Obama Administration backs Bush Doctrine...if Israel's doing it

By Steve Hynd

Spencer Ackerman writes today: "you have in Netanyahu the one political leader who read George W. Bush�s 2002 National Security Strategy and thought, You know what, this might work."

We've seen Israel's willingness to make first strikes, or to instantly escalate to disporportionate force, several times in the last decade. In every instance, those attacked are blamed for provoking that attack - even if the violence was begun by Israel. The latest example is Israel's assault on the Gaza relief convoy.

The next may well be Iran. We can rely on US neoconservatives to back any such Israeli move, as is illustrated by a Heritage Foundation piece today which begins its 'talking points' with the ominous phrase "If Iran provokes an Israeli preventive strike against its nuclear program".

However, more worrying is the Obama administration's apparent willingness to condone Israel's embrace of aggressive warfare as a foreign policy panacea. Vice President Biden is now on record as saying Israel had a right to do what it did to the Gaza flotilla because it is at war. War with civilians on a humanitarian mission? That's Dubya thinking, right there, Joe!

Despite its earlier propaganda spin, there are no signs of any ties between the flotilla organisers and international terrorist group. And there are bound to be questions about a US citizen killed by the Israelis who was shot five times - four of those in the head and apparently at close range. Was he executed?

If he was, then the Israelis have their "you do it too" alibi ready:

Rejecting the proposed HRC investigation, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said demands for an external inquiry showed a double standard towards the Jewish state.

When American or British troops were accused of killing civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said, it was the US or Britain that carried out the investigation, not an international body.

Which statement shows the stupidity of ever hoping that asking foxes to investigate their own henhouse slaughters will provide fair and thorough results, rather than showing that Israel should allow itself the same impunity from accountability that the US or UK do. But the Obama administration are pushing for an Israeli, rather than UN, investigation anyway.

The new Obama administration National Security Strategy (PDF) was meant to be a moral statement about America's values as much as a military document. It says:

In all that we do, we will advocate for and advance the basic rights upon which our nation was founded, and which people of every race and region have made their own. We promote those values by living them, including our committment to the rule of law.

...Those nations that refuse to meet their responsibilities will forsake the opportunities that come with international cooperation...And if nations challenge or undermine an international order that is based upon rights and responsibilities, they must find themselves isolated.

Yet the Obama administration has a double standard. Biden also says Israel has the "sovereign right" to suddenly attack Iran. Aggressive, premeditated attacks are a crime against peace under international law - the greatest crime of all, as was understood by US judges at Nuremberg.

By Obama's own lights, Israel should be facing international isolation, led by America. Instead, the Obama administration is backing its right to pursue the Bush Doctrine of aggressive warfare in contravention of the rule of law. Not that the U.S. right is any less supportive of Israel's criminality.