The West Screws Up -- Will Israel Pay?

(See my daily media Gleanings at the Augean Stables!!!)

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The cluelessness with which the US, dragged by the Europeans (striving to absolve themselves from the pathetic courting of the Libyan nutter, to the point of releasing a mass terrorist; and for domestic reasons), intervened in Libya was out in the open for all to see: Michael Walzer (The Case Against Our Attack on Libya), Ross Douthat (A Very Liberal Intervention), Massimo Calabresi (Why the U.S. Went to War: Inside the White House Debate on Libya), Patrick Cockburn (Gaddafi cannot hold out. But who will replace him?). 

One is compelled to agree with Caroline Glick (America's descent into strategic dementia):

The US's new war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is the latest sign of its steady regional decline. In media interviews over the weekend, US military chief Adm. Michael Mullen was hard-pressed to explain either the goal of the military strikes in Libya or their strategic rationale. Mullen's difficulty explaining the purpose of this new war was indicative of the increasing irrationality of US foreign policy.

For quite a while the US decline has resembled that of Rome quite well, but the latest US actions make the two falls practically identical: incompetence, bankruptcy, overstretching abroad, corruption at home, complete with the President declaring a third war and leaving for golf and the Brazilian carnival.

The most worrisome potential implications of this suicidal US behavior is its potential impact on US's abandoned allies and Israel in particular. Quite perceptively Frank Gaffney (The Gaddafi Precedent) hypothesizes one possible effect:

What I find particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Qaddafi Precedent will be used in the not-to-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel. Here’s how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate…

MediaMatters (Gaffney's Latest Nonsensical Theory: Obama May Use Libya Precedent To Order ) has dismissed it as absurd: 

What do you get when you combine the wits of ridiculous conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney and ridiculous conspiracy theorist Andrew Breitbart? You get a wild, obviously baseless theory that, using the precedent of the United Nations Security Council resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, President Obama may one day order a military strike on Israel.

Now, I grant you that using pure logic, the notion may seem absurd. But is the world operating logically insofar as Israel is concerned? Does it require a conspiracy theory in an upside down world, where Israel is demonized as practicing racism, Nazism and genocide, where anti-semite, murderous, mysogynist, terrorist, jihadist regimes are appeased, their real genocidal behavior ignored or whitewashed, elected to human rights international bodies,and  where the media, academia and the UN are outright fabricating Israeli "crimes"? How farfetched is Gaffney's concern in such circumstances?

The one clear aspect of the series of wars Israel was forced to fight to defend itself was the campaign by the so-called "international community", including the US, to increasingly limit Israel's ability to defend itself. The full disabling of Israel in a future war--certain to be provoked by the two Iranian proxies, but likely to be blamed on Israel--via a no-fly zone is nothing but a logical conclusion to Western muslim-appeasing, anti-Israel policies. And following a recognized declaration of a Palestinian state, such an act may even be deemed obligatory.

MediaMatters brings the US veto on the settlements as evidence that the US defends Israel and will not resort to such hostile action against it. But given how that veto came about,  the US declarations that followed, Obama's ideological perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict and his treatment of Israel to-date, who in his right mind can count on US support to continue?

Consider now Obama's Libyan intervention: by all accounts he was dragged into it by the Europeans, a consequence of the US losing its leadership position due to both Obama's intention to bring that about, as well as the unavoidable consequence of the US self-destructive domestic and foreign behavior. Europeans are much more hostile to Israel than the US, having to do with anti-semitism, relief of historical guilt and the opportunity to put that "shitty little jewish state" in its place, as well as muslim appeasement. If they find themselves in a position where they can drag the US (and an Obama already predisposed against Israel) to do their bidding, it is not difficult to imagine Gaffney's concerns materializing.

Edward Luttwak (Libya: It's not our fight) suggests a trigger to bring that about: the Libyan 100 million boondogle that lacks a clear objective and exit strategy may not end well for the US and its allies:

Regardless of its good intentions, the U.S. intervention in Libya will be depicted once again as aggressive, predatory and anti-Muslim.

