Saturday, June 12, 2010

Glick to Netanyahu: Remember the first rule of strategy

Caroline Glick warns Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is focusing on the wrong things.  From The Jerusalem Post:
The first rule of strategy is to keep your opponent busy attending to your agenda so he has no time to advance his own. Unfortunately, Israel’s leaders seem unaware of this rule, while Iran’s rulers triumph in its application.

Over the past few weeks, Israel has devoted itself entirely to the consideration of questions that are, at best, secondary. Questions like how much additional assistance Israel should provide Hamas-controlled Gaza, and how best to fend off or surrender to the international diplomatic lynch mob have dominated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s and his senior ministers’ agendas. Our political leaders – as well as our military commanders and intelligence agencies – have been so busy thinking about these issues that they have effectively forgotten the one issue that they should have been considering.

Israel’s greatest strategic challenge – preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – has fallen by the wayside.
Glick urges the Prime Minister to appoint an equivalent to Obama's envoy George Mitchell to mind the fires of the ruthless and unending news cycle, and give him fancy offices, deputies, aides, spokesmen, "and a free hand in talking with the Palestinians and the Obama administration until the cows come home."  This would give Netanyahu the time he needs to address Israel's most pressing existential problem:  Iran:
In the meantime, Netanyahu and his senior cabinet ministers and advisers must devote themselves to battling Iran. They must not merely prepare to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.

They must prepare the country to weather the Iranian counter-attack that will surely follow.

Those preparations involve not only fortifying Israel’s home front. Netanyahu and his people must prepare a diplomatic and legal offensive against Iran and its allies in the lead-up, and aftermath, of an Israeli strike against Iran.
This strikes me as an important piece.  Read the whole thing.

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