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How Would an Israeli Attack on Iran Affect the Debate Over U.S.-Israel Ties?

Robert Merry considers the effect of an Israeli strike on Iran that the U.S. did not support on the U.S.-Israel relationship: But suppose the already war-weary American people were to find their country in a beleaguered situation—beset by economic woes wrought by a global recession; pulled into further Mideast hostilities that generated growing numbers of […]

Robert Merry considers the effect of an Israeli strike on Iran that the U.S. did not support on the U.S.-Israel relationship:

But suppose the already war-weary American people were to find their country in a beleaguered situation—beset by economic woes wrought by a global recession; pulled into further Mideast hostilities that generated growing numbers of U.S. casualties without an end in sight; grappling with an enflamed Middle East that threatened to fray the global order at various points around the edges of its stability. And suppose all this could be attributed to an Israeli military action undertaken over the objections of the American president.

The result would be an entirely new political environment in America for the U.S.-Israeli relationship. When a Mearsheimer or a Friedman spoke up about the divergence of interests between the two countries, the Abramses and Rothmans and Tobins would not be responding with quite the same outrage and aggressiveness [bold mine-DL]. Members of Congress would not be bestowing twenty-nine standing ovations upon Israeli leaders who had just insulted the American president; and, if they did, few indeed would buy the argument that those ovations reflected political sentiment across the country. For a majority of Americans, the idea of an ironclad convergence of national interests between Israel and the United States, in all times and all circumstances, would be seen as not only wrong but dangerously so.

This might be the result, but I have my doubts. As Noah and I were discussing before, Americans in favor of U.S. support for Israel in an Iranian war would blame Iran for the war and its consequences, and most of those favoring neutrality in an Israeli-Iranian war would presumably hold Israel responsible for the war. “Pro-Israel” hard-liners would certainly not become any less vocal or aggressive. Depending on the extent of the public backlash, they might become more so. If U.S. forces came under attack during Iranian retaliatory strikes, these hard-liners would treat criticism of Israel as sympathy for the enemy, they would blame the administration for its many “failures” that had made an Israeli strike unavoidable, and they would insist that Israel’s war with Iran is now our war and supporting Israel has never been more important.

What we might see instead is an increasing partisan split over the nature of the relationship with Israel. Assuming that this happened while Obama was in office, we would have the spectacle of the more nationalist party insisting on not having “one inch of space” between the U.S. and Israel no matter what, and members of the presidential party would become more critical of the relationship. In short, we would see the partisan divide over Israel that has been slowly opening up over the last few years widen, and the trends in both parties would accelerate as Republicans hardened in their reflexive backing of Israel and many Democrats (and many independents) moved in the opposite direction. Bipartisan consensus on Israel would definitely weaken. Because that consensus is not actually the product of public opinion in the first place, it is not going to succumb very quickly to shifts in public opinion. That said, an Israeli strike that the U.S. hadn’t endorsed would badly sour the relationship for many years, which would make such a strike extremely politically risky for any Israeli government that ordered it. That is one of the many reasons why I still think that Israel is not going to attack Iran.

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