Israel 'Will Attack Iran' Before New US President Sworn In, John Bolton Predicts

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 6-23-2008 | Toby Harnden

[blam]

Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 9:18PM BST 23/06/2008

John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.

Bolton: 'the argument for military action is sooner rather than later'

The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.

"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.

Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.

"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."

Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.

"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .

"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the

[Convert from ECUSA]

Brother, I sure wish you were President!

[blam]

BTTT

[dervish]

why?

[dervish]

What a difference a Defense Minister makes.

Then: Amir Peretz, an unqualified political appointee

Now and when Syria was bombed : General Ehud Barak

Barak may be a leftist, but he is a first class general.

[seekthetruth]

Hate to think of what would take place if Obama just happened to become President!

[steve86]

Israel can detonate some small nukes in the ionosphere and fry all the electronics in a sizable area within Iran.

EMP has never been effective against military targets, even their mostly geriatric ones which are still semi-hardened. If you're close enough to a military target to damage it with EMP you're close enough to damage it with high explosives. Also not clear if Israel has the specialized EMP warheads, and if they used large general purpose warheads in the atmosphere, well, the whole world would then be at war with Israel.

That wouldn’t kill the civilians, but would render a response from Ahmadinejad impossible.

You're forgetting what embedded cells overseas can do even if the EMP thing worked (it won't).

[nuconvert]

pong

[redgolum]

I doubt the Iraqi government would allow this. We could force them to, but to do so would kind of invalidate the whole nation building thing.

So that leaves cruise missile strikes. Sorry guys, I don't think this is going to happen. If it does, then we better have a plan to pull a “Xenophon” with the guys left in Iraq, because dang near every Iraqi will turn on us.

[Ulysse]

“Bolton/Anyone else that McCAIN”...
Couldn’t you stop with that endless stuff.That’s non sense!
By “Anyone” do you include OUBAMA?
Thank you to be clearer

[af_vet_rr]

I thought it was congress that determined the size of the military. Certainly they control the appropriations for it.

Apologies for the late response, lost the thread in the shuffle. You are correct, only Congress can handle the appropriations for a larger military. However, Congress has made it clear they do so only at the recommendation of the Commander in Chief. He did not push for an increase in the size of the military, even though members of Congress made it clear they would have supported him on the issue and supported raising the caps (in fact I believe McCain was a very vocal supporter of this). It was very clear we were about to enter a war that was going to take a long time to fight and that after all of the cuts made with the first Bush and then Clinton, we were needing a lot more people. Instead, Bush has relied on stop-loss and on the IRR and on the active National Guard and Reserve components. That can only take us so far (and it has).

[prairiebreeze]

I’m wondering if Rumsfeld’s input carried quite a lot of weight during that time. I still have a lot of respect for Rumsfeld although he clearly made the wrong decision about the troops surge.

Perhaps he listened to poor advice from inside the Pentagon, I don’t know.

[Postal Dude]

Hm, I think Bolton is right. I mean, he has insight in some “secrets”. I think he already knew, that Israel will strike, if Obama wins.

I also think, Biden, Powell and Albright did mean an Israeli attack on Iran with their talking about a international crisis.

[blam]

The clock is ticking. We’ll see.

[edge10]

Make it so!

We sure as heck won’t have the balls to do it!

Israelis, doing the jobs Americans won’t.