An Israeli Strike on Iran, a Plan That Just Doesn't Fly

wasingtonpost.com ^ | August 10, 2008 | Bernard Avishai and Reza Aslan

[kellynla]

The Bush administration seems less and less likely to launch a parting strike on Iran's nuclear installations -- but Israel isn't sounding nearly so tranquil. The talk from Jerusalem will almost certainly grow more strident as the competition to replace the country's scandal-plagued prime minister, Ehud Olmert, intensifies. Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz is running hard against the less hawkish Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to succeed Olmert as leader of the governing Kadima Party; he recently told Israel's dominant daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, that an attack on Iran was "unavoidable." And Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing opposition leader who might well beat either Livni or Mofaz in a general election, is also likely to think seriously about a preventive Israeli raid.

Meanwhile, prominent Israeli military analysts, officials and writers are insisting that Iran constitutes a mounting "existential threat." Take one of the country's most important historians, the erstwhile dove Benny Morris, who recently predicted in the New York Times that "Israel will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months" -- roughly (and not inconveniently) the period between the U.S. presidential election and the departure of the Bush administration. Morris claimed that his view that Israel's existence was on the line is shared "across the political spectrum." In Israel today, anyone who resists such talk risks becoming an appeaser amid a chorus of Churchills.

Leave aside the possibility that the threat of an Israeli attack may be designed to give leverage to U.S. and European diplomats pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear efforts. Leave aside the question of whether, if you believed that such a strike was truly imminent, you'd predict it in a major newspaper.

[kellynla]

"Could Israeli threats be serious?"

Serious as cancer.

It's not a matter of "if" but "when"...

As the Israeli Air Force Chief said "We can not lose a single war. The first war we lose, Israel will cease to exist..."

[goldstategop]

There's a wall to wall to consensus in Israel on Iran. Israel cannot accept an Iranian Bomb. Its an existential issue and its only a matter of when not whether Israel will launch a military strike.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[SolidWood]

By Reza Aslan. An Iranian Mullah-tool who appears regularly on the MSM to yap how dumb and terrible Bush and the Neocons are. A smiley face, pseudo intellectual creep.

[NonValueAdded]

It will fail, just like the previous strikes against nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria. Oh, wait ...

[dr_who]

Reza Aslan (from wikipedia): "Despite the apartheid state that has resulted from over half a century of bloody territorial conflicts with its neighboring Palestinian territories, few would deny that the state of Israel is a democracy. At the same time, Israel is a country founded upon an exclusivist Jewish moral framework, which offers all the world's Jews - regardless of their nationality - immediate citizenship, providing them with a host of benefits and privileges over its non-Jewish citizens. It is a country in which the Orthodox rabbinical courts have jurisdiction over all matters relating to Judaism (including who is a Jew); where religious schools (yeshivas) are subsidized by the state, and marriages are religious, rather than civil affairs (meaning no official will marry a Jew to a non-Jew); and the government is dominated by religious parties such as the ultra-Orthodox Shas, the Yahadut Hatorah, and of course the ruling Likud. In short, Israel is, in every sense of the term, a Jewish democracy."

[shalom aleichem]

You have to wonder if there is some super weapon that could take care of this problem. (Like a blast that could create a containable blackhole within the Iranian borders, or an EMP of some sort). They say their nuke facilities are in reinforced concrete, etc. But you'd think we have progressed since developing “the Bomb” to some more weapons which are more surgical and versatile.

The trouble is that the USA may have the weaponry but Israel does not. Another Bay of Pigs in the making. Encourage the little guy to “go for it” and then withhold support.

[kellynla]

“You have to wonder if there is some super weapon that could take care of this problem?”

7.62

[Rummyfan]

You would think these idiots would have learned not to underestimate the Israelis by now. But then again they haven't learned in sixteen-hundrd years that their god is so weak that he needs them to die for him to spread his word.

[nuconvert]

“Reza Aslan. An Iranian Mullah-tool who appears regularly on the MSM to yap how dumb and terrible Bush and the Neocons are. A smiley face, pseudo intellectual creep.”

