It’s worrying enough that Vivek Ramaswamy, the self-made billionaire who is now emerging as the Republican second most likely to secure his party’s nomination as the next US president, should have chosen to give an interview about foreign policy to the online talk show hosted by Russell Brand.
Lest we forget, the former comedian has spent the past few years deep in conspiracy theory rabbit holes, using his platform to peddle outlandish notions on Covid-19 vaccines and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while and granting airtime to the capo di tutto conspiratorial capi, David Icke.
More alarming is what Ramaswamy said: that the US should no longer give Israel what he called “special treatment”, and as the JC reported on Thursday, cut back on military aid.
Apparently anticipating some future diplomatic breakthrough, he said that by the end of his first term in 2028, the Jewish state would have no need of assistance, because it would be “more integrated in with its partners”.
Elsewhere, he has promised to pursue an “America First” approach even more vigorously than his rival, Donald Trump, who despite facing four criminal trials, remains the GOP frontrunner. “America First’ does not belong to Trump.
“It doesn’t belong to me,” he told ABC TV’s This Week. “It belongs to the people of this country. I think we take that agenda even further… And that’s what I’m bringing to this race.”
Lest we forget this too: America First was the slogan first popularised by Charles Lindbergh, the aviator turned fascist fellow-traveller who did all he could to prevent the US from taking part in World War Two, and accused “the British and the Jewish” of “pressing this country towards war”.
At the first Republican candidates’ debate, Ramaswamy was reprimanded for his statement by former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who commented: “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows”.
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Republican presidential candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy (L) and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted by FOX News at the Fiserv Forum on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
However, welcome as this was, Ramaswamy’s intervention does have one virtue: it has brought into the open an issue that is seldom discussed – the fact that Israel, which has relied so long on American help, may not be able to do so in future.
It is, of course, no secret that relations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden are frosty, at best. Israel – rightly, in my view – is aghast that despite overwhelming evidence of Iranian regime aggression and its drawing ever closer to becoming a nuclear-armed state, the US still seems determined to clinch some kind of renewed nuclear programme deal.
My guess is that these attempts will fail. But beneath the diplomatic surface lies a questionable assumption: that if Iran really were on the brink of acquiring a Bomb and an effective means of delivering it, Israel could and would stop this happening by military means, that it has the wherewithal to destroy the key Iranian facilities unilaterally, without US help. But is this assumption well-grounded – or a risky diplomatic bluff?
Some fear that it is. Recently I spoke with David Albright, the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, and one of the world’s foremost experts on nuclear proliferation, especially in relation to Iran. He told me that since 2009, when the Obama administration supplied Israel with what was then the world’s most advanced “bunker-busting” bomb, a 5,000lb device known as the GBU28, Iran’s ability to protect its underground nuclear facilities has grown significantly – perhaps to the point where they could withstand a unilateral Israeli strike.
There is a technological solution to this problem: the GBU28’s successor, the GBU72, which America successfully tested in 2021. It sounds perfect for the job: according to the US Air Force, these munitions were developed to “overcome hardened, deeply buried target challenges” in countries including Iran and North Korea.
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Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nation Nikki Haley speaks at an event hosted by Conservative radio host Erick Erickson on August 18, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
However, according to specialist military news websites, while Israel has asked America to supply them, there is no sign that it has, nor that it’s willing to do so – which would probably need approval from the Congress.
I’ve raised this matter with Israeli experts several times. I always get the same, reassuring answer: “Don’t worry, you can be confident that we don’t make empty threats.” I understand this: as much as Iran’s revolutionary ideologues still operate rationally, they need to be deterred. But what if Israel couldn’t actually do it without the GBU72? In that event, the noises made by figures such as Ramaswamy begin to sound more ominous.
According to Haley, “he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends, what you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.”
That means being ready to supply it with next-generation technology to curb a truly existential threat. If “America First” means a refusal to do so, the consequences of that policy need to be spelt out.
