Obama's Relationship with Israel at New Nadir

On Friday, White House press secretary Jay Carney stated (http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/08/31/Carney-US-Israel-relations-strong/UPI-67541346443820/):

"It is the president's firm commitment that we must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon."

The problem, however, is that neither Iran nor Israel believe in Obama's "firm commitment." In response to the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report on Iran's nuclear development program, Bloomberg's editors wrote yesterday (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-31/new-iran-nuclear-report-should-not-be-signal-to-attack.html):

"The IAEA’s latest update makes four important things clear. First, that Iran has recently been putting less energy into developing its main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and a lot more into expanding production at the hardened bunker at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom.

Second, that the pace at which Iran is producing uranium enriched to 20 percent picked up sharply in February and has continued at that pace. . . . Uranium enriched to about 3.5 percent is used for civilian power plants.

. . . .

Third, that since the IAEA first demanded access to a military site called Parchin in January, Iran has kept out the inspectors, stalled on negotiations and suddenly begun razing and apparently cleaning the site.

. . . .

Finally, the report says that IAEA monitoring suggests none of Iran’s enriched uranium stocks appear to have been diverted. Just less than half of the 20 percent enriched uranium Iran has produced so far (the total to August stands at 189.4 kilograms, or 417.6 pounds) is been being used to make plates for the medical reactor. That leaves a stockpile of about 90 kilograms. It takes roughly 175 kilograms to make a bomb."

In short, notwithstanding Obama's warning to Iran that "as president of the United States, I don't bluff" (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/obama-to-iran-and-israel-as-president-of-the-united-states-i-dont-bluff/253875/), Iran is obviously proceeding posthaste to build its first atomic bomb, and Obama's much vaunted economic sanctions have had no effect on that effort.

Israeli credence in Obama's professed intention to prevent Iran from building its first nuclear weapon was dealt another slap in the face this past week when US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, declared that he didn't want to be "complicit" in an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear weapons development facilities. As reported by The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/30/israeli-attack-iran-not-stop-nuclear?newsfeed=true):

"Distancing himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran, Dempsey said such an attack would 'clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme'.

He added: 'I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.'"

Obama's attempts to isolate Iran again also met with failure yesterday. As we are told by The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/world/middleeast/iran-criticizes-egypts-mohamed-morsi-over-syria-comments.html):

"The 120-nation Nonaligned Movement handed its host Iran a diplomatic victory on Friday, unanimously decreeing support for the disputed Iranian nuclear energy program and criticizing the American-led attempt to isolate and punish Iran with unilateral economic sanctions."

Meanwhile, as reported by The Times of Israel (http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-scales-down-annual-military-drill-with-israel/), Israeli trust in Obama's intentions were further depleted by his decision to downgrade an upcoming joint military exercise:

"Washington says that it will scale down its participation in what was planned to be the largest ever joint Israeli-American military exercise, Time Magazine reported Friday.

The Austere Challenge 12 exercise, to be held in October, was to feature thousands of soldiers and advanced anti-missile defense systems and simulate simultaneous fire from Iran and Syria.

The report quoted sources in Washington as saying 1,500 US troops — perhaps even 1,200 — would be sent to participate in the exercise instead of the original 5,000. In addition, sources in both Jerusalem and Washington told Time that it was probable that only one Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warship — instead of two — would be sent to Israel.

The Patriot anti-missile systems set to be dispatched to Israel would reportedly arrive as planned, but not the crews to operate them."

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's response? Yesterday, we were informed by The Jerusalem Post of a "shouting match" between Netanyahu and the US ambassador to Israel in the presence of US Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (see: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=283353):

"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got into a diplomatic shouting match with US Ambassador Dan Shapiro over US President Barack Obama's handling of Iran's nuclear program, saying 'time has run out' for diplomacy, Yediot Aharonot cited a source as saying on Friday.

According to the report, which The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify, the showdown took place as Netanyahu met with Shapiro and Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who visited Israel earlier in the week.

A source that participated in the meeting said that a particularly angry and stressed Netanyahu began a tirade against the US president, attacking him for not doing enough on Iran. 'Instead of pressuring Iran in an effective way, Obama and his people are pressuring us not to attack the nuclear facilities,' the source quoted Netanyahu as saying."

In short, the relationship between the US and Israel hasn't been this bad in decades.