I was too young to remember the 1948 war but I remember the wars since. These wars demonstrated that under the conditions as they existed for the last half of the 20th century, the Israelis were fully capable of defending themselves against a pathetic, corrupt, and disunited array of Arab and Muslim enemies. Moreover, for decades the Israelis were the sole possessors of the atomic bomb until Pakistan became a player in the nuclear game.
Since 9/11 the equation has changed. New powers have emerged and re-emerged who are hostile to Israel as well is to the United States. Iran is notably among those which have emerged and poses an existential threat to Israel as soon as it acquires an atomic weapon. Egypt is reemerging as an enemy of Israel as result of the dithering of the Obama administration during the Arab spring in Egypt and elsewhere. These 2 countries represent the most powerful Arab countries and they bracket Israel. Syria can be added to the list shortly as the Muslim brotherhood gains power there when the present regime is swept away. One would expect Syria to continue to act as a puppet of Iran.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the invasion of Iraq set in train a series of events which have been inimical to the interests of the United States and to Israel. The emergence of Iran has already been noted and it is regretfully to be admitted that it is Iran who has benefited most from the American invasion of Iraq. We have lost prestige, allies, lives, treasure and set in motion the "Arab spring" which is turning into the Arab nightmare.
Worse, the invasion of Iraq and the reaction against it domestically and abroad meant that the Bush administration was shut down from any possibility of military intervention to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. Evidently, that unfortunate reaction also applied to Israel. As a result, it is now virtually inevitable that Iran will get the atomic weapon it covets and the balance of power in the Middle East will be radically altered to our detriment and the delivery of oil will become much more tenuous and expensive as a result. We will be lucky if that is the worst effect of Iran getting the bomb. Their possession of atomic weapon makes almost certain an arms race in the Persian Gulf and makes very much more likely that there will be a nuclear war involving a strike against Israel and perhaps against the American homeland.
America will become measurably poorer and dramatically less safe.
America has virtually no interest in preserving the state of Israel. America has an existential interest in preventing the Iranians from getting the bomb, passing it off to a terrorist group, smuggling it into the Homeland, and destroying one or more American cities. Our policies described above have made all of this more, not less, likely.
As the world has changed since 9/11 so have the tactics of war in the Middle East. It is now clear that Israel is vulnerable in 2 respects which were not the case a decade or so ago: 1st, Israel is about to become vulnerable to nuclear attack, as noted; 2nd, Israel is now vulnerable to the kind of guerrilla warfare that we have seen in Iraq and in Afghanistan and increasingly in Gaza and on the West Bank. This is a war which Israel, vastly outnumbered as it is, ultimately must lose. Sole possession of nuclear weapons is of no avail against this strategy and Israel will soon lose its status as the sole possessor of the nuclear weapon. Unlike America, Israel has no real geographic possibility of isolating herself from her neighbors. She is simply vulnerable to low-grade missiles launched from only a few miles away and she already hosts a large 5th column population. The geography disadvantages Israel and the numbers are overwhelming.
With the reemergence of the Egypt as an enemy of Israel, the geography looks even more grim and we can expect Gaza to burn.
All of this is occurring at a time when America is staggering towards bankruptcy and must inevitably trim its military establishment. This is a wholly undesirable prospect but that does not make it less inevitable. As America weakens fiscally and militarily, we will find our attenuated commitments around the world more and more debilitating and ultimately threatening of our national security. Our commitment to Israel will be among the most problematic of them all.
Our national interests, indeed our prospects for survival as a democratic republic after Obama, require that we cease squandering our resources and rigorously focus our forces where they will actually preserve and protect the nation. The lesson of Rome should not be lost on us.
The United States has no interest in making Israel our proxy or in catching spears on Israel's behalf. The old saw is true, a country has no long-term allies, only long term national interests. There is nothing in Israel worthy of risking a nuclear strike in America. I believe that we should offer citizenship to every Israeli and withdraw from the alliance with our moral duty done. This is not an outcome to be desired but it is preferable to a very likely and very ugly alternative.
Secretary Gates has been churlish in his remarks. As posters have pointed out, nations do not expect gratitude from their allies but then we ought not to make national policy out of moral platitudes. I think Gates is frustrated and scared. He sees the realities on the ground described above and so he should alert the American people to the difficulties. Instead, he takes a cheap shot at Netanyahu it was a better friend to America than Gates' boss. I think he is flailing about trying to find a way out of our strategic and moral dilemma.
