“Carter knows he can't change any minds, so he going with a package of bribes to tone down the Israeli opposition,” Executive Intelligence Review Senior Editor Jeff Steinberg told Sputnik on Monday.
On Monday and Tuesday, Carter is visiting Israel in a three-stage tour of the Middle East that will continue in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
On Monday, Carter pledged to maintain US funding for the Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense systems at a press conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon.
Steinberg said Carter was going to provide Israel with a massive new package of some of the most advanced weapons in the US military arsenal.
The expert noted the weapons would include deep-penetration or “bunker buster” bombs, F-35s stealth fighter jets as well as laser defense for Israel’s defective Iron Dome.
“The Iron Dome system “is actually more appropriately [called] Iron Swiss cheese, because it has so many holes that Hezbollah can penetrate,” Steinberg said.
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry believed that by dramatically showing increased military support for Israel they would reduce the opposition to the Iran nuclear deal in the US Senate, Steinberg continued.
“Obama feels he has enough votes to block a veto override [in the Senate], if it comes down to that in 60 days,” the analyst said.
However, Steinberg pointed out, the US President realized he still confronted massive domestic political opposition to ratification of the Iran nuclear agreement.
“AIPAC [America-Israel Public Affairs Committee] has put up $20-40 million for an ad campaign, led by [former US Senators] Joe Lieberman, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu and Evan Bayh and [former US Congresswoman] Shelley Berkley — all Democrats,” he added.
Former US Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, an expert on Middle East modern warfare and decorated veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, told Sputnik on Monday that President Obama’s political strategy to get the nuclear deal approved was likely to succeed.
"There is no support [among the American public] for attacking Iran,” he said.
The Republicans had succeeded in amassing massive financial support from pro-Israel leaders in the American Jewish community, but such conservative opposition to the nuclear agreement would not succeed, Macgregor predicted.
“Now it's time for the Republican Party’ to move on,” he said.
Macgregor concluded that proposed scenarios to use US military power against Iran if it broke or abandoned the nuclear agreement is pure fantasy.
