Netanyahu, Iran, the US, and a widening war

Business Insider reports on the revelation by the New York Times that Israel apparently just did major sabotage on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

Iran and Israel are not officially at war with Israel, though Israel claims that Iran-aligned groups like Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen are Iranian proxies. Iran is allied with both those groups.

"This shows that the covert networks operating in Iran have expanded their target list and advanced beyond just military and nuclear sites," Shahin Modarres, a security analyst focused on the Middle East, told the Times. "It's a major challenge and reputation blow for Iran's intelligence and security agencies."

While Israel has targeted military and nuclear sites in Iran before, this attack hit the Islamic Republic's vital energy infrastructure.

"The level of impact was very high because these are two significant pipelines going south to north. We have never seen anything like this in scale and scope," said Homayoun Falakshahi, a senior energy analyst at Kpler, per The Times.¹

It’s important to keep in mind that Bibi Netanyahu for years has been trying to get the US involved in a direct war against Iran. A goal for which neoconservative hawks have been enthusiastic.

Middle East Eye reported in December:

Over the years Israel has been linked to numerous strikes in Iran, primarily targeting the country’s nuclear program, but the country rarely publicly confirms its role in the attacks.

In January of this year [2023], Iran reported a large explosion in the city of Isfahan which was caused by a failed drone attack on a military plant in the central city, according to authorities.

Tehran did not say who launched the attack against the plant but suspicion fell on Israel, which is also accused of starting a series of fires in industrial, military, and nuclear sites across Iran.

In 2021, Tehran vowed to seek revenge against Israel after it accused Tel Aviv of sabotaging the Natanz nuclear power plant.² [my emphasis]

Almost a year ago, the Times of Israel carried a report headlined, ”Netanyahu said to huddle repeatedly with military brass over possible attack on Iran.” ³

Netanyahu has been at this for a while:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities caused such “panic” in the US that the Obama administration rushed to accept an Iranian proposal to open negotiations on a nuclear deal in 2012, before economic sanctions against the regime had taken their full toll, according to the author of a new book on Israel’s espionage and security agencies.

The Israeli prime minister’s bellicose rhetoric, his preparations for an attack, and his approval of the Mossad’s continued assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, thus prompted the very deal he has so bitterly opposed, said Ronen Bergman, whose “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” is published in the US next week [2018].⁴

But it goes back even further:

In 1992, MK [Member of the Knesset] Benjamin Netanyahu said that within three to five years Iran would have a nuclear bomb. In 1993, he published an opinion piece in the Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth in which he predicted that by 1999 Iran would have a nuclear bomb, and argued that this was the greatest threat to [Israel].

In July 1996, newly minted Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed a special session of the U.S. Congress in which he warned of an Iranian bomb and said that the regime was approaching this goal with worrisome speed. In September 2002 “worried citizen” Netanyahu appeared once again before Congress. He encouraged its members to go to war against Iraq and said that there was “no doubt” that Saddam Hussein was approaching an atom bomb and his nuclear program was so advanced that he has centrifuges the size of “washing machines” (Saddam did not have a nuclear program). Netanyahu claimed that Saddam also had biological and chemical weapons (he didn’t) and warned that the moment the United States attacked, Saddam would launch these weapons against Israel and most interesting of all – he predicted that Saddam’s fall would have a particularly positive effect on the entire region, and might even lead to the fall of the regimes in Iran and Libya.⁵ [my emphasis]

And he was still at it a couple of months before last year’s October 7 attack by Hamas:

Whenever things get difficult, complicated or politically untenable, you can always count on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rant and issue grave apocalyptic warnings about Iran. After all, stopping Iran's nuclear program and saving Western civilization along the way is the defining historic role of his life. This is 1938 all over again, Iran is Nazi Germany and Netanyahu sees himself as the reluctant Winston Churchill empowered by history to stand up to the threat. …

Even judging by his own standards of endless shamelessness and audacious chutzpah, Netanyahu's criticism of the U.S.-Iranian understandings being reported in the media this weekend stands out. “Arrangements that do not dismantle Iran’s nuclear infrastructure do not stop its nuclear program,” said a statement Saturday evening from the Prime Minister’s Office.

All this from the man whose recklessness brought Iran to the nuclear threshold. The man who opposed the original nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), went behind then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s backs in 2015 and sanctimoniously told Congress there was a “better deal” but, unsurprisingly, never came up with one.

This is the man who enthusiastically encouraged then-President Donald Trump to withdraw from the deal in 2018, because “it’s a bad agreement,” and because Trump, who negotiated real estate deals in Manhattan and sees himself as the ultimate dealmaker, could of course get a better nuclear deal with Iran.

This is the man who hoped Trump would launch a military strike against Iran, and the same man who egregiously failed to produce or even propose an alternative policy. This consequently led Iran to uninterruptedly enrich uranium – which brings us to where we are now.⁶ [my emphasis]

It has been Netanyahu’s long-standing goal to involve the United States in a war against Iran.

1. Rommen, Rebecca (2024): Israel strikes 'reputation blow' to Iran with sabotage attacks on its gas pipelines, says report. Business Insider 02/17/2024. <https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-disrupts-gas-heat-supplies-israel-in-new-attacks-2024> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).

2. War on Gaza: Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett calls on US to bring down Iran. Middle East Eye 12/29/2023. <https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-israel-former-pm-naftali-bennett-us-bring-down-iran> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).

3. Netanyahu said to huddle repeatedly with military brass over possible attack on Iran. Times of Israel 02/22/2023. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-huddles-with-military-top-brass-as-israel-looks-to-rattle-some-sabers/> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).

4. Horovitz, David (2018): Netanyahu’s threats to attack Iran ‘panicked’ Obama into nuke talks, author says. Times of Israel 01/26/2018. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-threats-to-attack-iran-panicked-obama-into-nuke-talks-author-says/> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).

5. Drucker, Raviv (2015): Netanyahu's Long History of Crying 'Wolf'. Haaretz 03/08/2015. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2015-03-08/ty-article/.premium/on-iran-netanyahu-cries-danger-again/0000017f-ec6a-ddba-a37f-ee6e1a770000?lts=1708245581723> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).

6. Pinkas, Alon (2023): Sidelined, Desperate Netanyahu Is Back to Apocalyptic Warnings on Iran. Haaretz 08/13/2024. <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-13/ty-article/.premium/sidelined-desperate-netanyahu-is-back-to-apocalyptic-warnings-on-iran/00000189-eef1-db6f-a1e9-eef7b10a0000> (Accessed: 2024-18-02).