One thing that has become apparent to me over the past year is that Israel developed its nuclear arsenal without the strategic maturity to appreciate what that might mean for its security over the long term, except for suddenly having the ability to inflict total destruction on an adversary. While America's ubiquitous nuclear umbrella and the technological difficulty of acquiring a deterrent has helped prevent the cascade style proliferation that some once thought possible, Israel should have known from the moment it began its nuclear development that, simply as a result of its environment, its nuclear monopoly was tenuous, and every one of its potentially antagonistic neighbors could recognize the value of following Israel along the nuclear path and succeed in that endeavor. Furthermore, if Israel is going to continue with the charade of an undeclared nuclear program, it will by definition preclude the type of arrangements that helped America and the Soviet Union maintain geopolitical stability during the Cold War, which I believe is actually the greatest danger of a hypothetical Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran, however, is only a symptom of Israel's strategic conundrum; once you acquire a credible nuclear arsenal, its logic is inescapable, and if Israel cannot accept that it might have to one day engage in M.A.D. and nominally relinquish control over its fate, it should have never opened the pandora's box to begin with. Israel's problem is ultimately psychological, a result of the historical legacy embedded in its identity, and not genuinely rational. I would go even farther and observe that, if Ronan Bergman's February account was accurate and not effrontery, I came away convinced the Israeli leadership has a pathological need to be in control of a country on the verge of extermination.
Israel is a sovereign state, and as such has the right to act in its perceived national interest. That description is a form of obfuscation, however, because Israel is also a security dependent of America, and its behavior has a disproportionate impact on our credibility and diplomatic agility. Its only tangible value to America is whether or not it can contribute to the realization of our foreign policy; it is incumbent on Israel to harmonize its policy to accommodate that agenda. If Israel is unwilling or incapable of fulfilling that, the relationship is nothing more than a heart warming burden for a superpower to adopt at its peril. More broadly, the Libyan intervention elicited a substantial amount of discussion, most of it trite and predictable, about the nature of American leadership, accusing Obama of a reluctance to fulfill our pre-ordained role at the center of every international development, unfurling the flag for some principle or another. In actuality, the only abrogation of American leadership occurs when we subordinate our interests to those of another government, which happened with increasing frequency under Obama's predecessor, as in Georgia. No matter how essential the relationship may be portrayed by some, all of the impassioned sophistry at their command cannot obviate the reality that America and Israel have progressively divergent national interests, and while Israel may be able to rationalize a strike on Iran, it has the potential to be quite harmful to us irrespective of the outcome. If Israel cannot respect a core interest of its patron, it should be held accountable. Unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.
As usual good post, Sean. However, don't you think the latter half of your second paragraph explains the reasoning behind what you deem the myopic strategy in the first. As we know the Israel nuclear program was started during the Cold War. How was Israel to know that any given US administration was to intervene on Israel's behalf in the event of a full scale invasion by combined Arab forces? The thinking that maybe Israel would be abandoned by the US rather than risk a larger war with the Soviet bloc.
Secondly, while it would be more drawn out Israel could be destroyed conventionally-were the US to turn the blind eye. The US has been selling top of the line equipment to Arab states for several decades now. While Israel also has their own (small scale) advanced defense industry, they really don't have much of a technological edge anymore. Really they probably only have the edge in training, tactics and leadership. Their one technological edge and trump card is The Bomb. The strategy from the beginning of the founding of the state has been similar to M.A.D.. That if attacked and pushed to the brink- they will at least bring people down with them this time. This indeed is psychologically ingrained and a direct by-product of a post holocaust state.
