Israel Matzav

Maybe the White House doesn't want to be 'complicit' in an Israeli attack on Iran either?

You will recall that at the end of last week, Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference in London that he did not want to be 'complicit' in an Israeli attack on Iran, a remark for which the Wall Street Journal slammed President Obama on Friday night.

Here in Israel, the reaction has been to pretend that Dempsey's statement doesn't reflect the White House position.

A senior government official on Saturday characterized as “strange” a recent statement by US military chief Gen. Martin Dempsey that he would not want to be “complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran.

“Dempsey’s comments are strange in that they would seem to contradict the continual statements from the White House that the security and defense cooperation between Israel and the US has never been as close,” the senior official said.

...

“These comments are also a bit strange, because they were said in a week when the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] released a report that seemed to confirm all of Israel’s concerns, and during a week where the international effort to isolate Iran and subject it to international pressure took a severe blow with the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran,” the senior government official said.

Reading the whole thing might lead you to the conclusion that the 'senior government official' is Intelligence Minister, Dan Meridor, who is the most Leftist member of Israel's cabinet.

We need to stop fooling ourselves and take seriously the possibility - indeed the likelihood - that the Obama administration will do nothing about Iran, either before or after the elections, and that Dempsey's position is Obama's position. That should certainly be the case unless and until Obama explicitly disavows Dempsey's comments. So far, that has not happened.

White House spokesman Jay Carney – responding to comments made by US presidential candidate Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention in Florida on Thursday evening about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with Iran – said that under Obama, “cooperation with Israel between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer, assistance provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater.”

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dan Meridor, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Martin Dempsey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:32 AM