Lord, protect me from my friends; I can take care of my enemies. The atmosphere across the globe after a week and a half of fighting in Ukraine is starting to evoke the war hysteria in the West at the onset of World War I.
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Many have deliriously united against evil, mainly because it's mostly Ukrainians who will die. They are dooming them to a guerilla war that they hope will sink the Russian bear in the Ukrainian mud. Among those eager for this battle are also friends of Israel in the United States, who don't understand Jerusalem's interests in relation to this war.
One of these friends, Senator Lindsey Graham, who was here just two weeks ago, quite inexplicably asked the Russian people: Et tu, Brute? In other words, where is the Russian Claus von Stauffenberg? One lent his dagger to assassinate Caesar, the other sacrificed his life in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.
Israel, however, is facing a fundamental problem beyond the sentimental ricochets in the media. Historians and strategists are united in the sense that the US is weak and ineffectual, which has sparked considerable concern in the Far East and the Middle East. Israel knows who its enemies are but is concerned about its friends, such as the US.
To put it bluntly: Israeli leaders understand Putin better than they understand the American administration under President Joe Biden. There is currently a feeling that the Americans don't want Israel to be overly involved on behalf of Ukraine. They understand Israel's considerations and security interests. Hence the belief that the Americans won't pressure Israel to do more than what it has done to this point.
Iran is free to act
Israel, however, has been unpleasantly surprised that the Americans haven't changed their approach to the nuclear talks in Vienna. Israel will face the worst possible deal from its perspective. While the world is freezing Russia's financial assets, it is unfreezing billions of dollars of Iranian funds. The deal will allow Tehran to re-enter the oil market in full force. Iran will be able to produce 2.5 million barrels per day just when the price of one barrel has soared to over $100.
For Iran to feel "pain," the price needs to be under $70. You can analyze the deal from the perspective of advanced centrifuges and amounts of enriched uranium, but that's already virtually passé.
All that remains is the military aspect of nuclear capability and ballistic missile development. These two issues are not part of the deal, and Israel will determine its own rules in the fight to eliminate Iran's nuclear capabilities. Despite the declarations from Israeli leaders that the Jewish state is not a signatory to the deal and is, therefore, free to act, it won't act against a deal that the US has signed.
It isn't clear how many people understand this. When the US withdrew from the deal, nuclear reactors, centrifuges facilities, and senior Iranian scientists blew up. Israel will get an aggressive Iran out of the new deal. First, it was a weak Iran with nuclear aspirations; today it is an emboldened Iran, undeterred by the US, which will activate its proxies all around us.
In Israel, people don't understand why the Americans are treating Iran like a preferred customer over Saudi Arabia or Russia. Indeed, the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi turned Saudi Arabia into a leper state in the Biden administration's mind – but in Iran, there are hundreds of Khashoggis every day and the US turns a blind eye.
Israel can take solace in the fact that it knows where its enemy, Iran, stands. It does not know where its friend, the US, stands, and what is driving its decisions.
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