As 10,000 Israeli
basketball fans traveled to Italy on Sunday to root for Maccabi Tel Aviv
in the Euroleague championship game against Real Madrid, an estimated
1,000 American troops arrived in Israel for a very different sort of
gathering.
Due to the jubilation
surrounding Maccabi's stunning overtime victory, with crowds cheering
the players and fireworks and celebrations bursting out all over the
country, even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took time out to take
pride in his country's national team.
For this reason, little
attention has been given to the presence of the U.S. soldiers, who have
come to participate in "Juniper Cobra," a five-day exercise with the
IDF.
The joint training
exercise is aimed at testing Israel's missile interceptors -- the Iron
Dome, David's Sling and the Arrow -- all of which were developed with
the financial assistance of the United States. So far, these
interceptors have been put to the test, mostly successfully, against
rockets fired from Gaza.
But it is clearly the
more existential threat -- directly from Iran, not via its Arab proxies
-- that necessitates such an extensive exercise on the part of the
"Great Satan" and the "Small Satan," both explicit targets of global
jihad.
And though both the
American and the Israeli defense establishments have asserted that this
week's battle-dress rehearsal does not indicate a heightened alert in
relation to the Islamic Republic -- pointing to the fact that these
drills have been undertaken every two years since 2001 -- the truth is
that talks with Tehran have been going nowhere.
Other than Vienna, that
is, where American, Russian, Chinese, British, French and German
negotiators continue to engage in a charade with their Iranian
counterparts that is enabling the ayatollah-led regime to forge ahead
fast with its nuclear program.
On a short visit to
Israel last week, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with Defense
Minister Moshe Ya'alon to prepare for what the former called the largest
drill for U.S. troops under the European Command. During his two-day
stay, Hagel reiterated "America's commitment to a strong and secure
Israel … [that] has not and never will be anything but complete and
unwavering."
Accompanied, as they
have been, by the Obama administration's appalling attitude towards
Israel, these words are not reassuring. Indeed, no matter what
concessions Netanyahu makes to Washington and Ramallah, he is still
blamed for the Palestinian Authority's intransigence. Regardless of the
PA's ongoing incitement to violence against Jews and recent
rapprochement with Hamas, it is Israel that is called to task by its
so-called closest ally -- in language used by its worst enemies.
Coupled with the
delusional belief of the White House and State Department that a deal
with Iran need not limit its "right to enrich uranium for peaceful
purposes," Hagel's statement is no more than meaningless lip service.
Furthermore, if
Sunday's unconfirmed report in the Jerusalem-based military intelligence
website DEBKAfile is even remotely accurate, "America's commitment to a
strong and secure Israel" is not worth the hot air it takes for Hagel
to utter it.
According to the
report, which was picked up by the Iranian-run Fars News Agency, the
U.S. told Iran that demands for the restriction of its arsenal would not
apply to the Shahab-3 ballistic missile. The report also claims that
Netanyahu and Ya'alon were not happy when informed of this by Hagel and
National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
No wonder.
Shahab missiles have an
estimated range of 900-1,200 miles, striking distance from Israel,
northern India and parts of Eastern Europe. It is thus that Iran wants
its ballistic missile stock and development completely off the table.
After all, there is no point in having warheads, nuclear or otherwise,
without the weapons of delivery to attach them to.
"Our defense equipment
can no way go under discussion in the negotiations," said Iranian
negotiator Abbas Araqchi on Friday, following another round of fruitless
talks in Vienna.
Earlier in the week,
while touring a Revolutionary Guards' aeronautics exhibit, Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was even blunter.
"They [the Western
countries] expect us to limit our missile program while they constantly
threaten Iran with military action," he said. "So this is a stupid,
idiotic expectation. … The Revolutionary Guards should … mass produce.
This is a main duty of all military officials."
Even without the
DEBKAfile story, there is reason to suspect that the Obama
administration is going to cave on this issue, even sooner and more
readily than on the others. Undersecretary of State and chief Iran
negotiator Wendy Sherman indicated as much in February, when challenged
by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"If we are successful
in assuring ourselves and the world community that Iran cannot obtain a
nuclear weapon, then them not having a nuclear weapon makes delivery
systems almost, not entirely, but almost irrelevant," she said.
It is nice to see
Netanyahu and the rest of the public so uplifted by Maccabi's beating
such a formidable opponent as Spain. But we must not drop the ball when
it comes to confronting Iran. The Obama administration is neither on our
team nor a real fan.
Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
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