Israel to strike Iran within months: US






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by John Lyons, Middle East Correspondent BBC

THE US Defence Secretary believes Israel is poised to attack Iran in the first half of this year to stop Tehran's nuclear program, according to undisputed reports yesterday.

The prospect of war in the Middle East emerged after Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that Defence Secretary Leon Panetta saw "a strong likelihood" that Israel would strike Iran as early as April. Ignatius appears to have written the report after a background briefing in Brussels with Mr Panetta.

Mr Panetta was asked yesterday to confirm whether this was his view, and he said he was not disputing it, but then added: "What I think and what I view, I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody else."

The growing likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities was echoed by a range of Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

"If sanctions don't achieve the desired goal of stopping (Iran's) military nuclear program there will be a need to consider taking action," Mr Barak said. "A nuclear Iran will be more complicated to deal with, more dangerous and more costly in blood than if it were stopped today."

Israel's vice-premier, Moshe Ya'alon, rejected suggestions that because many of Iran's facilities were underground they were not able to be hit. "From my military experience, human beings will know how to penetrate any installation protected by other human beings," he said. "Ultimately, all the facilities can be hit."

Mr Ya'alon was in the US last week for discussions on Iran's nuclear program, as was Tamir Pardo, the head of Israel's intelligence service, Mossad.

Israel's greatest concern is that Iran will start to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level, which is 90 per cent, but in an underground facility that Israeli bunker-busting missiles will be incapable of reaching. At this point only the US, which has more penetrating bunker-busters, would be able to reach and damage the most deeply buried Iranian facilities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated his reluctance to leave Israel's fate dependent solely on US action.

The US intelligence community has stated that Iran is yet to decide whether to build a bomb. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee hearing this week that the first sign of such a decision would be Iran's progress in enriching uranium to the 90 per cent grade. Iranian scientists have successfully enriched uranium to a 20 per cent level. Israel has said it is not prepared to wait for this decision.

Ignatius wrote: "Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June - before Iran enters what Israelis described as a 'zone of immunity' to commence building a nuclear bomb."

Mr Panetta and President Barack Obama had cautioned Israel that the US opposed an attack believing that it would derail an increasingly successful international economic sanctions program, but that the White House had yet to decide how the US would respond if Israel did attack.

He said Israel believed a strike could be "limited and contained" and that Israel would bomb the uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz and other targets.

Iran, Ignatius wrote, would retaliate but Israel doubted it would be an overwhelming barrage, with rockets from Hezbollah in Lebanon. One estimate by the Netanyahu government said Israel might have to "absorb" 500 casualties.

Iran has repeatedly insisted its program is for civilian purposes, but enrichment is required to only 3 per cent for such purposes.

A week ago the EU agreed to ban all imports of Iranian oil from July. The EU imports about 20 per cent of Iran's oil exports.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg yesterday expressed concern about a possible military option.

"Of course I worry that there will be a military conflict and that certain countries might seek to take matters into their own hands," he told Britain's The House magazine.

While in Israel there appears strong support for a military strike, there are also prominent voices of dissent.

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan is leading these voices, warning against any such action for fear of its consequences.

The supreme leader of Iran issued a blunt warning Friday that Iran would retaliate against Israel and anyone that supports any act of aggression.

"You see every now and then in this way they say that all options are on the table. That means even the option of war," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during Friday prayers in Tehran. "This is how they make these threats against us.

The religious leader also told worshippers at Friday prayers that the country will continue its nuclear programme.

He warned that any military strike by the West would only make Iran stronger.

"From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse you. We have no fear expressing this," said Khamenei.

He called Israel a "cancerous tumor" in the region.

Iran has been repeatedly defiant to hints that the US and Israel may at some point launch military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

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what i never get is why we can never just say to israel, "well, if you do this after we told you not to, you're on your own."

we let israel act like the obnoxious little kid that starts fights its older brother has to finish, and here we are ready to let them start a holocaust.

then there's also the obvious incentive for israel to attack iran during the u.s. presidential election cycle, as on the one hand it would make obama feel pressure to look tough and go to war, and on the other hand, if he doesn't, they help get a republican elected who will do even more for israel. kind of a win/win from a manipulative chick, geopolitical mindset.

like you said, not to sound like that nut job dwarn, but it is easy to see a link to isreal with these attacks, then again, i dont blame them, seppressing a fundimentalist islamic ( or any relgious) state seems like a good idea, shame the us and uk dont blow up evangelicals

