| All links available in the Powerline post. Click on the headline to go there. |
[PowerlineBlog] On October 23 the Wall Street Journal published the page-one story by Adam Entous on the United States’ intelligence activities directed against Israel. Given the headline “Spy vs. spy: Inside the fraying U.S.-Israel ties” (accessible here via Google), the story was full of revelations including measures taken by the United States to deter Israeli military action against Iran. Entous works the national security beat at the Journal, and his story reflects sources in the American defense and intelligence communities.
I haven’t seen any good commentary on the article until today. Caroline Glick’s Jerusalem Post column draws on Entous’s article to preview the coming “Showdown at the OK Corral” between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu.
Glick’s column also draws on Yigal Carmon’s analysis of the state of the Iran deal. Carmon observes that, from Iran’s side, it’s not a done deal. (John wrote about Carmon’s analysis here.) Yet word of Iran’s conditional acceptance/rejection of the deal has not made dent here or elsewhere outside Iran.
“Given the US media’s failure to report that Khamenei rejected the nuclear pact,” Glick writes, “it is a fair bet that Obama will be able to maintain the fiction that Iran is implementing the deal in good faith until the day he leaves office.”
Glick’s column draws a reasonable conclusion from Entous’s article and related reports in the Israeli press: “[A}s the spy stories demonstrated, one thing is clear enough. Whatever he says before the cameras next week when he meets with Netanyahu, Obama has no intention of letting bygones be bygones.” Glick’s column adds the Israeli side of the story to Entous’s column and Carmon’s post. All are must reading. |