Weekly Commentary: Prepare for the worse – to avoid the worse
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 5 May 2011

Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested in an interview published in Haaretz
today that while he concedes that we are clueless as to what Iran’s leaders
might actually do if they had nuclear weapons that he did not expect them to
try to nuke Israel.

And what overarching logic did he provide to support this prediction?

That if, indeed a nuclear Iran would try to incinerate the Jewish State then
the logical thing would be to emigrate should Iran get the bomb. And since
this this outcome is unacceptable, it follows that a nuclear Iran should not
be expected to nuke Israel.

It sounds a bit silly but, then again, consider that Yossi Beilin’s ultimate
argument that it is possible to cut a peace deal with the Palestinians was
that “I simply am not prepared to live in a world in which things cannot be
resolved.” ("Yossi removes his glasses" Haaretz Magazine, March 7, 1997)

Gulp.

It would appear that these two are far from alone in the approach of ruling
out unpalatable scenarios.

But policy making that rules out bad outcomes doesn’t prevent them from
happening. If anything it increases the possibility that they will indeed
occur.

Our neighborhood today has the potential to becoming dramatically more
dangerous for Israel.

In the coming years we will be surrounded by countries with leaders who
could very well find themselves unable to come anywhere close to meeting the
expectations of their citizens. Faced with the choice between being hung
from a lamp pole and diverting the wrath of the mob against Israel –
regardless of if there is or isn’t a sovereign Palestinian state around at
that time.

We have a window to prepare for the worse so that we can ultimately avoid
the worse.

That means making the huge investment in resources, for example, to insure a
swift victory in a multi-front war that involves even Egypt.

That also means having to consider the critical role that many thousands of
well trained and armed Palestinian “security forces” in a sovereign state
could play in these unfavorable scenarios as the “advance team” for the
invaders.

Yes. It would be fantastic if everything worked out perfectly.

But it would be horribly irresponsible to set policy based on a vision
filtered through rose colored glasses.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il