NATO Or Israel: Choose One, Mr. President

By Steve Hynd

Here's an upsetting statistic for you: the Israeli military budget is about $12 billion a year and US direct military aid to israel accounts for about 20% of that. Which means US taxpayers likely paid for about 20% of the bullets that killed 19 members of the Gaza flotilla on Sunday night. How do you feel having those deaths, mostly of Turks, on your hands?

Apparently, members of the Obama administration have no problem with it at all. The US is the only major nation not to condemn Israel's assault on civilians in international waters - becauseno-one else believes Israel - and according to reports Clinton is leading the push for supporting Israel's government as it spins like a top. Now, despite Israel's reaction to the Goldstone report, the US is claiming that Israel is trustworthy to conduct a full and accurate investigation of events - a clear example of the fox investigating its own carnage in the hen-house.

But the way in which America is joined at the hip to Israel over the atrocity off Gaza may soon come under pressure from NATO ally Turkey. Turkey is threatening to send a warship escort with the next set of aid ships (ships which are supported and legitimized by UN Security Council Resolution 1860 which calls for "Unimpeded Humanitarian Assistance" into Gaza ).

As Dave noted earlier, war makes no sense for anyone right now. But for Turkey, war is not the only option.

Alex Lobov, in an excellent post, points out that Turkey did not try to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter yesterday, even though it could have done so, as Article 6 makes it clear that the Mediterranean is within NATO's area of responsibility. However, it did secure a NATO call, echoing the UN's, for a �prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation�. Only the U.S. still pretends to believe Israel can deliver such an investigation.

The possibility of an Article 5 call still exists, though - and for the moment that is all Turkey needs.

Alex writes:

If Turkey were to actually make good on this particular threat then we the stakes would be raised dramatically. Israel would either have to face an embarrassing backdown on their blockade or attack Turkish ships, which would precipitate a full-scale war and an invocation of NATO Article 5. If such a thing were to actually eventuate, NATO, of course, would not participate in an Israeli-Turkish war but its refusal to do so would also deal the organisation a death blow.

A view which journalist and former senior Pentagon planner Robert Mackay agrees with:

if Turkey invokes the NATO charter and the US doesn't react, then NATO is GONE.  GONE and DEAD.  Why? Because when the US was attacked on 9/11, the NATO charter was invoked--and that is why NATO troops are in Afghanistan today.  9/11 was proof that NATO was not just an 'anti-Russian' pact--that it applied anywhere.  If the US doesn't go along with a Turkish response...it will reveal NATO as being a "US pact"--that the entire alliance exists only to help the US.  Oh, there will still be mutual defense treaties with the UK and maybe Germany. But that is just about it.  And the US will have to go on its own in Afghanistan. That is unless they want to invite the IDF to help....

Dave, who has been on top form today, wrote earlier about European austerity measures and how European governments are eyeing their military budgets - budgets in large part determined by their NATO commitments. Many are looking for a swift Afghanistan exit to cut costs - and some might welcome an opportunity to quit NATO altogether.

Turkey only has to raise the mere prospect of a Charter call in private and let the other NATO members watch how the U.S. reacts. If NATO is then exposed, through America's blinkered support for Israel, as being stamped "for American use only", then NATO is finished. Turkey will be well aware that Obama can't let it come to that. He'd go down in the textbooks as an even bigger foreign policy failure than Dubya, having destroyed America's shining example of Western alliance.

The Pentagon already knows all this, as does State - and by now someone outside Clinton's circle is bound to have whispered it in Obama's ear.

There's only a limited window offering ways out that doesn't end in disaster for U.S. long-term foreign policy: Obama will have to wring concessions out of Israel or force the pro-Israel lobby to accept a great deal of distancing from Israel in U.S. policy. However, if in a few weeks Israel attacks vessels under Turkish naval escort - or worse, attacks Turkish warships - all bets are off.