Too often, I believe, Americans think about Washington’s interventionism only as the actual physical intervention of U.S. military forces abroad in places where no U.S. interest is at risk. That activity certainly is intervention, but President Obama’s despicable decision last week to have his administration leak intelligence claiming that Israel has concluded an agreement with the government of Azerbaijan to allow its use of Azeri airfields for an air strike on Iran is just as much an unwarranted intervention by the United States government.
Readers of this blog will know that I carry no brief for Israel, that I believe it is a state that is irrelevant to U.S. national interests, and one whose U.S.-citizen supporters are disloyal to America and involved in activities that compromise U.S. security and corrupt the U.S. political system. That said, Israel — like the United States and all other nations — has an absolute right to defend itself when it deems it necessary to do so. The right of self-defense is the first and most important right of both individuals and nations. While Israel has no right to exist — and neither does America or any other nation, for that matter — it has an absolute right to defend its national interests according to its own best lights.
In the present case, Obama and his leaking-lieutenants have tried to deny Israel its right to self-defense. Washington under Obama may not agree that Israel’s national security and even its survival are threatened by Iran, and they may well be right. But the Obama administration’s leaking of the Azeri airfields data is an arrogant interventionist action that undermines Israel’s ability to defend itself as it sees fit. It as much of an unwarranted and unconscionable foreign intervention by Washington in another nation’s affairs as was the invasion of Iraq.
This is not, of course, to argue that an Israeli attack on Iran is justified or in the interests of the United States. It seems unlikely that an Israeli air strike can more than marginally retard Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon, and such an attack will surely cost Israel something given Iran’s air defense system and its worldwide terrorism capabilities. Justifying the war, then, comes down to balancing gains and losses and, on that score, it seems a close call for the Israelis. Such an attack would also further cement Israel’s unchallenged position as the Muslim world’s most hated enemy. But with all this said, only Israel can decide what its national interests require it to do to cope with or destroy the threat it believes Iran presents.
As far as U.S. interests are concerned an Israeli attack on Iran will be a disaster. Once underway, all the Muslim world will identify Obama’s Washington as an unqualified supporter of the attack based on the past history of complete and supine bipartisan U.S. support for Israel and the fact that the Israelis will be using U.S. aircraft, ordnance, and technology to kill Iranians. Once Israel’s attack commences, anything Washington has done to stop Israel from acting — be it behind-the-scenes pressure or the Azeri leak — will be irrelevant as Iran and the rest of the Islamic world will attribute ultimate responsibility for the attack to the United States. Iran will surely respond with violence against the oil industry and/or trade in its own region and via its operatives in the United States.