Originally posted by: Richard the 3rd

like you said, not to sound like that nut job dwarn, but it is easy to see a link to isreal with these attacks, then again, i dont blame them, seppressing a fundimentalist islamic ( or any relgious) state seems like a good idea, shame the us and uk dont blow up evangelicals

Suppressing them how? This wouldn't suppress them. It would galvanize their populace to support them and likely cause a war because once again, the west would be proving itself to be the great satan that the leaders of Iran say it is. Do you know why the Iranian government hates the US so much? Two very good reasons. In the 1950s we caused the overthrow of their democratically elected government so that we could reinstall the Shah who was more predictably friendly to us and our interests. Remember that war Iraq started with Iran in the 80's? Yeah, we basically gave Iraq the go ahead to start that war and then we armed them with things like chemical and biological weapons (ever wonder how we knew so certainly what they had and in what amounts?) in addition to conventional weapons. Want to cut all the fervor against the religious leaders over the last couple years off at the knees? Attack Iran. The people of Iran have seen what went on in Iraq and Afghanistan and they surely don't feel much like going from a first world country to a third world war zone with American soldiers roaming their streets and killing their people who dare to oppose them in any way. At least with the Ayatollahs they get to have the same thing... but with general peace and reliable water, food, and electricity.

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Shattering the last of our moral credibility

by Najla Abdurrahman


I found myself a bit surprised by the intensity of my reaction to the news of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's killing. What was it - beyond the ugliness inherent in any act of terror and murder - that made this particular attack so heinous in my mind to the point that it angered me?

After thinking about it for a while, I realised that it boiled down to two things: the impunity with which the attack was carried out and the subsequent apathy with which it was regarded by the US public and its leaders (with the noteworthy exception of commentators and politicians such as Rick Santorum, who actually celebrated it); and the idea that a powerful nation could attack the most precious resource of a much weaker one. No, I'm not talking about oil - I'm referring to the destruction of the latter's human resources: its brains, its talent and its experts (Roshan was not the first, but the fourth Iranian scientist murdered in recent years).

Politicians in the US may pretend, for a few months every two to four years, to lament our dependency on foreign oil and the danger this addiction supposedly poses to our national security interests. But many Middle Eastern countries have long been dependent on the West for a different type of resource: technology and scientific expertise (the Arab Gulf states are a prime example of this).

Iran is a notable exception in the region, and has a far more technically capable population than, say, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait (indeed, more than most Arab states). An attack on Iran's scientists, experts, academics and intellectuals - on its most talented human resources - is an attack on Iranian society's ability to function independently of western hegemony and influence, by forcing that country's dependence on (among other things) western technical and scientific knowledge - which, as we all know, always comes with strings tightly attached.

As we continue to pressure and now, it would appear, to intimidate the rest of the world into isolating Iran politically and economically, it will become increasingly important to the Iranian state to develop the technical capabilities to function independently of foreign, and particularly Western, influence.

Aggression and sabotage

Iranian government officials and their supporters may chant "Death to America and to Israel", but when we actually bother to examine the historical relationship between Iran and the West (and particularly its history with the US and Britain), it becomes glaringly obvious that gross acts of aggression, intervention and sabotage overwhelming take place in the opposite direction (hence the frequent chants against us).

One startling example, which has long since vanished from the American public's collective memory, was the shooting down of an Iranian commercial airliner in Iranian airspace (over the Strait of Hormuz, no less) by a US guided missile cruiser, the USS Vincennes, in 1988. All 290 people on board the plane were killed, and the bodies of many mutilated beyond recognition. To this day, our government refuses to apologise or acknowledge wrongdoing for what it has described as a "mistake". Of course, the toppling of Iran's democratically elected prime minister by the CIA and Britain's MI6 in 1953, followed by the installation of a brutal dictator more sympathetic to western economic and energy interests, also comes to mind. And there are many other examples.

The Iranian state habitually represses its own people (as do many states that we consider friends), and all conscientious individuals must vigorously and unequivocally condemn its record of gross human and civil rights abuses, as we support the efforts of the Iranian people to demand reform. But this doesn't change the fact that our foreign policy towards Iran is seriously flawed and not in our nation's best interest.

Neither are our policies towards Iran in the interest of the Iranian people (for whatever that's worth to the average US politician). In fact, many Iranians who vehemently oppose their current regime reserve equal condemnation for the West's lengthy record of interference and aggression towards their country.

Lack of debate

Yet Iran represents the Bermuda Triangle of US foreign policy discussions. When it comes to the issue of our relationship with the Islamic Republic, rational debate - or any debate - tends to simply vanish into thin air.