You think? Judging from the reactions by the Arab League, Iran and others, this has already begun. Should their expectation that muslims will be grateful for the intervention prove the illusion that it is, Obama and the Europeans will feel compelled to prove that they do not intervene only against muslims. And, based on experience to-date, what are they most likely to consider the easiest, indeed, the standard appeasement method?


And if you still think Gaffney's concern absurd: he probably did not realize when he  expressed it how quickly a government hostile to Israel, a NATO member not less, has recognized how the Libyan precedent can be used against Israel. Michael Rubin (Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Calls for Airstrikes on Israel) reports:

After assuring both Libyans and Turks that Turkey was not involved in airstrikes on Libya, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, of Turkey, said, “We wish that the United Nations had made such resolutions and countries had taken action in the face of incidents in Gaza, Palestine and the other regions.” While Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, tries to assure Jewish groups that his government really isn’t anti-Semitic and anti-Israel, someone might want to ask him why his boss is calling for airstrikes on the Jewish state?

And perhaps Senators Levin and McCain on the Senate Armed Service Committee might finally want to ask some tough questions about why the United States plans to give Turkey the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter replete with its stealth technology?

I am willing to bet Turkey will get the planes.

Hamas has recently violated the cease-fire with an aggressive bombing campaign. They have something which the West and Israel totally lack: cunning. Like Turkey, they understand the West and play it like a violin. I would not deem it impossible that in provoking Israel they had something like Gaffney's hypothesis in mind. And now they have a NATO partner to rely on.

It may not happen tomorrow, but dismissing it out of hand would be the absurd thing to do.


UPDATE:  Herb Keinon (Analysis: Will Israel pick up tab for assault on Libya?)
also thinks that, if not a no-fly zone, Israel will still pay a price for the Western Libyan adventure:

But one can easily imagine the French and the British proposing hard lobbying inside the EU for a unilateral declaration after pulverizing Libya. This would be a relatively cost-free way of showing the Arab world and the Muslim public – both domestic and global – that those bombs were not a Western crusade against Islam. It’s a move that would earn wide applause among many Muslims worldwide ... With key EU countries flying sorties over Libya, it is not unimaginable that they will try to soften the impact, for example, by lobbying inside the EU for a tougher stand against Israel in the next Quartet statement expected in a couple of week’s time.
Calm will, of course, eventually follow the current Libyan storm. But during that calm, expect some of the countries in the newest “coalition of the willing” to ask Israel – without explicitly saying so – to pick up part of the tab for cleaning up the mess.

UPDATE: The PA is no less shrewd than Hamas. It has just requested international protection from settler violence. Those who refuse to or don't see where this is going have only themselves to blame.


UPDATE: Yehezkel Dror (Western action against Gadhafi has self-serving interests) in Haaretz:

Europe has self-serving interests to stabilize Libya, specifically to prevent undesired refugees from flooding their borders. Libya's vast oil reserves also play a role. Lastly, military intervention is "cheap," in terms of risk to Western soldiers, who are able to fight from the air.  The weight of realpolitik interests in deciding on intervention in Libya will not escape the eyes of Arab-Islamic observers. Even the participation of Arab forces won't quell the idea in large parts of the Arab-Islamic world that this is mainly neo-colonialist aggression.

Can anybody guess the West's knee-jerk reaction to counter such accusations, which already started flying? What does the West do to appease arabs/muslims?


Incidentally, Dror brings up another consequence of the Western intervention in Libya (one that Martin Kramer also did in response to a question on his Facebook page):

Even graver is the expected lesson Arab rulers will take from the Libya episode, that they need weapons to deter Western action. Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi surely regrets having abandoned his nuclear weapons program. If he had weapons of mass destruction, or at least the perception that he had them, the West would have backed off, no matter how despotic his regime, so long as he did not pose a serious threat to them.
Others will not repeat his mistake. The action against Gadhafi will harden the will of Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Other rulers too will learn from North Korea that nuclear weapons protect a tyrannical regime against forceful action from abroad.

Alas, he advocates a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Unfortunately, if the Palestinians rejected it to date, what is the likelihood that they will agree to it now when, as Dror himself argues, events don't go Israel's way.