America Wants Israel to Be Able to Defend Itself, But Not to Win

Peloni:  We should remember that every drone, missile or incursion which takes place in this war is organized by the proxies of Iran and as such, it is Iran who is responsible for these ongoing attacks against Israel.  Until the consequences of these ongoing daily assaults being made against Iraeal are visited upon Iran directly, there is no real consequence for Iran.   While it is obviously important that Israel responded to the massive balistic missile launch against it, it remains regretful that Israel’s responses for assaults emanating from Lebanon and Yemen do not include targets within Iran itself.

By Hugh Fitzgerald | October 29, 2024

Ever since Henry Kissinger put pressure on Israel’s government during the Yom Kippur War to prevent Ariel Sharon from destroying Egypt’s Third Army that Sharon’s troops had surrounded, the American policy has been to support Israel’s defense but not to let it win overwhelmingly. More on this policy can be found here: “US policy for 50 years: Israel is not allowed to win any wars,” Elder of Ziyon, October 27, 2024:

From the National Security Agency archives:

During the Arab-Israeli War in October 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had frequent discussions with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. During a conversation on 18 October 1973, after he agreed that the military situation was stable, even stalemated, Kissinger declared that “my nightmare is a victory for either side.” Dobrynin observed: “it is not only your nightmare.”

No reason is given. The commentary guesses that “he may have worried that if either Egypt or Israel attained a decisive military advantage it would weaken U.S. influence over post-war peace talks. Dobrynin likely had the same concern for the Soviet position.”

But perhaps it is just that the US foreign policy is to keep things as close to the status quo as possible, because any changes means an entirely new paradigm where the US could lose influence.

Had Israel been allowed the overwhelming victory it might have achieved had General Sharon been allowed to destroy Egypt’s Third Army, Israel would then have been powerful enough to decrease its dependence on the U.S., a dependence that Kissinger wanted to maintain. He persuaded then-Prime Minister Golda Meir to let the entire Third Army return to its Egyptian base without being attacked by Sharon’s troops.

And we’ve certainly been seeing that with Israel (and, for that matter, Ukraine.)  The US has said that Israel can defend itself, but it has never said it supports Israel winning – achieving its military goals of the destruction of Hamas or the defeat of Hezbollah, let alone ending the Iranian regime.

One can postulate that US policy towards its allies in regional conflicts around the world has been more to avoid their defeat rather than help them emerge victorious. There are several reasons for this:

A US perception that complete victory by one side could destabilize entire regions

The concern that a dominant regional power might be harder to influence than multiple competing states

The desire for states like Israel to have continued dependence on US support

Avoiding escalation that might draw in other major powers…

The Americans want Israel to continue to depend on the US for military support and for diplomatic support at the UN, especially by exercising its veto at the Security Council. Only by threatening to cut back on military supplies can the US successfully pressure Israel to not “escalate” the conflict with Iran, as, for example, by bombing oil installations and nuclear facilities. Israel promised the US it would refrain from doing either, and on October 26 it kept its promise, hitting only missile production sites and air defense systems, with precision strikes on ballistic missile factories and on air defense systems that led to the deaths of only four Iranians.

The net effect is that the US is claiming to support Israel but is hamstringing Israel at the same time from actually winning wars.

Which is what we saw this weekend. The US made clear to Israel that it cannot do major damage to Iran’s economy – yet that is what needs to be destroyed to end Iran’s support for the worst terrorist groups in the world. Without decimating Iran’s economy, Hamas and Hezbollah will be able to rebuild forever and we are in a Groundhog Day scenario. Indeed, this exchange of airstrikes between Israel and Iran this month sure resembles the US-managed tit for tat strikes between Iran and Israel in April.…

I beg to differ. In April, Israel responded to Iran’s 300-missile-and-drone attack by sending only a handful of planes to hit exactly one air defense system in Isfahan. This October 19, as a delayed response to the barrage of 180 ballistic missiles Iran launched against Israel on October 1, Israel sent a massive force — more than 100 planes — to attack and destroy Iran’s entire ballistic missile program, including its store of solid fuels, as well as much of its air defense systems, including the four S-300 batteries that had been deployet to protect Tehran. In its severity, the IDF’s attack on October 16 was many times more powerful than the IDF attack on April 19.

Israel now needs to explain to the Americans that its promise not to attack nuclear or oil installations should not be understood as valid for all time; it applied, rather, only to the latest attack, not to all attacks that may subsequently take place. If Iran makes the fatal mistake of attacking Israel yet again — no matter how unsuccessful such an attack may be — Israel believes its promise to the Americans not to hit oil and nuclear installations will have expired, and it has every right to now launch an attack, this time, on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program (the oil installations do not nearly pose the same kind of threat). And it should then do so.