One of the interesting aspects of yesterday’s New York Times Magazine cover story about Israel’s decision whether or not to strike at Iran’s nuclear program came from a passage in which author Ronen Bergman describes his meeting with former Mossad chief Meir Amit. Amit, who headed Israel’s intelligence agency at the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, described a meeting with the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv during the lead up to that conflict. According to the transcript of the meeting, which was given to Bergman, the American spy threatened Israel and did all in his power to prevent the Jewish state from acting to forestall the threat to its existence from Egypt and other Arab states that were poised to strike.
The lessons of this confrontation certainly put Israel’s current dilemma about attempting to pre-empt Iran’s ability to threaten the Jewish state with extinction via a nuclear weapon in perspective. Bergman provides no firm answer to the question of whether or not Israel will go ahead and strike Iran even if, as was initially the case in 1967, it must happen over the objections of the United States. But he does attempt to give a coherent framework for how the decision can be made as well as providing a bit more background on the chief Israeli critic of a strike on Iran.
According to Bergman, Israel has three criteria for deciding to act on their own on Iran:
1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?
2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?
3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?
For the first time since the Iranian nuclear threat emerged in the mid-1990s, at least some of Israel’s most powerful leaders believe the response to all of these questions is yes.
I’m not sure he’s right about that, especially when it comes to the first two points. While Israel can inflict serious damage on Iran, there’s no question that to do the job properly it will require American involvement. And though it may well be that ultimately the Obama administration will give Israel the same blinking green light it got in 1967, a close read of most of the statements coming out of Washington lately on the subject may lead to a different answer. It remains to be seen whether Obama is more afraid of the terrible consequences of an Iranian nuclear device for the world as well as Israel as he is of the fallout from an Israeli attack. Elsewhere in the piece, Bergman presents an Israeli assessment of what many believe is a feckless American stand on the issue that seems more the product of magical thinking than an analytic process:
“I fail to grasp the Americans’ logic,” a senior Israeli intelligence source told me. “If someone says we’ll stop them from getting there by praying for more glitches in the centrifuges, I understand. If someone says we must attack soon to stop them, I get it. But if someone says we’ll stop them after they are already there, that I do not understand.”
Just as fascinating is his account of the activities of Meir Dagan, another former Mossad chief who has been quoted incessantly in the American press largely because he is a vocal critic of the idea of an Israeli strike on Iran.
Bergman allows Dagan his say on the matter in which he bitterly criticizes both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Defense Minister Ehud Barak. But his is one of the rare accounts in the U.S. press to also note the spymaster carries a political grudge against the two because they did not reappoint him to his position after the fiasco in which Mossad personnel were exposed while carrying out a hit on a Hamas terrorist in Dubai.
Though he is often represented in the Western press as someone who minimizes the danger from Iran, Bergman also corrects this impression. Dagan seems as intent on stopping Iran as Netanyahu and Barak, but he thinks it can be better achieved by Mossad’s cloak-and-dagger assassinations of Iranian scientists and/or sabotage of Iranian facilities. But it’s far from clear the Iranians haven’t already overcome those tactics.
The other Israeli critic of a strike on Iran that he cites is Rafi Eitan, the 85-year-old former spook whose most famous achievement in his field was the Jonathan Pollard disaster (something Bergman fails to note). He believes it is a foregone conclusion that Iran will go nuclear and thinks the only way to avert the danger is to promote regime change. While the replacement of the Islamist dictatorship with a democratic government would be an improvement, waiting around for that to happen doesn’t seem particularly prudent, especially when you consider the consequences.
Bergman’s conclusion is Israel will attack Iran sometime this year because of a growing consensus it has no choice but to do so. If Barack Obama wishes to avert that outcome, he is going to have to prove to the Israelis he means business about sanctions that will bring the Iranian economy to its knees. But given the ambivalent signals emanating from Washington on that subject, everything Netanyahu and Barak are hearing is more likely to be hardening their conviction that, as Bergman writes, “only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.”