Yup! Thanks. You saved me the time to have to say it.

[SkyDancer]

The Revelation of John (Book of Revelations) says to “Watch Israel” ... who knows, we might see all the Apocalypse in our time ... better than watching CNN ....

[goldstategop]

Bernard Avishai is a Second Holocaust Far Leftist. I take the Iranian leadership at their word they want to wipe out Israel. Most Israelis are not prepared to wait to find out if it was a bluff all along. That's exactly why Iran cannot be allowed to get ahold of The Bomb.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Cold Heat]

The U.S. has tried many times, and failed to justify any remedial measure to interdict Iran's nuclearization.

The reasons are simple. The validation for the Iraq invasion failed to hold up in at least some areas. This is enough for the international community to ignore the problem, and we cannot do squat about it.

What we can do, is protect Israel when they intercede, and that will likely occur soon.

[Gay State Conservative]

Sounds like you’ve figured it out.All civilized people must *pray* that Israel strikes because God knows that *we* don’t have the guts and that *Europeans* don’t even see a problem here (in spite of what they might claim).

[kellynla]

“The trouble is that the USA may have the weaponry but Israel does not?”

Not according to this and this was in 2006:

“Israel is in the best position militarily in its history to mount air strikes against Iran, after a decade of buying U.S.-produced long-range aircraft, penetrating bombs and aerial refueling tankers...Israel has purchased 25 $84 million F-15I (I for Israel) Ra’am, a special version of the U.S. F-15E long-range interdiction bomber. It also is buying 102 of another long-range tactical jet, the $45 million F-16I Sufa. About 60 have been delivered.

The Jewish state also is buying 500 U.S. BLU-109 “bunker buster” bombs that could penetrate the concrete protection around some of Iran’s underground facilities, such as the uranium enrichment site at Natanz. The final piece of the enterprise is a fleet of B-707 air-to-air refuelers that could nurse strike aircraft as they made the 900-mile-plus trip inside Iran, dropped their bombs and returned to Israel.

“They have the capability to strike Iran,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney” \http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/jul/17/20060717-105737-9603r/

[dbacks]

My God is better’n his god. At least He has a better disposition!

[Cacique]

btt

[bajabaja]

The trouble is that the USA may have the weaponry but Israel does not. Another Bay of Pigs in the making. Encourage the little guy to “go for it” and then withhold support.

The difference between the Bay of Pigs and the Iran nuclear weapons issue is that if the Israeli action fails due to lack of support, the Iranians still have, or will have, a nuclear weapon. Cuba, at the time of the Bay of Pigs, did not have such a weapon. Though one can surmise that the Soviets armed Cuba with such, percipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis, because of the Bay of Pigs. It may help the analogy if you combine the Bay of Pigs with the Cuban Missile Crisis. That more accurately equates with the current situation. There is no "lag time" here -- as there was between the non-nuclear Bay of Pigs, and the CMC.

I wish Olmert had resigned immediately and that Bibi were in office, with clear and exact communications with a McCain administration. That would be the best team (given the current parameters) to face this and succeed.

Lots of things have to go "right." And that applies in several contexts.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah - can you imagine Israeli hater Carter being in office if Israel was attacked like in 1973? Nixon saved Israel then ... we would hope whoever is in office next will do the same ....

[hinckley buzzard]

None of these points mean that Ahmadinejad will stop blustering; he is a two-bit politician playing to his base

Boy this is a dangerous view--for Israel. It was the main reason more Jews didn't read the handwriting on the wall in 1930's Germany.

[fso301]

They say their nuke facilities are in reinforced concrete, etc. But you'd think we have progressed since developing “the Bomb” to some more weapons which are more surgical and versatile.

Titanium rods mounted atop an ICBM should be able to develop sufficient kinetic energy to impact with the energy of a tactical nuke. The only question is, are Israeli missles capable of launching large enough penetrators? If yes, the Iranians have zero defense against such weapon.