In simulation, U.S. stopped Israeli response to Hizbullah WMD attack

Obama screws Israel in simulation exercise

TEL AVIV — Israel has hosted a high-level strategic simulation in which the United States prevented the Jewish state from responding to an Iranian weapons of mass destruction threat.
The simulation, conducted by the Interdisciplinary Center in the Israeli city of Herzliya, was based on a scenario in which Iran supplied its proxy, Hizbullah, with a radiation bomb. During the exercise, which employed former diplomats and senior officials, the administration of President Barack Obama prevented anIsraeli military operation.

"As far as the United States was concerned, Israel was trigger-happy," former U.S. ambasador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, who played Obama, said. "It sought to use the Hizbullah attack as a justification for what the United States was told would be an all-out war."

Organizers said the simulation was based on a scenario employed by Harvard University in early 2010. In the Harvard exercise, Washington imposed heavy pressure on Israel to block any response to a Hizbullah strike on the Defense Ministry and military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

"Iran deterrence proved dizzyingly effective," former Israel Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben-Eliahu, who participated in the simulation, said.

The latest simulation enacted heavy pressure by Obama on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the exercise, Obama forced Netanyahu to agree to an international, rather than Israeli, response to a Hizbullah radiation bomb.

"This would be a very serious act of war with serious losses of life and would be seen this way by the public," former Israeli ambassador and Netanyahu confidant Zalman Shoval, who played the prime minister, said. "As prime minister, I would call for the opposition to join an emergency coalition government and hold a conversation with the president of the United States. We would expect the United States to make clear decisions in regard to an umbrella defense for us in the region."

Organizers said the simulation was based on the assessment that Netanyahu as well as his defense minister, Ehud Barak, could be stopped by Washington from launching a major attack on Hizbullah and Syria. During the scenario, they said, Netanyahu was urged by Arab adversaries of Iran to launch war against Hizbullah.

"In certain circumstances U.S. diplomacy can actually work in this region, and it ends up not only leaving Israel in check but it also ends up leading a more willing international coalition," Kurtzer said.

The simulation demonstrated the fear by the international community of Iran and its proxies. Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister, said virtually the entire world was prepared to accept a nuclear Iran.

"As leader of the free world, the United States has the responsibility of leading more effective sanctions that can absolutely turn around this shift from a process of stopping Iran to a process of acceptance," Ms. Livni said.