This is yet another instance of Obama's putty-like exterior on foreign policy. At moments when he ought to be decisive, he urges caution. Caution has an inexorable supply, but the time to act is comparatively brief. n nRegarding: n"And though it may well be that ultimately the Obama administration will give Israel the same blinking green light it got in 1967, a close read of most of the statements coming out of Washington lately on the subject may lead to a different answer." n nObama is a president that requires close reading because he palter. When it comes to his speeches, press statements, and interviews, his statements have layers built like a Rorschach test on which the reader is urged to transfer his own perceptions. This ought to be aggravating on any issue, but is especially aggravating on issues of national security. Your close reading (albeit, the hypothetical reading you can only speculate is correct) seems a valid worry. Is he more worried about an Israeli attack on Iran than a nuclear Iran? n nI'm afraid that the current administration is more likely to see the primacy of magical thinking over analysis, and fantasy over reality. The perfect example is waiting for Iranian democracy. That's really idealistic, maybe even Panglossian.
Aaron, my only disagreement is the difficulty of divining Obama's statements. The key is quite simple: completely and totally disregard anything and everything he *says* and focus only upon that which will aid in his re-election. n nSo, in this case, the puzzle to solve for Israel would be whether, on balance, U.S. complicity or opposition to an Israeli strike on Iranian facilities would be better for reelection. Or to be more precise, whether Obama (and his advisers) believe assisting Israel would be best for reelection. Israel doesn't need someone from the State Dept. to gloss Obama's words. They simply need to a political consultant like a Dick Morris et al who can accurately read what Obama is being advised on the political fallout of this issue.
The U.S. Chief of Staff Dempsey gave the answer to the questions you raise in this article. Israel and the U.S. see the threat differently, and up until this morning, when Secretary Panetta stated the Iranians will have the bomb in a year or less, a completely different assessment of the time line involved. The very unfortunate reality is that Obama, Clinton, Dempsey and Panetta have given Israel no reason to trust our statements or our judgement on the matter. Considering Obama's open and very personal hostility towards Netanyahu and Clinton's feckless statements on existing agreements between the United States and Israel regarding the Palestinians why should they? The fact that Clinton has made it very clear through her surrogates that she won't even meet with Israel's Foreign Minister when he is, in fact, one of the decision makers on whether Israel will strike Iran is just another example of the Obama's studied hostility towards the Jewish state and an example of Clinton's complete lack of skills and courage. Consider israel's view on this for a moment, Clinton and Obama will encourage meetings with the Mulsim Brotherhood and the Taliban but won't meet with Lieberman. To play these games with a nation that has an arsenal of nuclear weapons, some experts believe there are a number of H bombs in that arsenal, is mind boggling considering the moment. Does any serious person in the U.S. government, if there are any left, really believe if push comes to shove, Netanyahu won't opt to use them if he has no other choice. You can bury your facilities below 220 feet of rock but it makes no difference to an H bomb.
Well, that's just it. An H-bomb is something more than pre-emption. Nuclear weapons are not weapons as much as they are unleashed cosmic events–they are literally chain reactions exploiting the must fundamental physical properties to release energy exponentionally beyond the scale of chemical explosives. Go back and run those film loops. Maybe with low-yield neutron bombs you can keep the casualities under, what? 10,000, 20,000 so forth. Fire to fight fire? Miscalculations in a preemptive nuclear attack could play out with nuclear weapons. Iran is on the only potential nuclear-armed opponent. There's always Pakistan. Just sayng. Tel Aviv is mostly above ground.
Perhaps, but do not forget that nukes can be detonated in may ways with varying effects. n nOne way is to detonate the device a precise altitude above the target such that there is no, noticeable radiation effect upon the population but an enormous and debilitating effect upon all electronic systems within line of sight of the blast. This is the so-called electro magnetic pulse (EMP) effect. This effect can be limited by the altitude and yield of the blast to a fairly small area. So, for instance, an EMP attack against Iranian oil facilities or command and control facilities or nuclear research facilities would literally fry the electronics of anything not hardened in that area, whether above or below ground. It's possible that the Iranians have hardened some of their most critical functions but an EMP attack would cripple everything else in the area that depended upon or used electricity to function. An EMP strike would be far more restrained than a nuclear blast at ground level and would not require large strike force of aircraft. Conceivable could be launched from a submarine.
