Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The disputed Russian election has had a surprising side-effect: it has highlighted exactly how great the rift between the Obama administration and Israel has become.  While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been criticizing Moscow for its fraudulent conduct of the elections, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has described the election result as accurate and fair.  The reason for this divergence can be explained in one word: Iran.

Clinton voiced her objections to the conduct of the Russian elections at a conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vilnius on 6 December.  She said:  “We have serious concerns about the conduct of the elections.  [T]he preliminary report by the OSCE cites election day attempts to stuff ballot boxes, manipulate voter lists and other troubling practices.”  By contrast, during a visit to Moscow last week, Israel’s foreign minister said that the elections were legitimate.  Lieberman backed this up on his return to Jerusalem, saying on 12 December: “The results reflect the mood of the country.”

Difficulties between the Obama administration and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been apparent for some time, but they have clearly been escalating in recent weeks.  According to Israeli sources, the annual gathering of senior US and Israeli officials at the Saban Forum in Washington, which opened on 2 December this year, provided ample evidence of this split.  That Obama dislikes Netanyahu can be taken for granted, but that is a red herring.  The real problem is fundamental disagreement on three vital issues. 

The first is the Arab Spring.  The Obama administration believes it must support the democratic process in the Middle East even if the consequence is the election of a series of Muslim Brotherhood-dominated governments hostile to Israel. 

The second is the Palestinians.  The US believes that now is the time for the Israelis to make a decisive move towards a compromise peace with the Palestinians.  Israel says that is impossible in the current climate of regional instability, which includes the prospect of an increased terror threat from the Sinai Peninsula and of a serious deterioration in relations with Egypt.

The third problem is Iran, and this is where the Russian elections come in.  Israel takes the view that Russia still provides the best hope for preventing Iran acquiring nuclear weapons by means short of war, and that although this is not a high priority for Russia (which has nothing to fear from Iranian nuclear weapons) Israel believes that Russia could be persuaded to exercise its influence in a decisive manner.   The US, however, seems unconcerned about a split with Russia and sees no need to seek its good offices over Iran.

All this, according to our sources in Jerusalem, has led Israel to conclude that the Obama administration is reconciled to the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran.  It is noted that even Saudi Arabia, which in the past has been quoted as urging the US to attack Iran, is now persuaded that an attack would be disastrous.  On 12 December, for instance, Saudi Arabia’s influential Prince Turki al-Faysal told a gathering of academics at the Alfaisal University in Riyadh that the impact of an attack on Iran would be “calamitous...cataclysmic, not just catastrophic”.

The American and Saudi positions are logical for them.  Iran will not make a pre-emptive nuclear strike against any power that can retaliate in kind, or its allies.  But the problem for Israel, as we have emphasized many times, is a different one.  Israel does not seriously expect an Iranian nuclear first strike, what it really fears is that a nuclear-armed Iran would prevent Israel itself from launching its own nuclear first-strike against an overwhelming conventional assault.  This is the unmentionable strategic calculation that will drive Israel to all conceivable ends to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and it is what is behind the deepening rift with the United States.