Rather than take a good hard look at why we are so obsessed with the idea of Iran acquiring the bomb (the answer to this and to so many other questions about our self-destructive foreign policies may be found in Israel and its lobby), or whether such an acquisition really poses a serious threat to the most powerful nation in the world (one whose military bases are quite literally choking the Iranian state) and its Middle Eastern proxy, we've resorted to blowing up civilian scientists on their own streets in an effort to cut their country's independent nuclear energy programme off at its knees.

This culture of impunity and contempt for the lives of foreign nationals whom we habitually kill on their own soil is reflected in the painfully telling video, which emerged around the same time as Roshan's killing, showing US Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan Taliban fighters as they taunt the dead and appear to revel in their repulsive behaviour.

This was not some random group of debauched individuals engaging in hooliganism, but a group of soldiers belonging to an elite corps of the US military - uniformed representatives of our country before the world. I felt sick watching the video, and once again, ashamed that such individuals represented my country. I couldn't help but recall the infinitely more barbaric 2005 Haditha massacre, in which Marines slaughtered 24 innocent Iraqi men, women and children between the ages of one and 76, mostly in their homes, after one of their fellow soldiers, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, was killed by a roadside bomb.

Like the Haditha victims, the lives of Afghan Taliban fighters were worthless to this group of soldiers, and they had no qualms about desecrating them in the most dishonourable of manners. Dehumanising the enemy - whether real, imagined or created - and acts of unthinkable cruelty and disregard for human life (and death) suddenly become thinkable - even inevitable.

This cycle of dehumanisation and violence is the same mechanism that prompted Daniel Pearl's captors to behead the innocent journalist back in 2002; that convinced "insurgents" to bomb crowded public markets and holy shrines in Iraq, and to lay the roadside bomb that killed Lance Corporal Terrazas; and that caused the soldiers in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine regiment to shoot innocent civilians in their homes at point blank range, including an infant, several children and a 76-year-old wheelchair-bound man, in a country the soldiers themselves were forcibly and illegitimately occupying.

No accountability

Just today, news emerged that Staff Sgt Frank Wuterich, leader of the group of Marines that carried out the massacre at Haditha, accepted a deal to plead guilty to a lesser charge of dereliction of duty, for which he is expected to receive a whopping three months in prison. The remaining soldiers who participated in the massacre have already been acquitted or seen their charges dropped. The failure of our government to hold these men accountable for what amounts to a war crime ought to shake the collective conscience of our nation to its core. But it probably won't.

As I watched this recent group of Marines urinating on and taunting dead enemy-strangers while fighting an unwinnable war thousands of miles away from their homes, I wondered if they would feel quite as smug or amused with themselves if they could hear how former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had once described them. Military men are "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy, Kissinger told then-White House chief of staff Alexander Haig, according to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their book, The Final Days.

Even in the cold and calculating words of Kissinger, a central architect of US foreign policy whose influence has extended far beyond his time in office, the chilling relationship between dehumanisation and violence - this time directed at duped soldiers - is unmistakable, and the irony undeniable.

To Kissinger's credit, he was at least honest about the disgraceful and self-serving motives that he and other policymakers have, as they send hapless soldiers off to fight and die in illegal wars while convincing them that they are somehow defending their country rather than advancing the economic interests of a powerful elite. In contrast, most US politicians these days persist in invoking a sanctimonious authority predicated on an imagined moral superiority vis-a-vis the rest of the world, and particularly the non-western world.

Fictitious righteousness

Indeed, many in the US bask in this fictitious self-characterisation. We are, after all, what Reagan called "a beacon of hope for those who do not have freedom", a phrase which has been regurgitated in one form or another by more politicians than I care to count. Yet nearly every administration in recent history - and many current politicians - have not only consistently chipped away at any moral credibility we may have once had as a nation, but now have completely shattered it, even as they continue to invoke meaningless and hypocritical tropes.

For the more thoughtful among us, what happened in Tehran, what happened in Afghanistan, and the moral failure of our government to hold the perpetrators of the Haditha massacre accountable is cause for alarm, and hopefully for engaging in sober introspection and self-criticism. Yet for a significant proportion of our public, and certainly for too many of our political leaders, it would seem that we can do no wrong to others, no matter how much wrong we do. For a great number of US citizens, it seems that our foreign policy decisions - and in particular, our acts of violence against Other states and Other peoples - are justifiable, simply by virtue of the fact that they are ours.

