By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM –The more the pundits write and talk aboutIran, the less do we seem to know what’s really going on. Perhaps this is because the experts are as ignorant as the public, just more articulate. Here’re a few of the many possible scenarios I’ve gleaned of late:
1. A strike onIran’s nuclear installations would only delay its program by a couple of years. After such a strike and despite the damage caused, Iran would be able to go ahead without any further threats. Sanctions, cyber attacks, even assassinations, may be more effective and, despite the moral mess, militarily much less risky.
Perhaps that’s whyIran is so blatantly – but so far mercifully inefficiently – provoking Israel. Hence the attacks inIndia,Thailand and Georgia. Pretending to want to avenge recent strikes – for whichIran, not surprisingly, blamesIsrael– its real aim is to provoke Israel to an attack doomed to be counterproductive. The threat to close the Straits of Hormuz to all navigation may be another aspect of the same provocation.
2. But if I speculate along these lines, no doubt so do people in power in Israel and in the United States. Therefore, they may be playing a joint game of diversion, which Cameron Brown of the Jerusalem Post recently ascribed to Europe (the relatively good cop),USA (the bad cop) and Israel (the crazy cop). But not even the “crazy cop” may have any intention to attack but chooses to appear tough. This may also be a way of distracting Israelis from complaining too much about the many inadequacies at home.
3. Some players don’t seem to be following Brown’s script, which further confuses us. Thus the US Secretary of Defense seems much more hawkish than th eUS Chief of Staff. In Israel, Defense Minister Barak’s public pronouncements seem to be less cautious than those made by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Pundits ask whose views will prevail in the end. And the Quartet (theUnited States, Europe, the United Nations and Russia), represented by Tony Blair, is, as usual, all over the map.
4. Perhaps the purpose of it all is to help to make sanctions bite and to encourage others to join in. Whereas an air strike on Iran may actually strengthen it in its resolve to produce nuclear arms, economic sanctions may make it virtually impossible to do so, because they aim at forcing Iranto disclose its arsenal or perish in bankruptcy. Iran’s leaders may know it. Therefore they’re keen to provoke Israe land even theUnited Statesto attack their country now and get it over with rather than have to live with the sanctions.
The longer these continue, the more difficult it’ll be for the Iranian regime to maintain itself because of the growing opposition within the country, no doubt greatly aided and abetted by the opposition abroad, and further weakened by the expected fall of its Syrian client with the collateral damage to its stooges Hamas and Hezbollah.
5. Finally, we must not ignore the worrying possibility that there’re serious differences about what to do with Iran between the United States and Israel. This may leave Israel with minimal US support should it decide to attack. Perhaps that accounts for the constant stream of high-ranking US officials currently visiting Israel.
If the above is confusing, it accurately reflects my own bewilderment as to what’s really going on. Despite my suspicions to the contrary, I’d nevertheless like to believe that there’re people who know everything there’s to be known about the situation and, therefore, will act responsibly, i.e., stick with sanctions and eschew bombs.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Now dividing his time between Canada and Israel, he may be contacted at dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com