Once I was in a town that a I had visited two years before. As I was driving to this town I was planning my day there. I planned to have my evening meal at a snack bar where they served really delicious stuff.
But when I got there the snack bar was not there any more. It simply didn’t exist anymore.
While making plans based on untested assumptions in this case led to disappointment and temporary hunger it was of no greater consequence.
Imagine though what would happen if your survival would depend on your plan.
It shows us the utmost importance of checking the assumptions which your plan is based on.
It is this fatal flaw that I see in the Israeli politics with regards to Iran and its nuclear program.
Bibi, at the moment is totally outmanouvred by Obavez and the mullahs.
For a long time the following assumptions where almost selfevident and Israeli policy could rely on them.
– The US is a friend of Israel.
– The US will support Israel in a situation of existential danger (like the massive military resupply in ’74).
– The US will support Israel at the UN and veto any anti-Israel resolution that is deemed an existential threat to Israel,
– The US takes Israel’s security into consideration when planning and executing its Mideast foreign policy.
All these assumptions have become highly questionanble under the Obavez desastministration.
The fatal flaw I see in Israeli policy is that it failed to plan for alternatives to these no longer given assumptions and because it lacks any alternatives Israel’s leadership still acts as if these assumptions are true.
Thus Israel’s leadership has rendered itself incapable to act indenpendently from the US at the time it needs to do this.
That explains why Bibi is passively waiting and let the US and the Iranians make their moves instead of acting proactively and making his own diplomatic, political and intelligence moves that would give him room for action and manouver.
In this game he who does not make moves but let the others do their moves loses by default.
Artaxes' brainbench 