The killing by car bombing of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran was an act of terror, murder and intimidation, period. It is an act that reeks not only of hubris and inhumanity, but also of desperation - the very hallmarks of terrorism.

What do the public and the media's largely indifferent response to this act suggest about the political culture we inhabit? More importantly, what does it say about the moral culture we live in, and about our collective capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism? About our attitudes toward the value of human life - not just lives of US citizens, but the lives of Others as well?

Wilful disregard

Policy analysts, pundits and much of the media can spin any story they like about the murder, on his home soil, of Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, husband to Fatemeh and father to a young boy - who will now have to grow up without him. They can choose to use sterile language such as "targeted killing" and "elimination" in order to distort US public sentiment regarding his murder. But their questionable rhetorical and editorial choices don't change the ugly reality that this was, at the very least, a crime and a moral failure which will probably do little in the way of achieving its desired outcome (assuming, of course, that we have a right to pursue such an outcome, which is questionable in itself).

This latest act of aggression, whether committed by the United States or by Israeli agents with the US government's tacit approval, will only intensify the Iranian public's widespread distrust for the US and its policies toward their country, a sentiment which is understandable, given the record of western interference in Iranian internal affairs.

Regrettably, it is a record which US politicians and policymakers - as well as most of its media and its public - persist in wilfully disregarding, even as the former continue to pursue a foreign policy which is destructive, both to Iran and to ourselves.

Najla Abdurrahman is a teaching fellow at Columbia University.

Originally posted by: Richard the 3rd

like you said, not to sound like that nut job dwarn, but it is easy to see a link to isreal with these attacks, then again, i dont blame them, seppressing a fundimentalist islamic ( or any relgious) state seems like a good idea, shame the us and uk dont blow up evangelicals

umm... israel kind of IS a fundamentalist religious state.

also, "who would blame them?" i would. history would. anyone that respects the rules of engagement and basic conventions regarding human behavior would.

but this concept of attacking someone because you THINK they might attack you is really some seriously deranged and corrupt rationalization. there are some people even saying that one of the storage facilities may be under a mountain and the only way to destroy it would be with a nuclear missile. so they might attack a country with a nuclear weapon because they are afraid it might develop a nuclear weapon. hmmm...

we condemned the japanese for attacking pearl harbor which they did using the same rationalization. so did the rest of the world. a little bit of hypocrisy there, don't you think?

How easily people convince themselves its not only okay but absolutely vital that they slaughter dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens or hundreds of thousands, or even millions.

it's all about the petrodollar. Iraq, Libya, and next iran. This article explains it in a very common sense economic manner.

http://rt.com/news/iran-attack-us-allegations-243/

we but trade sanctions on japan before pearl harbor, that was a retaliotory attack, not condonable but understandable, the same is with this, isreal is at war with iran, not a public open on all fronts war, but still hardly a secret, for me anything that disrupts islam or like i said any fundemantalist religion is fine by me, isreal while being a religious state, is in this case the lesser of two evils. i just wouldnt trust iran with nuclear weapons, or anyone for that matter

Has Iran decided to turn Israeli tactics against Israel? Hits on Israelis Mimic Attacks on Iran Scientists ABCNews Feb. 13, 2012




[An injured person is carried from a burning car belonging to the Israeli Embassy following an explosion in New Delhi, India, Feb. 13, 2012]



In a strike virtually identical to attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists, U.S. sources say a passing motorcyclist attached what appeared to be a shaped charge to an Israeli diplomatic vehicle in New Delhi, India. The driver and the wife of Israel's deputy defense ministry representative to India were wounded, as were two people in a nearby car.

Television footage showed flames pouring from a minivan with its back door blown out. The attack took place at 4 p.m. on Race Track Road, close to the Israeli Embassy.

A single source confirms that a failed attack against an Israeli car in Tblisi, Georgia used a similar method, but the bomb did not detonate. A worker at the embassy alerted local police after seeing a black plastic bag attached to the bottom of the Israeli envoy's car. The bag held a hand grenade.


No attackers have been identified in either incident. An unconfirmed report says that a third Israeli facility in Amsterdam may also have been targeted.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly pointed the finger at Iran for the twin attacks in Georgia and India. Both attacks come one day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of a top Hezbollah leader.

Netanyahu also said that Israel had stopped attacks in other countries, including Thailand and Azerbaijan, in recent months. "In all those cases, the elements behind those attacks were Iran and its protege," said Netanyahu."

