Tuesday, April 14, 2009

U.S. Military Exercise with Israel: The Wrong Signal

Israel wants a joint military exercise with the U.S. -- just the ticket when Israel is in the process of trying to push the U.S. into fighting a war of aggression on its behalf!

During the past five years, the White House of former US president George W. Bush has ordered similar military exercises but the recent Juniper Cobra exercise will be the “most complex and extensive yet”, The Jerusalem Post revealed.

Quoting unnamed senior Israeli officials, the newspaper said the exercise meant “to enable interoperability between Israeli and American BMD systems … in the event of a conflict with Iran.”

Tel Aviv has intensified its preparations for a war against Iran since Benjamin Netanyahu took power and became the Israeli prime minister.

Israel, the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, accuses Tehran of making efforts to build a nuclear bomb and threatens Iran with a military strike should the country continue uranium enrichment.

Obama could be courageous and send Israel a message by canceling this exercise. Alternatively, Obama could be creative and quietly demand a quid pro quo from Israel, e.g., the return of all those bunker buster bombs and the return of Israeli submarines to port and acceptance of a U.S. reminder that using U.S. weapons systems in a war of aggression would be a violation of U.S. law.

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