um, I think this is still in doubt–this is a nuke–wouldn't it fry the electronic and microwave infrastructure of a huge portion of the country–plus there are sure to be localized deaths on mass school, googling around doesn't offer an optimistic prospect for a localized effect
Yes it is a nuke but it is detonated far enough above the target that it would not inflict casualties on the population. n nThe main effect, as you note yourself, is to fry all electronics but the effect is limited to line of sight. So, if we roughly take 25 miles as line of sight at sea level due to curvature of the earth (which is how the Navy figures how far to stay away from shoreline defenses), then the radius of the EMP effect would be expand from 25 miles outward depending upon how high up the blast is located. The blast would have to be located high enough to avoid the casualties, obviously. The EMP work that I am familiar with has studied the effects of an EMP strike high above the central part of the U.S. such that the EMP effect would be in line of sight of all but the edges of the U.S. and would have a devastating effect upon all electrical devices. A frightening scenario for which the U.S. is not, at present, prepared. But the effect can be limited by exploding the device at a lower level to limit the affected areas. (Unless, of course, Israel wished to totally wipe out the entire Iranian electrical grid. That would certainly limit Iran's ability to do much of anything. It would also require massive foreign aid to keep the country from starving to death as there would be no refrigeration, all cars made after 1978 would not operate, no communications, no sanitation systems working… basically it effectively sends the area affected back to the 18th Century).
Tobin simply argues that the military option is not hopeless. Iran is not invulnerable. This doesn’t sound particularly controversial until you consider how many supposed “realists” treat with the contrary proposition as a default axiom, a matter that must be taken on faith. n nHere is the result of the voluntary blindness (deafness) of Western “realists”. Iran is following a 2-track policy: First, rattle sabres, threaten Israel and the US with destruction (which they cannot yet carry out); and at the same time, flout the world as you openly develop the weapons that will make the first policy possible. n nAnd the US policy? Admit military impotence (even shrink our own forces), worry about offending Iran, and put off serious sanctions until we can be sure they won’t affect oil prices. n nI don’t know what Israel should or will do about Iran. But it seems obvious what America and our president should do. n nAmerica should say to Israel and the world, both privately and openly, that we will stand by Israel with our full support in whatever actions its government decides are necessary to meet the Iranian threat.
I think that the Israelis should tell Obama he has six month to make sanctions work otherwise Israel reserves the right to strike at will. That should put the wind up Congress to turn the heat up on Obama and put real and effective sanctions in place. Nobody wants to see an Israeli strike against Iran but Obama is only making such a eventuality more likely. The option of a peaceful settlement is there. It's now up to Obama whether or not he wants to use it.
Greg, with respect, six months is way too late. Look at the situation from the Israeli perspective: n n1. The Obama administration has proven feckless and does not back up the empowerment Congress has given it to place heavy pressure on the Iranian Central bank. n n2. The EU won't stop using Iranian oil until May, June or July depending on whose schedule you read, if ever. The Israelis see them as playing a double game and gambling for time. n n3. The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Indians have told us to stick it as far as boycotting Iranian oil and as predicted have even upped their buying in anticipation of a Hormuz closure. n n4. The Russians are cheerleading Iran's chief ally Syria, defending them in the UN, selling them modern weapons and porting their ships in Syrian ports while at the same time offering to build additional reactors in Iran. They've also lied about the Iranians not being able to produce plutonium rods at Busheshar. n n5. The window on a conventional attack on Iranian nuclear facilities has closed as the Iranians disperse facilities in deeply buried nuclear processing plants and weapons manufacturing facilities. n n6. Most importantly, the U.S. has a different view of the danger of a nuclear armed Iran then the Israelis do never mind the fact that the Israelis have no trust in the American administration. Remember 1973 when Kissinger convinced the Israelis not to strike pre-emptively because he wanted to bring the Jews down a peg or two. No one is Israel has forgotten that or the threats prior to their 1967 attack. n nThe moment is now. Netanyahu, if anyone in Washington understood him now or ever, sincerely believes he has a historic role to prevent another genocide on the State of israel and the Jewish people. Read his father's books – Ben Zion Netanyahu is the reference. The Israelis will strike with the intent of permanently crippling Iranian efforts, and that can only mean one thing – a nuclear attack. It is the Sampson moment.
