital gains rate is good policy (especially for those in private equity). At the very least, this is certainly going to come up in tonight's State of the Union Address. Hopefully, as Andrew Sullivan has called for, it comes in a larger talk about the need to reform our tax code in general. Debt has been incentivized for too long in this country and it has caused a myriad problems. Talking about it tonight would be a good first step.

Though the GOP candidates, and their talking head puppetmasters on Fox News, will undoubtedly end up labeling him a socialist tomorrow, it is important to remember the words of the proto-capitalist Adam Smith. And I quote:

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

BONUS POINTS- State of the Union Prediction Edition: Obama uses today to launch some sort of tax reform initiative. In the midst of this, especially with the presence of Obama's secretary and with the release of Romney's tax returns, he takes the opportunity to throw out some derivation of the following line: "It is not right that people of means like Warren Buffett, with billions of dollars, are paying the same rate as his secretary, who is here today. I know that it is called the Buffett rule because of this but perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it the Romney rule, as he pays even less." Obama is probably too classy to go explicitly at Romney like that, but BELEE dat the above sentiment will be implied.

The Hot Mic Heard Round the World

In what has been variously labeled a horrible gaffe or a fleeting glimpse of the truth, depending on who you are talking to, President Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France were overheard speaking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a less than flattering fashion at the G20 summit. Their off-the-record discussion was on a microphone that was, unbeknownst to them, live at the time. A small group of reporters in a different area heard what was said and, despite an initial reluctance to report on a private conversation, the facts eventually leaked out. According to Reuters, the conversation went as follows:

"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.

"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.

To me, this doesn't seem like the biggest deal in the world. I mean, Netanyahu seemed to go out of his way to go on an Eff You Obama tour of the U.S. on his last visit. Not the biggest surprise that Obama might not be his biggest fan. Around Congress, however, the histrionics are going to be turned up to 11. This will be especially true at the GOP debate tomorrow evening where, I can only imagine, the POTUS will be accused of treason for daring to speak (mildly, kinda, sorta, in a milquetoast way) ill off the Israeli Prime Minister. In some circles, to say anything remotely negative about Israeli means that you are a filthy anti-Semitic, Nazi sympathizing, puppy kicker. Or, at the very least, not a Christian.

Personally, I don't understand the knee jerk support of Israel on ALL issues, ALL the time. Or why a modern, developed, (relatively) wealthy country would receive more U.S. foreign aid than any other country. Like any relationship, the U.S. and Israel should have a give and take (instead of Israel being the abusive boyfriend the U.S. won't leave). Maybe the leaking of this conversation will make Israel re-think its recalcitrance, but I doubt it. Especially when a large number in Congress go out of their way to support the Prime Minister of Israeli while taking shots at the President of the United States.

UPDATE: See link for a well put analysis by Sully.