US-"Israeli" fault lines
Source: NYPost, 11-01-2008
'JERUSALEM' (AL-QUDS) - OBSCURED amid the backslaps and bilateral affinity on display during President Bush's three-day stay in Jerusalem are worrisome fault lines threatening the traditionally rock-solid US-"Israel" alliance.
More worrisome still is the likelihood that Bush and his fawning "Israeli" host either don't know or choose to ignore that these fault lines exist. In their statements and playful familiarity, Bush and "Israeli" Prime Minister Ehud Olmert glossed over gaping gaps in their positions on Palestinian statehood, "Israeli" settlements and the status of Jerusalem.
Both are seemingly sustained by the power of wishful thinking. How else to explain Bush's delusional confidence that he can seal an "Israeli"-Palestinian peace deal by the end of his term? Or Olmert's professed capacity for keeping his mutinous coalition government intact until then - when a damning indictment of his 2006 Lebanon War performance is due out at the end of this month?
Bilateral gaps can rapidly deteriorate into unbridgeable chasms. On Iran, for example, the recent US National Intelligence Estimate abruptly redefined the longstanding benchmarks by which both governments and most Western states had measured the evolving nuclear threat. This "December surprise" torpedoed Jerusalem's 15-year campaign to deny Iran its bomb.
This week's Bush-Olmert summit did nothing to help "Israel" recover from that setback to its No. 1 security program. Olmert failed to get Bush to repeat threats of a military option against Tehran if diplomacy fails. He also came up short on securing renewed US pledges to defend "Israel" against any current or future threat from Iran.
Bush's lukewarm warnings to the international community "to come together and prevent that nation from the development of the know-how to build a nuclear weapon" leave "Israel" increasingly anxious and isolated.
Add in "Israel's" need to re-establish deterrence after the trouncing it took from Hizbullah and the indignities it still suffers from thousands of Hamas-launched rockets from Gaza, and the result spells unilateral strike.
But with all the US aircraft, radar signals and other assets in the skies along "Israeli" routes to Iran, such a strike could prove disastrous without meaningful operational coordination between the two sides - and not enough of that is ongoing. And an Iranian response could affect not only "Israel" but also the hundreds of thousands of US servicemen and -women and other US interests across the region.
From Washington's pressure to allow Hamas to participate in last year's Palestinian elections (which led to Hamas' takeover in Gaza) to its perceived about-face on Iran, more "Israelis" realize they can no longer afford to pay the price for US missteps.
In short, Bush's first presidential trip to the Holy Land will be remembered not for a Palestinian peace deal, but for launching "Israel" into a new realm of diplomatic and military self-reliance.
'JERUSALEM' (AL-QUDS) - OBSCURED amid the backslaps and bilateral affinity on display during President Bush's three-day stay in Jerusalem are worrisome fault lines threatening the traditionally rock-solid US-"Israel" alliance.
More worrisome still is the likelihood that Bush and his fawning "Israeli" host either don't know or choose to ignore that these fault lines exist. In their statements and playful familiarity, Bush and "Israeli" Prime Minister Ehud Olmert glossed over gaping gaps in their positions on Palestinian statehood, "Israeli" settlements and the status of Jerusalem.
Both are seemingly sustained by the power of wishful thinking. How else to explain Bush's delusional confidence that he can seal an "Israeli"-Palestinian peace deal by the end of his term? Or Olmert's professed capacity for keeping his mutinous coalition government intact until then - when a damning indictment of his 2006 Lebanon War performance is due out at the end of this month?
Bilateral gaps can rapidly deteriorate into unbridgeable chasms. On Iran, for example, the recent US National Intelligence Estimate abruptly redefined the longstanding benchmarks by which both governments and most Western states had measured the evolving nuclear threat. This "December surprise" torpedoed Jerusalem's 15-year campaign to deny Iran its bomb.
This week's Bush-Olmert summit did nothing to help "Israel" recover from that setback to its No. 1 security program. Olmert failed to get Bush to repeat threats of a military option against Tehran if diplomacy fails. He also came up short on securing renewed US pledges to defend "Israel" against any current or future threat from Iran.
Bush's lukewarm warnings to the international community "to come together and prevent that nation from the development of the know-how to build a nuclear weapon" leave "Israel" increasingly anxious and isolated.
Add in "Israel's" need to re-establish deterrence after the trouncing it took from Hizbullah and the indignities it still suffers from thousands of Hamas-launched rockets from Gaza, and the result spells unilateral strike.
But with all the US aircraft, radar signals and other assets in the skies along "Israeli" routes to Iran, such a strike could prove disastrous without meaningful operational coordination between the two sides - and not enough of that is ongoing. And an Iranian response could affect not only "Israel" but also the hundreds of thousands of US servicemen and -women and other US interests across the region.
From Washington's pressure to allow Hamas to participate in last year's Palestinian elections (which led to Hamas' takeover in Gaza) to its perceived about-face on Iran, more "Israelis" realize they can no longer afford to pay the price for US missteps.
In short, Bush's first presidential trip to the Holy Land will be remembered not for a Palestinian peace deal, but for launching "Israel" into a new realm of diplomatic and military self-reliance.
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