Panetta estimates one year to a device another to delivery system. n nRight now there are pieces of both This column is inaccurate or irresponsibly imprecise. nIn 1967 Israel faced conventional and IMMINENT existential danger. With Iran Israel faces catastrophic but long-term danger. In 1967 the danger was immediate. In 1973 Golda found out about the coming attack houre before it began. The existential danger is multiples beyond the 1967 war, how many depends on your assessment of Iran, but Iran does not yet have a nuclear device OR a delivery system. Israel has once again moved forward its we-must-do-something window, now 6-9 months to summer. Panetta sez 1 year to weapon if the decision is made to start manufacture, 1 year beyond for delivery system. Whether or not Obama is a sell-out there's time.
Well I agree that an H bomb or any nuke is more then pre-emption, but I think that's the point for the Israelis on this one. When they go, it will be for keeps. They can't afford to let the Iranians get the bomb in the first place or let them recover from an attack that delays their nuclear program 1 – 3 years. Worse then doing nothing. I know my argument sounds inhumane and irrational, and for extra measure I'm not Dr. Strangelove, but this is the Sampson moment for the Israelis. This is not a purely rational thing for Netanyahu. It is about pure survival. I don't believe they'll hold anything back. I'm sure the Pakistanis will think more then twice about striking Tel Aviv. The Russians and Chinese are more likely to lash out. I suggest to really understand the Israeli mindset on this read Ben Zion Netanyahu.
Well, yeah, when you are Samson pulling down the temple, make a big noise-but Sampson intended to d-i-e. I know that Ben Zion did excellent work on persecution of Marrano Jews and the innovation of blood-based anti-antisemitism, for sure he should be on all of our reading lists. Lord knows the Jewish state is facing a nasty set of Hobson's choices in a cruel world with totally unreliable allies (somehow Russia and China avoid excoriating their BFF's in a llitany of oy vey's before scuttling unwanted Security Council action) but a Samson option is a Masada option. If that's the mind-set going in you still loose no matter how many of your enemies you crush under the rubble. n n& if the conzeptia is to hold a nuclear pistol to the nations' collective thick skulls, counting on avoiding a Mexican standoff through sheer balls or divine intervention, well, hopefully there's time left yet to see how Russia and China game out their deterrence strategies.
Your point's well made but Ben Zion also believed that a Jewish homeland had to guarantee Jewish security world wide as well as the security of the State of Israel and would and must use any method necessary to deter and fight against Jew haters. He also believed that Jewish history dictated this constant battle which repeated itself through the blood animosity towards Jews in multiple societies. Jews in the United States live in a complete bubble. In this regard they are like the Jews of Germany in the 20s and 30s. As to your point about self destructing, it's hardly necessary to conceive of a well planned attack against Iran being totally nuclear and a self destruct. If I were Israel, I would close off the Straights of Hormuz which would rapidly bankrupt Iran. Iran's threat not to export oil is a bluff and a close off of Hormuz is a complete bluff. Once that occurred, I would go after their industrial base that's above ground including their petroleum refining plant which is highly vulnerable as well as their vulnerable port facilities. Iran imports almost everything it uses. Following that I would destroy land routes into Iran and save facilities like Fordo for the nukes limiting their use to only those few underground facilities that couldn't be destroyed by bunker busters. Lastly, I would destroy their oil field production capacity. As far as Hezbollah is concerned, I'd make it completely clear that Beirut was very high on my target list. Ditto Damascus. Let them figure out how to deal with that threat. It's interesting that just tonight Leon Panetta, an Obama clone, stated clearly and very aggressively on the evening news that a U.S. military option was now on the table. Do you really think that this complete change of direction and attitude on the part of the U.S. is accidental or incidental to what the Israelis are up to? My belief is that Israeli missiles have been fueled and the warheads attached. The planes are on the runway fueled and armed, and the mobilization orders to the Israeli reserves have been cut and are merely awaiting announcement.
