More SERIOUS analysis from the DC Times. Arnaud de Borchegrave is always worth pondering on geopolitical and security issues.
All indications are that Israel does not plan to rely on either the U.N. or the United States. Vice President Dick Cheney said 18 months ago, “The Israelis may well decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.”
This is no surprise to the Chief. They really do mean it when they say “Never again!”
At Israel’s National Day reception in Washington last week, an Israeli official, speaking privately and not for attribution said he believed Israel would strike first in the next “month or two or three” and that fighter bombers would not be involved as they were to take out Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor before it went critical in 1981. For Osirak, Israel used 14 F-15s and F-16s. This time, the Israeli said, it will be missiles. Cruise missiles?, we inquired. No, he replied, with a gesture of his hand that went up and down again.
Whooosh-boom!
Could they actually pull it off themselves?
What about pinpointing tunnel entrances to widely scattered Iranian nuclear facilities? The Israeli responded Israel has its own geo-stationary spy-in-the-sky satellite taking constant pictures of Iran with a resolution down to 70 centimeters: “We know far more than anyone realizes.”
Israel has developed some 100 Jericho-II medium-range ballistic missiles (which entered service in 1989). Jericho II’s range varies from 1,500 to 3,500 kilometers, depending on payload weight. They are deployed in underground caves and silos.
Israel has several satellites in orbit — Ofeq-1 through Ofeq-5 — that were launched by Shavit space launch vehicles (SLV). The first two stages of the Shavit were Jericho II missiles. There are unconfirmed reports of an upgraded Jericho-3 missile with a range of over 3,000 kilometers.
Hmmmm. That’s enough to convince the Chief of their technical prowess!
So, where does this all leave us in the context of Ahm-mad-on-a-jihad Ahmadinejad’s Iran? The situation sounds like something about halfway through a Tom Clancy novel.
This time Iran has clearly signaled a casus belli to Israel. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares he intends to wipe Israel off the map and then goes to sea in a sieve by declaring the Holocaust a fiction, it is hard to escape the conclusion he wants Israel to bomb Iran.
A religious fanatic who believes the return of the 12th imam to Earth will be preceded by global death and destruction in his own lifetime, Mr. Ahmadinejad presumably sees an Israeli and/or U.S. attack against Iran closing Muslim ranks the world over against the imperialist infidels.
The State Department’s top proliferation official said the administration is determined to ensure “not one centrifuge spins in Iran.” Israel is certainly poised to stop the spinning.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Mr. Ahmadinejad a “psychopath who speaks like Hitler before taking power.” And Israel is not about to succumb to the appeasement of the 1930s. Or allow a suddenly conciliatory letter from Mr. Ahmadinejad to Mr. Bush to alter Israel’s view of mortal peril to its survival.
Can you say S-E-R-I=O-U-S? Ready or not, here it comes!