Obama Fails to Reassure

The differences between Israel’s and the Obama administration’s policy on Iran is deep. The differences apply not so much to the objective of policy as to the details. The objective is to eliminate Iran’s military nuclear program. Neither side believes that the other’s proposed path to that objective is going to work.

First of all, a reality check: What is the status of the Iranian nuclear weapons program? What can they do?

There are two parts to a program to build a bomb. One is to master the necessary technologies. The other is to actually go ahead and put the thing together. For years Israel has been warning the world that Iran has been trying to acquire the capacity to build a bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report on Iran last November implies that the capacity exists:

- Iran has lots of uranium and is enriching much of it to 20% uranium-235 (the isotope that goes boom). From there it is a hop, skip and jump to enrich uranium to the 90% concentration of U-235 that bombs use. Enrichment gets faster and easier as the concentration of uranium-235 goes up.

- Another crucial technology is the sophisticated implosion device that crushes uranium together and sets off a nuclear explosion. Mastering this technology is indispensible in making a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile. The Iranians acquired blueprints of this device years ago from the Pakistanis; the North Koreans have shown they have mastered it, and will probably sell what they know to anybody with cash. The Iranians probably have it too.

- The weakest link in the Iranian technological chain is designing a missile that can carry a warhead weighing several tons to Israel. The Iranians are working on this but it’s not clear they have mastered the technology. The North Koreans have, though, and they sell Iran missiles.

So the bottom line is that the Iranians probably have all the pieces they need to make a deliverable bomb. It would probably take them eight months to year to put all the pieces together. That is, they are lurking just outside what is called the nuclear “threshold.” They can step over the threshold whenever they please.  What is holding them back is not any lack of capability but their assessment of what foreign powers are likely to do if they give the signal to build a real bomb. They are now working feverishly to move their uranium-enrichment facilities to an underground bunker near Qom where it might take a tactical nuclear weapon to dig them out. No doubt the bunker includes facilities for actually assembling a nuclear weapon as well.

At the start of the Obama administration, the Americans were still trying to argue that the Iranians had given up on building a nuclear weapon. At the time that meant “the Iranians have stopped trying to acquire the ability to build a bomb,” and the argument was false. Now the United States is again saying the Iranians aren’t trying to build a bomb, but the meaning is very different. Now they mean that “Iran hasn’t yet pushed the button that will automatically lead to the creation of a nuclear arsenal unless someone stops them.”

To move against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Israel has to attack it before the transfer of facilities to a new, deep underground bunker in Qom. Once the bunker installation is set up, Israel has lost its military options, unless it is willing to use a nuclear weapon first, with all that entails.

The United States is skeptical about an Israeli attack. Some of its reasons are good. First, unless it uses nukes Israel probably doesn’t have enough military power to wipe out Iran’s nuclear program. Iran is too big, too rich, its nuclear sources too widely dispersed. Anything Israel destroys conventionally can be rebuilt in time. Attacking Iran will unify Iranians with their government, now widely considered illegitimate. From America’s perspective, Israel can irritate Iran and create an open war, but it can’t really solve the nuclear problem.

Second, the United States claims that a long-term regime of painful economic sanctions can cause Iran to knuckle under, as happened in Libya and is perhaps happening in North Korea. Even if the Iranians actually build a bomb, they can be induced to take it apart and ship the components abroad if there is starvation and revolution in the streets.

My assessment is that if the United States and Europe are serious, then Obama is right on this one. And here comes the first issue on which the differences between Israel and the Obama Administration involve not just competing policy assessments but lack of trust. As Dan Senor points out in an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Obama’s newfound determination to prevent Iran from achieving a bomb is—well, very new. Effective sanctions on Iran are the work of Congress, not Obama. Though he supposedly conceded the need for effective sanctions a year ago, he has been strangely dilatory in speaking uncompromisingly and passing sanctions with bite.

It’s not that he hasn’t done anything. The Europeans’ recent agreement to join in sanctions is partly due to of the IAEA report last November and partly due to Obama. But Obama acts like he has a guilty conscience about pressing the illegitimate, dictatorial, bloodthirsty and imperialist regime in Teheran. Iran is, after all, third world. Somewhere deep in Obama’s psyche there appears to be a reservation about the US “bullying” a country like Iran. It’s wrong thing for the United States to do. Iran ought to be treated nicely. At Aipac yesterday Obama talked about speaking softly and carrying a big stick, but he doesn’t have a very good record of using sticks.

From Israel’s perspective, the new sanctions regime and Obama’s commitment to it came about as a result of Israel’s uncompromising warnings that it will act if others don’t. Even so, sanctions have come too late. Iran will not back down before its nuclear project acquires effective immunity from attack in the Qom bunker. As said before, a persistent and determined sanctions policy might well force the Iranian regime, this one or another, to dismantle its nuclear project, even two or three years from now. But Israel fears that nobody else’s heart is really into the sanctions thing. When Israel no longer has the military option, everyone else—Obama included—will breathe a sigh of relief and go on to something else. And if Israel has to contend with a nuclear armed Iran, that’s just its tough luck. Tel Aviv isn’t New York or London, and the world now has ample experience shedding crocodile tears and building memorials to Jewish Holocausts. It’s their favorite PR activity.

In his AIPAC speech on Sunday Obama tried to reassure Israel that if the Iranians do push the button that launches the bomb-assembly process he will stop them with force. The United States has the ability to do this. It may even be able to break open the Qom bunker with sophisticated conventional weapons. “I have Israel’s back,” said Obama. If credible, this was an important new commitment. What Obama is saying to Israel is, effectively, “put your security in my hands.”

Frankly, I don’t believe him. I don’t believe he will use force to stop the Iranians from getting a bomb. It’s not an issue of American interests. I think that Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum or Joseph Lieberman would view the military destruction of an Iranian nuclear weapon as a critical American interest, and that they would do it. If they were to say to Israel, “Your ability to destroy the Iranian nuclear project on your own is marginal (this is true), persistent and intensifying sanctions can make them voluntarily give up the bomb project for good (probably true), and if all else fails and they actually go for a bomb we will blow the project to kingdom come,” well, as Israeli Prime Minister I wouldn’t like putting my security in another country’s hands but I would believe the promise because it reflected the speaker’s genuine convictions.

But I don’t believe Obama has Israel’s back. Or Saudi Arabia’s or Kuwait’s or Iraq’s. I think his deepest instincts tell him that starting a war is always bad, no matter who the enemy is or how much he threatens one’s own and one’s allies’ security. Especially if some of those allies are on the wrong side of “history” and expendable. If Israel has Obama at her back, she’d better keep an eye on her 6.