I just disagree with you on Israel being ready to attack. It's not a head fake but everyone is playing angles and Obama is a leftist but sees the whole Arab-Islamists thing turning into a mess and he is trying to wrap his sheltered ideological head around a world he doesn't want to go kablooey and in which he doesn't want to have to put up any decisive skin in the game–hence the endless farces being played for a sucker by the Chinese, the Russians and every 3-card monte guy on the block. on the other hand he also wants to find some common ground with those Zionists because they are at least not totally bat sh_t crazy. So he and Panetta adjust and tweak and send out Ross to talk to Bibi and work the sanctions and kick that can down the road. But, man oh man, the menu of objectives you put forth is immense–if misplayed or mistimed the immediate losers could be Western Europe and not Iran. But closing off the Straits, land routesm, industrial base, petroleum plants, nukes as super bunker busters, threats to Beirtus. Wow. The 1982 war against the PLO and its allies had objectives more modest than that by a handful and Israel couldn't close the deal or keep it together. Going in every one was go go go but one bomb planted by guys working for Assad Sr.. one bomb blew away Bashir Gemayel and the whole fabric began to go sideways and it hadn't really been too solid before that. I'm sorry, I just don't think Israel has the logistical reach you assume. Moving their artillery and their supplies into central Lebanon and the Baeka is about it and then it gets hinky. Damascus is due east on the Golan Plateau so you can reach that. But Israel is a small country and to get up to complete strength, unlike the US, it can't rely on its permanent army but has to call up its reserves (virtually its entire male population up to, say 45) and then the civilian economy–the whole advanced tech entrepreneurial engine that fuels Israel's economic strength comes under severe stress. Long wars are very difficult for Israel and long is measured in weeks to months, not months to years. Not least, yes, because Jews are never completely at home in this world. But we can't despair, we must use our sechel to suss out the painful choices and doubts. I think you are assuming bountiful reserves of manpower and strength and munitions and resources Israel does not possess. imo
Disagree that Israel needs to go full nuclear to take out the nuke threat. See comment above about using an EMP strike instead. Also, why do you think the U.S. has supplied Israel with the massive bunker buster bombs? Israel no doubt has told the U.S. that it would hv to use nukes to get at the buried facilities unless they get those, so the bunker busters were delivered. Apparently an even bigger one is on the way. n nAlso, absolutely no way that Israel closes the Straits of Hormuz. The U.S. would never stand for that. And it's completely unnecessary. Israel doesn't need to deny all shipping thru the Straits, just Iranian oil flow. It can do that in any number of ways by targeting Iranian oil facilities etc… n nRussians aren't going to do anything meaningful. They are way too hollow militarily and they have no, real stakes in the game. Neither do the Chinese when it comes down to it. Although it wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese took the opportunity to take Taiwan while America is preoccupied with Iran, sort of a tit for tat.
Or: Hezbollah methodically unloads its missile force on Israel's north. After a day's deliberation the Sovie…Russia targets the Beersheva desert with one or two demonstration armed ICBMs and begins to airlift troops into the region. OPEC immediately votes to suspend its oil sales to the United States. Gas lines began to spread across the country as supply is disrupted and reports of death by radiation began to come in from Iranian cities. Russia explains that targeting of Beirut will result in the targeting of Israeli cities. Demands are made by adhoc coalition of Russia, China and several nations of the EU for Israeli strategic reversal of some sort–an immediate opening of its nuclear forces to foreign supervision and foreign expeditionary force on the West Bank; Israel will find itself in a direct confrontation with hostile nuclear powers while Hezbollah missiles, joined by Russian ordinance fall on her cities. Sea assets begin to make their way to the coast of Israel. Also, Israel can't survive as a robust state in an effective trade boycott. It will hemorrhage population. The success of your plan depends on Israeli foes not kicking things up to their next level and Israeli friendlies not deciding to be foes. The very use of nuclear weapons makes retaliatory use that much more likely. imo the Hezzies don't operate in force outside their country. Generally this will be an unprecedented situation, use of nuclear weapons by a power that didn't have a monopoly on them. I am not convinced we can, now, predict outcomes, as the environment will have been dynamically altered by their use and our predictions assume patters pre-first strike. I would expect the unexpected, outside the box of any pre-strike projections or scenarios. The failure of one level of violence to achieve its goals doesn't guarantee that the next level of violence up will be more effective. The Frodos may dither but not the Battagalias. And meanwhile Iran as of now does not have the weapon you seek to preempt through all of this.