Iranian state media quoted an Foreign Ministry spokesman saying that Netanyahu's accusation was "within the Zionist regime's psychological war against Iran."

"The Zionist regime, due to repeated crimes against humanity, is the main party accused of terrorist activities," he said.

Motorcyclists with "sticky bombs" have been blamed in several mysterious bombings of Iranian nuclear scientists. The Iranian government has blamed Israel, the U.S. and the U.K. for the deaths. Both The U.S. and the U.K. have denied any involvement.

In January, Mostafa Roshan, a director of Iran's major uranium enrichment facility, became the fifth scientist or official involved in the program killed in the past two years. He was killed by a sticky bomb placed on his car. Iran had threatened to strike back for the deaths.

Sources told ABC News Global Affairs Anchor Christiane Amanpour that it was likely Iran would use this type of "asymmetrical" warfare, and include U.S. global targets as well, if its nuclear facilities are attacked.

Sources also said Israel may be using the military wing of the Iranian exile group People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is on the U.S. terror list, to carry out assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. MEK's political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is currently lobbying on Capitol Hill to have the group removed from the terror list.

In New York, police have stepped up security at the Israeli consulate, at residences and on consulate vehicles. "The NYPD adjusts its counterterrorism posture to include information about events overseas," said Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne. "That's why the public may have noticed increased NYPD presence in recent weeks at Israeli government facilities and synagogues, although there has been no specific threat in New York."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she condemned the bombing and the attempted bombing "in the strongest possible terms. ... The scourge of terrorism is an affront to the entire international community."

more false flag attacks from the fucking Jews

if anyone thought I was being purely 'edgy' there, here is proof they've done it before


click here for link

U.S., Britain warn Israel against attacking Iran


Tensions in the Middle East rose Sunday as Tehran said it has stopped oil shipments to Britain and France and reportedly docked a warship at a Syrian port, while American and British officials warned Israel against attacking Iran.

In their warnings, both the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said an Israeli attack on Iran would have grave consequences for the entire region and urged Israel to give international sanctions against Tehran more time to work.

“A strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve their long-term objectives,” Gen. Dempsey told CNN.

His concerns were echoed by Mr. Hague, who stressed it was “not a wise thing at this moment” for Israel to attack Iran.

There is precedent for Israeli action. In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. And in 2007, Israeli warplanes are believed to have destroyed a target that foreign experts think was an unfinished nuclear reactor in Syria.

Experts, however, have questioned how much an Israeli operation would accomplish. With Iran's nuclear installations scattered and buried deep underground, it is believed that an Iranian strike would set back, but not destroy, Iran's nuclear program.

In an his interview with CNN, Gen. Dempsey expressed concern that an Israeli attack could spark reprisals against U.S. targets in the Gulf or Afghanistan, where American forces are based.





Should Israel decide to launch a strike on Iran, its pilots would have to fly more than 1,000 miles across unfriendly airspace, refuel in the air en route, fight off Iran’s air defenses, attack multiple underground sites simultaneously — and use at least 100 planes.

That is the assessment of American defense officials and military analysts close to the Pentagon, who say that an Israeli attack meant to set back Iran’s nuclear program would be a huge and highly complex operation. They describe it as far different from Israel’s “surgical” strikes on a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.

“All the pundits who talk about ‘Oh, yeah, bomb Iran,’ it ain’t going to be that easy,” said Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, who retired last year as the Air Force’s top intelligence official and who planned the American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Gulf War.

Speculation that Israel might attack Iran has intensified in recent months as tensions between the countries have escalated. In a sign of rising American concern, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in Jerusalem on Sunday, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, warned on CNN that an Israeli strike on Iran right now would be “destabilizing.” Similarly, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, told the BBC that attacking Iran would not be “the wise thing” for Israel to do “at this moment.”

But while an Israeli spokesman in Washington, Lior Weintraub, said the country continued to push for tougher sanctions on Iran, he reiterated that Israel, like the United States, “is keeping all options on the table.”

The possible outlines of an Israeli attack have become a source of debate in Washington, where some analysts question whether Israel even has the military capacity to carry it off. One fear is that the United States would be sucked into finishing the job — a task that even with America’s far larger arsenal of aircraft and munitions could still take many weeks, defense analysts said. Another fear is of Iranian retaliation.

“I don’t think you’ll find anyone who’ll say, ‘Here’s how it’s going to be done — handful of planes, over an evening, in and out,’ ” said Andrew R. Hoehn, a former Pentagon official who is now director of the Rand Corporation’s Project Air Force, which does extensive research for the United States Air Force.

