RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/proceed-with-caution-on-a-defense-pact-with-israel-11569538318

For all their longstanding defense ties, Israel and the U.S. have no mutual defense treaty. In the weeks before Israel’s Sept. 17 elections President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both spoke favorably of negotiating one. Whether they were serious or simply wanted to bolster Mr. Netanyahu’s political support is unclear. In any case, a few observations are in order.

The U.S. is party to various kinds of defense treaties. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the most far-reaching. The treaty states that “an armed attack against one [ally] . . . shall be considered an attack against them all.” Other bilateral U.S. defense treaties create lesser obligations—to consult about threats, to recognize that an attack on one would endanger peace and safety of the other, to meet common dangers in accordance with one’s own constitutional processes.

American and Israeli officials have long refrained from negotiating a mutual defense treaty because it was judged unnecessary and potentially harmful to both countries. Israelis worried mainly about their own freedom of action; they didn’t want to have to ask U.S. permission before taking steps to defend their state. U.S. officials didn’t want to have to grant or deny such permission—or to “own” Israeli military operations.

Sometimes U.S. officials have been pleased when Israel took tough and risky military actions—against Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, against terrorist leaders or operatives during the Second Intifada, and against Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007. The U.S. could disavow any responsibility but, if the actions succeeded, benefit nonetheless.

In a crisis, the help the U.S. would give Israel (or Israel would give the U.S.) wouldn’t likely increase as a result of a mutual defense treaty. Historically, such assistance has been provided out of national interest, not legal obligation.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/463077-will-us-iranian-miscalculation-bring-war

In the escalating, multi-dimensional conflict between Washington and Tehran, the growing risk of armed conflict centers around the same danger that plagues international relations in general: miscalculation.

President Donald Trump may believe that in sanctioning Iran’s central bank and sending more U.S. troops to the region in response to the recent suspected Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, he’s sending a clear message to Tehran.

But Iran’s leaders may not hear it. Instead, they may think that they can push the envelope of military action further – in light of Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t want war, his failure to respond militarily to Iran’s attack on a U.S. drone in June, his earlier empty threats of military action against Iran and North Korea, and decades of U.S. reluctance to respond forcefully to Iranian and other provocations.

The danger, of course, is that Tehran will push too far, and Trump will feel compelled to take military action, which could escalate quickly into a tit-for-tat of exchanges that lead to all-out war.

Miscalculation. It’s the danger that JFK sought to avoid as he exchanged messages with Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that George H.W. Bush sought to avoid when he signaled Saddam Hussein during the Persian Gulf War that Saddam’s use of chemical or biological weapons would mean the end of his regime.