Sounds very similar to what happened in the '67 and '73 wars. The Russians threatened to drop 50,000 paratroopers into the Sinai and Israel and they may very well threaten again, but please do read a summary of Putin's PhD thesis. Crippling Iran as an oil and natural gas supplier plays right into his hands. Crib notes – He sees Russia restored to power and a major controlling force in Europe through their gas supplies. Also, threatening to attack Israel directly instead of through proxies has never been the Russian way. Except for Georgia and the Japanese in WWII when have they ever attacked anyone? Georgia was a shot across the bow to the U.S. and NATO. Japan was just an opportunity to control Manchuria and Korea. Why risk it all when you really get what you want – economic control of Western Europe without firing a shot. Putin and the Russians are way too clever for that. Look at what they're doing in Syria. Exactly what the U.S.should have done in Egypt and Libya if we had anyone with any brains running our country. The Russians don't want the MB in power any more then the Israelis do. As for trading partners, the EU are whores and a paper tiger. Israel could easily peel off severn or eight countries in the first six months to do business with. Korea and Japan won't make a fuss. Korea is too interested in trading arms with israel. China may yell and scream but a threat to help re-arm Taiwan with modern weapons would certainly catch their attention. And let's not forget, the Russians and the Chinese certainly don't want to get nuked in return. They are players with too much at stake as the U.S. sinks below the waves with Captain Obama going down with the ship.
That was in 73. In 67 the war didn't last long enough for outside intervention AFIK The US military says that those bunker busters don't work against hardened facilities like Iran's. In 1973 Nixon put America on full DefCon, yes? Then Russia backed down but on understood condition that the US shut down Israel's encirclement of the Egyptian Sixth Army. We just said that Russia threatened to attack Israel directly. That's the lead here. In 1973. They threatened. They attacked Afghanistan.
You guys are talking about dropping a nuke. Oh, and they attacked Finland. Oh and they rolled through Eastern Europe and took over, well, in 1939 Poland, and after the war the rest of the Baltic States. They've attacked Georgia in a proxy war. They leveled Chechnya post Soviet. There are a lot of assumptions. You cannot assume what the other sides with nukes wil do. You have no idea. Wars do not turn out like their planners intend and that applies to nuclear war as well and with that first nuke you've started one. Your relying on the unproven (because this has never happened before) assumption that your first salvo starts and ends it. Well, if it don't? For all you know the Russians and Chinese and do some back of the envelope calculations and decide Israel doesn't have a credible second-strike capability and they gots thousands and thousands of first strike nukes to play with. Let's play with MIRVS. n n
There is no reason to believe that an EMP strike will change counterstrike calculations–basically instead of taking out the facilities you do Iran a favor by taking out their functioning civilization still risking mass localized casualties. n nBut hey, would you guys go into a house where there was a really bad guy. Spawn of bin Laden and Hitler and ten thousand demons or whatever. And kill the guy and then, because he's hiding out in a children's hospital, methodically go through and shoot everyone in the facility? Say three hundred people, All the nurses, the children, the doctor's, the babies, the visitors, the janitors, everyone. Because you are talkiing about massive civilian casualites immediate or delayed as if they were numbers or abstractions or a video game. This isn't Judaism, isn't current conventional IDF fighting doctrine which still seeks to minimize civilian casualties or isolate a battlefield of its civilian presence and highly unlikely to be Israeli strategic doctrine for use of their nuclear assets.
Wrong besht. The EMP strike only causes civilian casualties if it encompasses very large areas such that the people living in the affected area have no ability to be given relief. n nBut to your larger point, what is the Samson doctrine all about? Bringing the house down on everyone. EVERYONE. I'm not advocating that here. But that is part of Israeli strategic thinking as a last resort. And, more generally speaking, have you heard of the concept of total war? It wasn't that long ago that German civilians were being killed en masse by indiscriminate Britsh and American strategic bombing. Heck, even French civilians got plastered by the pre-Normandy bombing. The West has had the luxury of limiting civilian casualties and waging extremely limited, "humane" (if there is such a thing) wars, but that is a historical anomaly. There is every reason to believe that the Iranian Mullahs do not subscribe to limited war and it may, sadly, be the only way to defeat them is to resort to all-out warfare. n nAn EMP strike would not be without casualties, but it would be far, far less than a ground blast (unless the Israelis have figured out a way to smuggle a nuclear device into the underground nuke facilities and detonate it there).
