Memorandum for: The President, Subject: WAR WITH IRAN
OpedNews.comMEMORANDUM FOR:The President
FROM:Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT:War With Iran
We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month.This would likely lead to a wider war.Israel's leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely.Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel.This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.
We believe that comments by senior American officials, you included, reflect misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.Actually, the phrasing itself can be revealing, as when CIA Director Panetta implied cavalierly that Washington leaves it up to the Israelis to decide whether and when to attack Iran, and how much "room" to give to the diplomatic effort. On June 27, Panetta casually told ABC's Jake Tapper, "I think they are willing to give us the room to be able to try to change Iran diplomatically " as opposed to changing them militarily."
Similarly, the tone you struck referring to Netanyahu and yourself in your July 7 interview with Israeli TV was distinctly out of tune with decades of unfortunate history with Israeli leaders."Neither of us try to surprise each other," you said, "and that approach is one that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to."You may wish to ask Vice President Biden to remind you of the kind of surprises he has encountered in Israel.
Blindsiding has long been an arrow in Israel's quiver.During the emerging Middle East crisis in the spring of 1967, some of us witnessed closely a flood of Israeli surprises and deception, as Netanyahu's predecessors feigned fear of an imminent Arab attack as justification for starting a war to seize and occupy Arab territories.We had long since concluded that Israel had been exaggerating the Arab "threat"--well before 1982 when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly confessed:
"In June 1967, we had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that [Egyptian President] Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."
Israel had, in fact, prepared well militarily and also mounted provocations against its neighbors, in order to provoke a response that could be used to justify expansion of its borders.
Given this record, one would be well advised to greet with appropriate skepticism any private assurances Netanyahu may have given you that Israel would not surprise you with an attack on Iran.
