A reader writes:
The Gulf States despite their endless rhetoric hold much more animus toward Iran than Israel by orders of magnitude.
2 years ago Israel took out another nuclear program in the region. Ask yourself what was the reaction? There was none. No Arab street, no Arab protestation, no Gulf outrage. All the American whipped up fears & punditry all out with a whimper. A few platitudes were issued here & there, to keep the fiddle sounding for outsiders ears.
A couple of points here. One, comparing a potential strike on Iran to the 2007 Syria strike is comparing apples and oranges. Damascus, for obvious reasons, had just as much reason to downplay the 2007 attack as Israel did, if not more so. As a result, the news trickled rather than gushing out. This allowed minimal impact on the region's economy. The same can't be said of Iran, which would likely be a protracted regional crisis played out in linear and asymmetric fashion. Under these conditions, Iran wouldn't need to 'win' in a conventional sense; not so long as it could turn off its energy spigots and hold the markets hostage during negotiations.
Secondly, I think the assumption that Arab leadership is secretly cheering for an attack on Iran is a terribly exaggerated, and often simplistic crutch relied on too heavily by Iran hawks. Would some Mideast regimes like to see the revolutionary regime in Tehran go away? Certainly, but at what cost? The Saudis might applaud, but they will not applaud an indefinite unilateral war, waged by Israel, on another Muslim country in the region. My guess is that they'd prefer the Iranian 'problem' be addressed by Washington, and not the regionally contentious and controversial government in Jerusalem. Washington can guarantee the Saudis against Iranian reprisal; Israel cannot. (Israel's ability to even attack Iran remains logistically unclear.)
Delving a bit deeper, I think there's something troubling about the idea that Israel can act with unchecked impunity throughout the region with minimal consequence. Turkey was a victim of that impunity in 2007, and its relationship with Israel has indeed taken a hit ever since. Israel needs friends in the region, and the fact that some consider this to be inconsequential should worry even its most ardent supporters.
As I've already argued, Washington in fact does a major disservice to Israel by offering so little oversight of aid and investment in the country. It's a problem if Jerusalem is as flippant about its behavior as this reader is, and that's ultimately a failure of American leadership in the Middle East.
