Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike
If the report attached below proves true, congratulations to President Obama for stopping Netanyahu in 2014.
The following column from 2009 never found a receptive media outlet, but it details the challenge facing the President in dealing with an Israeli government determined -- as we are seeing today -- to force the United States into war with Iran.
By Norman H. Olsen
Cherryfield, Maine: If Barack Obama is serious about Mideast peace and restoring America's global leadership, he should stop worrying for now about the 12 minutes that it would take an Iranian missile to strike Tel Aviv, and worry instead about the 15 minutes that it would take Israeli warplanes to reach U.S.-controlled Iraqi airspace.
His reaction then will determine whether he goes from best hope to globally reviled preemptive warrior.
Since 2002, when President Bush cut off contact with Yasir Arafat, Israel has been able to count on unquestioning American support, including America's Security Council veto.
From the administration's 2004 letter endorsing Israeli settlements (which overturned decades of U.S. policy), to the Hezbollah and Gaza wars, the Bush administration has been Israel's enabler.
As the New York Times reported, so confident were the Israelis of Bush's support that they asked him last year to allow overflights of Iraq for Israeli warplanes to attack Iran.
Israel does not have the resources to mount a crippling attack unless aircraft can overfly Jordan and Iraq. As important, overflight would signify US support for the attack.
Bush's rejection had to come as a surprise, but the Israelis remained sufficiently certain of his support that they made sure to launch the Gaza war, and bring it to self-proclaimed victory, before Bush left office.
Obama, for all his increasingly pro-Israel campaign rhetoric, is another matter. He's indicated that he recognizes the costs of Israel's continued occupation.
Ditto for his Secretary of State, who pledged in the frenzy of a presidential bid to nuke Iran if it attacked Israel. But memories of her visits to Suha Arafat and earlier intimations of support for Palestinian aspirations leave the whiff of doubt. Plus, her husband has all those high-paying overseas contributors.
And there's National Security Advisor James Jones, who, as Bush's envoy for Mideast security, told the Israelis that their actions harm US interests.
What to do? Obama is re-engaging the US in peace efforts. He's appointed an envoy with a record of impartiality, and intends for other envoys to talk to Iran and Syria, perhaps even have arms-length dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah.
After Bush's rejection of overflight permission, Israel can hardly count on Obama giving an attack the green light in advance, at least not before substantial evidence -- substantially more than Israel feels necessary -- indicates a more certain Iranian threat. Which means the Israelis won't ask.
US intelligence may, or may not, be able to discern the preparations for an Israeli strike. The US could find itself certain of an attack only when the first Israeli squadrons turn east, and, within a minute, cross into Jordan.
From that point, even if he's briefed within seconds, Obama will have perhaps 15 minutes to reach the Israeli Prime Minister and try to talk him or her down.
Obama will be on his own. His advisors will take longer than that to convene. And, chances are that, having launched a strike, Israel's leaders won't be taking any calls.
Obama will thus need to decide within minutes whether to order the shoot-down of Israeli planes when they enter US-controlled but sovereign Iraqi airspace, or whether to let them overfly Iraq, making the US party to the attack.
If Obama, in that crisis moment, chooses shoot-down, he can expect vicious domestic blowback, including from elements in Congress. Goodbye second term.
But if he lets the planes overfly, it's effectively goodbye first term, goodbye second term, and goodbye any chance for Middle East peace or restoration of America's global leadership. He'll be emasculated.
President Obama needs instead to decide now, not at the proverbial 3 a.m., what course he will take. He could go against all expectation, facilitate a pre-emptive attack, and squander his presidency.
But if he intends to restore US leadership and work toward Mideast peace then he, his Secretaries of State and Defense, his National Security Advisor, his CIA Director and his new Mideast envoy need to tell Israel now, with one voice, that the US will not support a preemptive attack on Iran, at least until all other avenues have been exploited. Only by doing so can he avoid crippling his presidency at the outset. ##
Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike
Kuwaiti paper claims unnamed Israeli minister with good ties with the US administration 'revealed the attack plan to John Kerry.
Barack Obama
Reuters
The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.
Following Obama's threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack.
According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel's back.
The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.
Al-Jarida quoted "well-placed" sources as saying that Netanyahu, along with Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, had decided to carry out airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program after consultations with top security commanders.
According to the report, “Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army's chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran's nuclear program.
In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel's security.”
The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets reportedly even carried out experimental flights in Iran's airspace after they managed to break through radars.
Brzezinski's idea
Former US diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for Obama in 2008, called on him to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast.
“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse.’"
Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967.
Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to President Obama, but he was downgraded after Republican and pro-Israel Democratic charges during the campaign that Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.
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