‘Israel is America’s attack dog in Middle East’

Israel has been armed and funded by the United States over the past sixty years and is playing the role of “the attack dog” in the Middle East, says Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center.

Iran’s call for diplomatic negotiations with the West to resolve the standoff over its nuclear energy program has deeply worried Israeli hawks who have been threatening to attack Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to the US soon after a trip to New York by an Iranian delegation headed by President Hassan Rouhani and his address before the UN that many in the West hailed as a first step to a possible resolution to the nuclear standoff.

Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday and one day later went to New York and told the UN General Assembly that Israel is ready to act alone against Iran. “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”

“Israel cannot act on its own. It doesn’t have either the equipment or the political, geopolitical position to act on its own. It has been armed, financed, diplomatically supported for more than sixty years by the US to play the role of being the attack dog in the region,” Flounders told Press TV in a phone interview on Thursday.

Deeply concerned about eased tensions between Iran and the US, Netanyahu asked Obama, during their meeting at the White House, to toughen the sanctions against Iran.

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington followed a landmark 15-minute phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani on Sep. 27 that became the first direct communication between the presidents of the two countries since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. During the call, the two presidents stressed Tehran and Washington’s political will to swiftly resolve the nuclear dispute.

Meanwhile, during a joint press conference with Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Thursday, both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel snubbed Israel’s pressure aimed at dissuading Washington from engaging with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

“Even while there’s talk of diplomacy, and we wish that talk well and we have every hope for it, we need to know that the Pentagon’s strategic planners plan war at every moment,” said Flounders.

“And, the real test will be: Will the sanctions on Iran, which are an act of war, will the sanctions end?” she added.