Netanyahu conjures up case for war against Iran

It was a toss-up earlier last week, during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, whether the need was to restrain Iran on its nuclear programme or to restrain Israel on its seeming commitment to start a war in the Middle East. And yes, you guessed it, the tail again wagged the dog. What Israel wants Israel gets — and Washington delivers. Time honoured tradition.

While the administration appeared content to wait for international sanctions to work, Netanyahu made the rounds, from a visit with the president in the White House to an appearance at the annual conference of the American Israel Political Action Committee (Aipac), portraying Iran's nuclear programme in apocalyptic terms. Iran is ‘Nazi Germany'. It is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs intended to be dropped on Israel. The Jewish people face another holocaust. The Jewish state is in danger of annihilation. Jews everywhere face an existential threat. A military strike against the Islamic republic is now the only option. And the rest of it.

Never mind that the US has to date gathered no hard evidence that Iran has made a decision to build nuclear weapons. And never mind that Americans are not in the least enthused about the idea of being dragged willy-nilly into yet another war in the region, for clearly dragged they will be, obligated to cover Israel's back, whatever mess Israel gets itself into. Make no mistake about it, Tel Aviv will expect, indeed demand, that Washington do just that — cover its back when it strikes Iran.

Higher-ups in the US military establishment know that all too well. To express their alarm, several of these influential figures, both active and retired Pentagon personnel, from generals to colonels, started a media campaign recently, including full page ads in the national press "Mr. President: Say No to War of Choice With Iran" urging Obama to "exhaust all diplomatic and peaceful options before you send [servicemen and women] into harm's way ... Military action at this stage is not only unnecessary, it is dangerous — for the United States and for Israel. We urge you to resist the pressure for a war of choice with Iran ..." And no less a figure than former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, cautioned in like manner: "We haven't had a contact with Iran since 1979 ... We are not talking to [it] so we don't understand each other. If something happens it's virtually assured that we won't get it right — that there will be miscalculations — which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world".

Without a crystal ball, it is difficult to predict with any degree of certainty if Israel will indeed again start a war in the region, dragging the US along with it. But one thing we know: Netanyahu has succeeded, by his projection of a coming apocalypse in Israel, in shifting the diplomatic discourse from Palestine to Iran, thus diverting attention from his government's continued colonisation in the Occupied Territories and deflecting Washington's focus on peace efforts with the Palestinians. By resorting to sabre-rattling against Iran, he's done a good job changing the world's priorities.

And during his stay in Washington he did just that, creating an atmosphere of menace, paranoia and pending doom, as he made sure that wherever he went, and whomever he addressed, his audience heard the sound of war drums.

Message loud and clear

The sound was evocative of the time, exactly nine years ago this month, when driven to a frenzy by neocon rhetoric about Saddam Hussain's "weapons of mass destruction, Washington resigned itself to the inevitability of war in Iraq. And like former president George W. Bush's refrain then that "war is my last choice", Obama's stated position that "all options are on the table" today, is not all that reassuring.

Meanwhile, at Aipac's conference on March 5, several American officials kow-towed to, even cheered on, Israel's inexorable move to strike. The fanatically pro-Israel hawk, Senator Joe Lieberman (no relation to Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's xenophobic foreign minister) hollered: "The Iranian regime must hear a message from us and we must state it loud and clear: Either you negotiate an end to your illicit nuclear activities or they will be ended for you by military attack". The audience of thousands, brought to their feet, responded with thunderous applause.

One thing is plain: by falling back on his flair for ruse on the Washington circuit, Netanyahu has all but wrapped America around his finger. And should America not do his bidding, he will unleash his supporters to go for its jugular. That's the nature of the beast. It's the tail, a puny entity in the Middle East, that wags the dog, the only superpower in the world. There has never been anything like it in history.

Fawaz Turki is a journalist, lecturer and author based in Washington. He is the author of The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile.