Episode 7: What Iran and the Palestinians Really Want

 

Fmr. Ambassador Michael Oren on Netanyahu

3:25 into the video 

Natasha Kirtchuk: I would like to turn to Netanyahu, and basically his legacy. In your opinion, has Netanyahu left Israel better off than when he first came to power as prime minister, and what were his major accomplishments, where did he fail? 

Michael Oren: Well, Benjamin Netanyahu was a transformative prime minister. He marshaled in Israel’s transformation from being a largely middle class, even lower middle class agrarian society to a high tech society, a super power economically in terms of innovation, in terms of even military power. He diversified our foreign policy. He opened up the doors to China to Russia, to Africa, to South America that did not exist before. He presided over the signing of the Abraham Accords which in itself was revolutionary. 

People don’t know this about Netanyahu, he is actually very war-adverse. He kept us out of major conflicts and the truly large-scale conflict we had was in 2006 in the Lebanon war which was under the prime ministership of Ehud Olmert. Netanyahu does not like war, he kept us out of it. We may miss him on that, by the way, in the future.  Many, many aspects. In legislation, about 32 pieces of legislation that lifted up regulatory restrictions, opened up the Israeli economy, so in effect he transformed Israel, making Israel the number one country in the world in terms of the percentage of its GDP that is invested in innovation.  Much of that is Netanyahu’s. Netanyahu’s  the finance minister, Netanyahu’s  the prime minister.  

 

So yes, I think history will judge leaders differently fifty years, a hundred years from now. Remember that looking back at Truman in the 1940s, people did not like Truman, whereas today he is viewed as one of America’s greatest presidents. I remember Menachem Begin, how many Israelis hated, hated Begin and today everyone thinks of Begin with great nostalgia, sort of wistfully. So people will judge Netanyahu differently. A lot of it depends, Natasha,  on the way he exits his office. If he exits as previous prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir, acknowledging the legitimacy of the Israeli political system of Israeli democracy, or if he follows the precedent of Donald Trump. I think that will determine to a large degree the way his legacy is viewed by future generations. 

Ex Mossad head Tamir Pardo says it was a mistake for Netanyahu to call Iran an existential threat.

Tamir Pardo

Michael Oren

Bernard Lewis 

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, June 14, 2021

Regarding “Ex-Mossad chief Tamir Pardo: Netanyahu broke policy with Iran, US” (June 9), Pardo said, “we must do everything to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” but that it was a mistake for Netanyahu to call it an existential threat. Really? I guess we are in serious trouble if the ex-Mossad head does not think that Iran is an existential threat to Israel! 

On the one hand, we have Michael Oren, the former Israel’s ambassador to the US during the Obama administration, who in his book Ally wrote: “Finally, after many months of attentiveness, I reached my conclusion. In the absence of a high-profile provocation – an attack on a US aircraft carrier, for example – the United States would not use force against Iran. Rather, the administration would remain committed to diplomatically resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, even at the risk of reaching a deal unacceptable to Israel. And if Israel took matters into its own hands, the White House would keep its distance and offer to defend Israel only if it were counter-struck by a hundred thousand Hezbollah missiles.”

On the other hand, we have Bernard Lewis, who said of the Iranian mullahs: “For people with this mindset, mutually assured destruction (M.A.D.) is not a constraint; it is an inducement…”

So how can Tamir Pardo say what he did? It makes no sense whatsoever. 

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC

Beersheba

PM Netanyahu: Iran is different - containment is not an option

 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

PM Netanyahu at the swearing-in ceremony for the new director of the Mossad

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 1 June 2021), at the swearing-in ceremony for the new Director of the Mossad:

 

"Our greatest threat is the existential threat posed by Iran's efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons, whether to threaten us directly – with atomic weapons – with the destruction of a small state, or to threaten us with tens of thousands of missiles or a great many missiles backed by a nuclear umbrella. This is a threat against the continuation of the Zionist enterprise and we must fight this threat relentlessly.

 

“All of you do this. We spoke yesterday about the actions that have been taken and these actions must continue. I have said these things to my friend of 40 years, Joe Biden, and I told him: 'With or without an agreement, we will continue to do everything in our power to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons.' Iran is different from the other countries that have nuclear weapons today; therefore, containment is not an option.

 

“If we need to choose – and I hope it will not happen – between friction with our great friend, the US, and getting rid of an existential threat, getting rid of an existential threat will prevail. This first falls on all of you, on the political leadership of the State of Israel and on you David. All of you must do everything, everything, to ensure that Iran will never arm itself with nuclear weapons."

My comment:

Netanyahu is spot on. Today is not February 22,1946, with George F. Kennan sending his Long Telegram from Moscow and defining the containment of the USSR. Iran is not the USSR and containment is not an option.  The question is do Bennet, Lapid and Gantz get that?   

The Iranian Queen’s Gambit meets Israel’s Sicilian defense

Using a live chess theory approach, we can identify Iran’s strategic moves in real time and examine what are its goals. Ultimately, the most important question is: Will Tehran use nuclear weapons?

By ZAQ HARRISON/THE MEDIA LINE 

With its economy on the brink of collapse, the survival of the Islamic regime in Tehran might depend on a new deal with the United States and the West. Iran’s proxy war, making use of Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel, is a critical tool to pressure the West to acquiesce to the demands of the Islamic Republic. These include a complete opening of their economy to the world markets and the acceptance of their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Using a live chess theory approach that studies chess strategies, openings, and historical games between grandmasters, we can identify Iran’s strategic moves in real time and examine what are its goals and whether it is a rational actor. Ultimately, the most important question is this: Will Tehran use nuclear weapons?

Unlike artificial intelligence (AI), which is an analytical process, chess is a systemic process. AI is built on mimicking human cognitive ability with the aid of supercomputing, extrapolating infinite scenario options. Chess relies on unique human choices for each move that may or may not involve intuition and self-awareness.

A recent article said the 2021 Israeli-Palestinian crisis was the first war with supercomputing and AI. Israeli systems used AI to make highest-value target recommendations for military intelligence. Another system mapped the terrain in Gaza and was able to identify in real time changes that would indicate live launch sites. Yet another utilized field information to alert Israeli troops of possible imminent attacks.

Brig. Gen. Yosef Kuperwasser, a former head of the Research Division of the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence Directorate, in a groundbreaking paper published by the Brookings Institution, supported the use of Systemic Thinking (of which chess analysis is an example) as a geopolitical and military intelligence analytical tool. “Systemic Thinking,” Kuperwasser wrote, “allowed analysts to offer more rounded intelligence estimates and produce a holistic intelligence product by better understanding the way arenas develop and increasing focus on the cultural surroundings of a subject (ideology, religion, public opinion, psychology, literature, and arts).”

Chess is about controlling the center, gaining spatial advantage, and protecting the king – all concepts that can be applied to the Israel-Iran conflict. Nothing in chess is random; all pieces have only one objective: to serve the king (the regime). As the game progresses, pieces are sacrificed for the greater good. Unless the players agree to a draw, a tie, the game is over when the attacking player declares to the opponent “checkmate,” from the Persian shah mat: the king is dead.

I spoke at length with former Iranian chess champions and asked them to analyze the Islamic Republic’s geopolitical moves through the lens of chess openings and strategies. All spoke freely on condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of their families that still reside in Iran.

In the geopolitical chess game between Iran and Israel, Iran is playing white and is on the offense. In chess parlance, Iran is playing a Queen’s Gambit. A gambit is a chess opening that dangles a piece, daring you to take it. The Queen’s Gambit temps the opponent into allocating important resources atop each other, restricting their movements. It is not unlike the Battle of Thermopylae, where the Spartans were trapped in a mountain pass.

The Iranians will continue to sacrifice Hamas, as well as Hezbollah, when it suits them to achieve a strategic imbalance. Loyalty, after all, is to the king; it is not asked of the king.

When the Queen’s Gambit is played, even the queen herself can be sacrificed. According to a former family member of Iran’s ruling elite who served under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and then briefly under the Islamic regime, the Islamic regime did exactly this when it “sacrificed” Gen. Qasem Soleimani, IRGC Quds Force major-general. Articles in Time and the Atlantic Council both point to the lack of a substantial Iranian retaliation for his “martyrdom” and the potential benefits of Soleimani's death to the regime – providing a rallying point for the people and eliminating a potential internal threat for the clerics who wish to control the transfer of power when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies.

Israel is playing black, on defense, and has declined Iran’s gambit. The Jewish State is playing a version of the transposed Sicilian Defense, whose main goal is to pressure white’s center. It does this by sacrificing a position on the periphery while attacking and holding a critical space in the center. Israel, knowing Iran has a space advantage that cannot be overcome, is playing Sicilian to counter and execute deep attacks into enemy territory. This is strategic subterfuge in seeking to place an attacking piece deep into enemy territory where it can cause chaos. Black’s goal with the Sicilian Defense is to bring imbalanced and asymmetrical positions onto the chessboard and maintain this imbalance.

Chess is about controlling space, attacking weak squares, and gaining control over other open squares. Iran can produce insane complications, create a lot of tactical possibilities to surprise Israel, and get into a long, drawn-out endgame if Israel does not finish the job in the middle game. If Israel would have been entrenched fighting in Gaza, Iran’s next move would have been for Hezbollah to fire its missiles into Israel, opening a third front and wreaking havoc.

Chess purists reading this will revolt. Iran and Israel are playing parallel games. In an actual game of chess, the Sicilian Defense cannot be played against the Queen’s Gambit. Geopolitics is not limited by the 64 squares and the time clock of a standard game of chess.

During the Cold War, chess theory demonstrated that the former Soviet Union was extremely unlikely to launch nuclear weapons. In Russian (Soviet) chess, the draw is a valued strategic tool. The same chess theory tells us quite a different story regarding the Islamic Republic in Tehran that will sacrifice anything and anyone to stay in power.

In chess, a space advantage allows a player to take strategic risks; it makes affordable the consequences of the opponent’s counter.

American constitutional and criminal law professor Alan Dershowitz frequently tells an anecdote about the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani that illustrates a classic implementation of the centrality of space in chess theory. Rafsanjani, considered a relative moderate, once told an American journalist that if Iran launched a strategic nuclear strike on Israel, it would “kill as many as 5 million Jews,” and that if Israel retaliated, it would kill 15 million Iranians. This, Rafsanjani says in Dershowitz’s telling, would be “a small sacrifice from among the billion Muslims in the world. … It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”

Zaq Harrison is an entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in the private and nonprofit sectors. Harrison writes on topics ranging from global real estate analysis to pre-IPO evaluation of ridesharing firms to foundational causes of the global financial crises of 2008 to free-market societal responsibilities in the 21st century