Was that a Green Light or Joe Being Joe?

Joe Biden's comment Sunday on "This Week" - which stated, essentially, that the United States wouldn't stand in the way of an Israeli attack on Iran - is being seen throughout the Middle East, including Israel, as a "green light" for such an attack. The White House has said that the statement was misinterpreted by the media.

Here's what Biden said:

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

Perhaps it wasn't a wink-and-a-nod. Perhaps it was just Biden saying the obvious: any sovereign nation has the right to defend itself. And perhaps it was just another one of those clumsy shoot-from-the-lip Bidengaffes that have plagued the man's entire career. After all, President Obama has made clear that the diplomatic approach rather than the bluster-and-threat of the Cheney-Bush years is now operative as regards Iran.

Be that as it may, when the Vice President goes on national television, after just returning from the Gulf, and instead of saying "I won't get into hypotheticals" says "we cannot dictate," observers are bound to inquire whether this was just another case of Joe being Joe or an intentional message from Team Obama. And if it was a message, was it meant for the Israelis, the Iranians or, maybe, the Russians?

To be sure, what Biden said is a far cry from John Bolton's reckless Op-eds calling now a propitious time for Israel to bomb Iran. And Biden's reply didn't, the White House later said, reflect any real change in the U.S. position. But it's nonetheless being taken, as can be seen in various Arab and Israeli media, as a kind of tacit thumbs-up for the Begin Doctrine.

While practicing with allies for future war is nothing new, such maneuvers are put into a new light under the circumstances, as seen in this report from the Jerusalem Post:

IAF planes will take part this year in a joint aerial exercise with a NATO-member state that cannot be identified.

In addition, later this month, the [Israeli] air force will send F-16C fighter jets to participate in the Red Flag exercise at the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. At the same time, several of the IAF's C-130 Hercules transport aircraft will participate in the Rodeo 2009 competition at the McChord Air Force Base in Washington state.

Defense officials said the overseas exercises would be used to drill long-range maneuvers. Last summer, more than 100 IAF jets flew over Greece in what was viewed as a test-run for a potential strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The Sunday Times also reported yesterday that the Saudis have okayed the use of its air space for an Israeli attack on Iran, a report that was quickly denied by both Prime Minister Netanyahu's office and the Saudis. However ...

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who recently visited the Gulf, said it was "entirely logical" for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.

Bolton, who has talked recently to a number of Arab leaders, added: "None of them would say anything about it publicly, but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success."

Since the Vice President chose to answer Stephanopoulos's hypothetical question, it's more than a little disturbing that he ignored the moral issue involved in striking facilities brimful of uranium. That would be a akin to a massive dirty-bomb attack on Iran. Leaving moral matters aside, there are logistical problems, as this excellent piece in The Atlantic from December 2004 lays out. In short, an Israeli attack would be far more complex and difficult than the successful blasting of the French-built Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981. And, if Iran isn't already planning to build nuclear weapons - a matter which remains in dispute - it would surely be on a fast-track to do so after an attack, just as Saddam Hussein was until his nuclear operations were permanently taken out in the first Gulf War.

Finally, there are the politics of the matter. Successful or not, any Israeli attack, which would be widely seen as having been given the go-ahead by Washington, especially after Biden's comment, would alter the dynamic for positive change in the Middle East engendered by Obama's Cairo speech and other fresh U.S. initiatives.

As Marc Lynch wrote Sunday at Foreign Policy, it is hard to understand why Biden would make a statement "which so radically undermines Obama's policy towards Iran." Whether it was a Bidengaffe, bad advice from the new folks at the NSC, an attempt to pressure Iran or make the Russians edgy, that statement needs far more pushback than the administration has so far given it. Most of all, everyone in Israel and the Arab world who took the Vice President's words to mean that Washington would not object to an attack on Iran need to hear an unmistakably clear statement to the contrary. And soon.