Israel mobilized its considerable resources in an effort to block the nuclear deal with Iran in congress. Think tanks, lobbies, and the Religious Right denounced the agreement, repeatedly and vociferously, on television and talk shows and most importantly in the senate. Saudi Arabia made the same effort. Nonetheless, the Obama administration thwarted them and the deal will survive, if barely. Sanctions are likely to fall away.
To the dismay of the deal’s opponents, many Americans who support Israel also support their Democratic president. Furthermore, they are beginning to see Netanyahu’s arguments as based on partisan viewpoints, not on sound analyses. This realization has been encouraged by a number of security experts in both Israel and the US who endorsed the deal, including former generals and intelligence chiefs.
Netanyahu’s Iran policy is taking on an Ahab-like quality. Will he continue his quest for the leviathan of the Persian Gulf? Or will Israel recognize the changed international situation, accept the nuclear deal, and adapt its foreign policy?
Covert action
Israel may opt for a policy of increasing hostility to Iran in the hope of provoking Iran to act rashly and strike Israeli or American targets in and out of the Middle East, forcing reconsideration in Washington and elsewhere. Israel could revert to its assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists and continue targeting IRGC bases, more than a few of which have suffered unexplained explosions in recent years. The IRGC base at Parchin is the most recent.
Israel could also urge the Kurds in Iran’s northwest to step up their insurgency against Tehran. Indeed, this may already have happened as Free Life Party attacks on IRGC troops increased in recent weeks. A Baloch insurgency in Iran’s southeast could also be urged on.
Paradoxically, the Iranian right also opposes the nuclear deal and any rapprochement with the US that may come in its train. It may launch attacks of its own through Hamas in Gaza or Hisbollah in Lebanon.
Problems with continued antagonism with Iran
Reverting to killing Iranian scientists will almost certainly lead to retaliation in kind. Iran’s capacity to conduct assassinations inside Israel is negligible, thus making retaliation elsewhere more likely. Europe would be a likely place. The EU is already critical of Israel for its intransigence on the Palestinian question, the blockade of Gaza, and disproportionate reprisals on Hamas and Lebanon. Sanctions may already loom on the horizon. The EU will not find Iran blameless, but considerable blame will fall on Israel. A judicious Israeli government will not want to risk further diplomatic trouble and trade isolation.
Encouraging Iranian Kurds to rise up against Tehran is not likely to lead to a serious insurgency. The Kurds know well that the IRGC’s capacity to strike back harshly is formidable, and Israel cannot provide significant aid beyond weaponry and intelligence.
Nor will Iraqi Kurds be overly supportive of their relations across the border. Kurdistan enjoys good relations with Iran which date back to cooperation against Saddam Hussein during and after the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. More recently, Iran has offered to allow Kurdistan to use its export channels for Kurdish oil. A landlocked country must have alternate export routes or face inevitable trouble with the sole route.
Unseen dangers of continued hostility
Israel’s confrontation with Iran throughout the region has aligned it with unsavory if not reprehensible allies. Yes, the “enemy of my enemy argument” holds, but surely it can be blinding.
In countering Hisbollah in Syria, for example, Israel is supporting the al Nusrah Front – an al Qaeda affiliate – with airstrikes and medical help. (See “Al Qaeda a Lesser Evil?” in The Wall Street Journal, 12 March 2015.) This parcel of realpolitik may cause many people sympathetic to Israel to wonder if the country’s claim to righteousness can be made much longer.
Israel has a less disreputable alignment with Saudi Arabia, though probably not a terribly enduring one. The Kingdom finances Baloch insurgents in southeastern Iran and has offered, privately of course, to grant Israeli warplanes use of Saudi airspace on missions against Iran.
Netanyahu may be blind to the growing danger of Saudi influence around his country. Riyadh has already placed Egypt under its influence and seeks to coalesce Sunni regions in eastern Syria and western Iraq. Surely, this may one day constitute a more serious and closer threat to Israel than Iran does now. Indeed, this Sunni bloc once brought about an enduring partnership with a fellow enemy of Sunni Arab states – Iran. (See Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance, Yale, 2008.)
Continued lectures to, and denunciations of, the Obama administration will only deepen the rift between Israel and the US, as former Mossad chief Meir Dagan has recently noted. It will also make more Americans question the usefulness of Likud foreign policy in protecting Israel.
A new course
Continued covert actions against Iran have an Ahab-like quality inconsistent with realist foreign policy – and sound judgment too. More practical strategic thinkers in Israel will look around and see that the nuclear deal is an accomplished fact. Instead of claiming that it constitutes a new betrayal of the Jewish people and carrying on the hunt from sea to sea, they may recognize that it presents new opportunities.
Israel would do well to drop its goal of gravely weakening Iran and perhaps bringing about its breakup. A more thoughtful policy will follow the US’s lead in rapprochement with Iran and positioning Israel between Saudi Arabia and Iran, balancing them off against one another. This will parallel the emerging policy of the Obama administration and, curiously, that of both Russia and China which remain cordial with twin Gulf powers. A better policy to ease Iranian-Saudi tensions is difficult to imagine.
Even a partial rapprochement between Israel and Iran would also position the former to balance between the Shias and Sunnis in both Lebanon and Syria. This may not be successful in reining in sectarian hatreds, which may well be the highest in centuries, but it would position Israel to prevent the reemergence of a strong state to its east. Syria as it was drawn up a hundred years ago is gone. Israel will want to prevent the Shia rump-state along the Mediterranean from becoming powerful again. Surely, that is a more practical and achievable policy than relentless hostility to a distant leviathan.
© 2015 Brian M Downing