'Ironclad' US-Israel relations not strong enough to join counterstike on Iran - opinion

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Author: MARK ELOVITZ
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

In responding to Iran's unprecedented layered onslaught using kamikaze drones, ballistic rockets, and cruise missiles calculated to overwhelm Israel, it should now be crystal clear to Israel and the US that the notion of a "proportional" response is simply an academic argument devoid of compelling relevance

Based upon Iran's mammoth aerial attack in response to Israel's comparatively trifling strike on an annex of Iran's Embassy in Damascus, proportionality is dead, at least to the powers-that-be in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Indeed, more than four decades have elapsed during which the West's diplomatic endeavors have miserably failed to curry Iran's compliance with international norms of behavior.

It should, therefore, be unmistakably evident to the world's characteristically myopic observers that proportionality and diplomacy with Iran are non-starters; in actuality, they are deafening duds.

However, if Israel were a member of NATO, then under the provisions of Article Five, the United States would have been required to actively join any counter strike against Iran. But Israel is merely America's non-NATO ally. That subordinate status subtly suggests that while America's "ironclad" relationship with Israel is historically strong, it is subject to corrosion in given conditions.

The US-Israel relationship is being tested

Most pointedly, the strength of that ironclad relationship is now being tested in America by a growing rabble of the Democratic party's extreme left wing. It was those pro-Palestinian protesters who actually cheered Iran's enormous assault. That elicited Republican Senator Marco Rubio's infuriated statement that the cheering pro-Palestinian protesters were "antisemitic, anti-Israel, and pro-terrorist. They are not peace activists… who do not cheer massive attacks on other countries."

As such, it is clear that America's reticence to join any Israeli counter strike against Iran was, and is, conditioned not only by whatever "ironclad" actually means, but also by the vagaries of America's extremist politics combined with the unenviable entanglements of the always Machiavellian Mideast.

It is in that broad context that Dana Stroul, the former top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, felt compelled to acknowledge that, "Given how significant this attack was, it is difficult to see how Israel cannot respond!"

SO WHY has the Biden administration expressly distanced itself from pro-actively joining Israel in any responsive military...