Before reading this article and comment thread, I had a fair idea about COMMENTARY and its audience: intelligent, conservative Zionists. I see I was quite wrong. For "intelligent" and "conservative" substitute "murderous" and "radical". You hypothesize all sorts of cold-blooded scenarios for an Israeli or Isramerican attack on Iran, then assume rational responses from all the counterparties and derive a "satisfactory" outcome. History doesn't work that way: cf. 1914/1939. On the other hand, if post-holocaust Zion's real goal is the destruction of the world, then you are clearly on the right path.
First of all, the article is not not not not talking Dr. Strangelove responses which I do not bleieve are anywheres in Israeli defense doctrine. At all. Also, you really don't know that the most "enthusiastic" proponents of launching nukes are really the most familiar with Jewish day schools or Jewish teachings of ethics or whatever–you just don't know that. Any more than the varous anti-Semites who show up thinly reveling in the murder of Zionists/Jews are representatives of post-holocuast Zion. I agree that 1914 is as likely an outcome as any other. FYI it may be illegal under codes of conduct for a member of Zahal, the Israelli Defense Forces to follow an order for a pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons absent an imminent existential attack near or in progress. IDF members used to be instructed that international law post Holocaust precisely prohibited the "I was following orders" defense in tribunals of war crimes. The officers added that, of course they wouldn't be issuing illegal orders but the lesson was that illegal orders should not be followed by soldiers.
Alot of us are not zionists at all, thank you very much. n nBut what, precisely, is your objection? Is it immoral to hypothesize the options that Israel has in the face of a clearly Hitlerian Iranian Regime that has clearly stated over and over its desire to "eliminate" all of the Jews living in Israel? Do you think that the readers of Commentary are the only ones who are thinking through the various scenarios? n nAnd what, exactly, is your prescription for Israel? If you had the decision in your hands, what would you counsel? You have an American president who has taken every opportunity to undercut your negotiating positions with the Arabs while cuddling up to Islamists like Erdogan and fawning at the feet of the Saudis and Iranians (not to mention the Russians and Chinese). Your intel service (the best in the world) tells you that the Iranians are likely less than a year from having a working nuclear device and that the Iranians have been actively working with the Chinese and the North Koreans on fitting a nuclear payload to their existing Shahab missiles so they are ready to launch from day one. n nIt's easy to pass moral judgments on others. What do you suggest counselor that would be so much, more reasonable and less murderous? Would you prefer the dead to be Israelis living in Tel Aviv? Do the Iranian people not share some moral responsibility in allowing such monsters as Ahmadinnerjacket to continue to rule?
'You' may not all be Zionists but that doesn't mean you're not infected , too. Apparently reasonable and reasoning, you're just as bug-dirt crazy as the 'Hitlerians' you choose to describe running Iran. Maybe even more so, for Iran hasn't been susceptible to the innate paranoia that has launched the IDF across borders in any number of 'pre-emptive' strikes against 'perceived' threats. n nThat someone in Iran might express a wish to expunge the Zionist entity (and that's what "achmedinnerjacket" called it, not JEWS) in the middle east, is, in some peoples' estimation much akin to wanting to elimiinate Apartheid in South Africa, or Naziism in Germany. All three political; systems are, essentially, racist. There IS a demonstrable 'existential threat' to muslims and Arabs from a growing Zionist 'Eretz Yisroel' movement. n nIn light of the current situation, is Iran a threat to Israel? The immediate answer is "No." n nWhat should Israel do? Well, get a grip might be a first suggestion. (Israel had no problem dealing jet parts to the ayetollehs to help America's Sandinista revolution or helping out against Iraq.). Then make peace with the neighbours. Since you moved (back) into the neighborhood some 55 years ago, there has been little but misery and chaos. If 'joyful' Israel can 'green the desert', why not share the gift with everyone? Peace in Israel might do a lot more good than interminable security exercises. n nUnless, of course, all that 'good' that's been done is just more shtetl-style lashon hara and shava.