Talks of Peace, Threats of War

Eric S. Margolis

President Barack Obama's long-awaited Mideast peace offensive has begun with much fanfare and high hopes.

Many of the Obama administration's biggest guns have been sent to the Mideast in an all-out effort to get America's squabbling allies to accept a comprehensive regional peace deal. The only notable absence from the American diplomatic A-team was, interestingly, Hillary Clinton.

The White House's big push in the Mideast is being driven in good part by the growing danger of an Israeli attack on Iran and/or Lebanon.

Israel's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, openly warned Iran of possible military action if Teheran does not cease its nuclear programme - which UN inspectors still say is non-military. Some American experts even worry Israel might use tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities, a cataclysm that would pollute the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has emerged as the Obama administration's foreign policy strongman, eclipsing Hillary Clinton.

His preeminence confirms that the Pentagon, not State Department, continues to spearhead foreign policy, as was the case during the Bush years.

Gates stood next to Barak as the Israeli minister threatened Iran, clearly backing Israel's threats. Gates warned Iran it had until September to begin talks on dismantling its nuclear energy program - or else.

What happened to Barack Obama, the 'peace president?'

Interestingly, the US has lived for over half a century under the threat of Soviet/Russian nuclear attack. But Israel, it seems, cannot live under the possible future threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, if ever developed. In any event, the intensifying power struggle in Iran's feuding leadership will make any nuclear talks with the Western powers extremely difficult and uncertain.

In an unprecedented act by an Israeli leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly defied President Obama's request that Israel cease building or expanding settlements on the West Bank and Golan.

Netanyahu's defiance was a clear sign of the strength of America's Israel lobby and its domination of the US Congress. Israel had become used to getting its way with the accommodating Clinton and Bush administrations. Relations with the Obama White House are edgy.

Netanyahu reportedly called Obama's two most important advisors, Rahm Emanuel (whose father was Israeli) and David Axelrod, 'self-hating Jews' for pressing Israel to end colonisation and accepting a Palestinian state. Netanyahu later denied the comment, but the damage was done.

A key partner in Netanyahu's Likud-led coalition, Rabbi Ovadia Josef, spiritual leader of the religious Shas Party, called Obama, 'a slave who wants to rule the world' for urging Israel to halt settlement activity.

The pro-Likud 'Washington Post' newspaper also blasted Obama over the same issue.

Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, America's powerful Israel lobby, which is an arm of Netanyahu's Likud Party, reminded Obama not to press Israel into a peace agreement. While running for president, Obama promised AIPAC he would never force Israel into an agreement it did not favour.

He also vowed never to compel Israel to share Jerusalem with a new Palestinian state, a pre-requisite to any lasting settlement. So candidate Obama effectively handcuffed President Obama.

In a stinging contradiction to Gates' threats, the Pentagon's chief, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, warned any war with Iran would be extremely dangerous. He expressed the widely held fear among the US military that an Israeli attack on Iran would drag the US into a war it does not want, and is not ready to fight.

US forces that now ring Iran - in Iraq, the Gulf, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia - are also vulnerable to Iranian attack in wartime. In effect, they are hostages.

Mullen's very public warning was another important sign of the deep divisions within the Obama administration over Iran and the Mideast. Long-simmering opposition to Israel's expansionist policies among American Jews has recently erupted into the open, spearheaded by the new 'J Street Group,' which opposes the pro-Likud AIPAC and supports Israel's peace movement, and creation of a Palestinian state. Not surprisingly, 'J Street' is being denounced as traitors and 'self-hating Jews' by the rightwing 
Israel lobby.

But this split in American Jewish ranks is very significant.

There will be no genuine peace agreement or creation of a Palestinian state until the influential American Jewish community supports the peace plan.

Eric S Margolis is a veteran US journalist who has reported from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan for 
several years