Michael V. Hayden, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009, said flatly last month that airstrikes capable of seriously setting back Iran’s nuclear program were “beyond the capacity” of Israel, in part because of the distance that attack aircraft would have to travel and the scale of the task.

Still, a top defense official cautioned in an interview last week that “we don’t have perfect visibility” into Israel’s arsenal, let alone its military calculations. His views were echoed by Anthony H. Cordesman, an influential military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There are a lot of unknowns, there are a lot of potential risks, but Israel may know that those risks aren’t that serious,” he said.

Given that Israel would want to strike Iran’s four major nuclear sites — the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo, the heavy-water reactor at Arak and the yellowcake-conversion plant at Isfahan — military analysts say the first problem is how to get there. There are three potential routes: to the north over Turkey, to the south over Saudi Arabia or taking a central route across Jordan and Iraq.





The route over Iraq would be the most direct and likely, defense analysts say, because Iraq effectively has no air defenses and the United States, after its December withdrawal, no longer has the obligation to defend Iraqi skies. “That was a concern of the Israelis a year ago, that we would come up and intercept their aircraft if the Israelis chose to take a path across Iraq,” said a former defense official who asked for anonymity to discuss secret intelligence.

Assuming that Jordan tolerates the Israeli overflight, the next problem is distance. Israel has American-built F-15I and F-16I fighter jets that can carry bombs to the targets, but their range — depending on altitude, speed and payload — falls far short of the minimum 2,000-mile round trip. That does not include an aircraft’s “loiter time” over a target plus the potential of having to fight off attacks from Iranian missiles and planes.

In any possibility, Israel would have to use airborne refueling planes, called tankers, but Israel is not thought to have enough. Scott Johnson, an analyst at the defense consulting firm IHS Jane’s and the leader of a team preparing an online seminar on Israeli strike possibilities on Iran, said that Israel had eight KC-707 American-made tankers, although it is not clear they are all in operation. It is possible, he said, that Israel has reconfigured existing planes into tankers to use in a strike.

Even so, any number of tankers would need to be protected by ever more fighter planes. “So the numbers you need just skyrocket,” Mr. Johnson said. Israel has about 125 F-15Is and F-16Is. One possibility, Mr. Johnson said, would be to fly the tankers as high as 50,000 feet, making them hard for air defenses to hit, and then have them drop down to a lower altitude to meet up with the fighter jets to refuel.

Israel would still need to use its electronic warfare planes to penetrate Iran’s air defenses and jam its radar systems to create a corridor for an attack. Iran’s antiaircraft defenses may be a generation old — in 2010, Russia refused to sell Iran its more advanced S-300 missile system — but they are hardly negligible, military analysts say.

Iranian missiles could force Israeli warplanes to maneuver and dump their munitions before they even reached their targets. Iran could also strike back with missiles that could hit Israel, opening a new war in the Middle East, though some Israeli officials have argued that the consequences would be worse if Iran were to gain a nuclear weapon.

Another major hurdle is Israel’s inventory of bombs capable of penetrating the Natanz facility, believed to be buried under 30 feet of reinforced concrete, and the Fordo site, which is built into a mountain.

Assuming it does not use a nuclear device, Israel has American-made GBU-28 5,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs that could damage such hardened targets, although it is unclear how far down they can go.

Earlier this month, a Bipartisan Policy Center report by Charles S. Robb, the former Democratic senator from Virginia, and Charles F. Wald, a retired Air Force general, recommended that the Obama administration sell Israel 200 enhanced GBU-31 “bunker busters” as well as three advanced refueling planes.

The two said that they were not advocating an Israeli attack, but that the munitions and aircraft were needed to improve Israel’s credibility as it threatens a strike.

Should the United States get involved — or decide to strike on its own — military analysts said that the Pentagon had the ability to launch big strikes with bombers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, followed up by drones that could carry out damage assessments to help direct further strikes. Unlike Israel, the United States has plenty of refueling capability. Bombers could fly from Al Udeid air base in Qatar, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or bases in Britain and the United States.

Nonetheless, defense officials say it would still be tough to penetrate Iran’s deepest facilities with existing American bombs and so are enhancing an existing 30,000-pound “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” that was specifically designed for Iran and North Korea.

Israel delivers ultimatum to Obama on Iran's nuclear plans


By Adrian Blomfield, in Jerusalem

03 Mar 2012

Their relationship, almost from the outset, has been frostier than not, a mutual antipathy palpable in many of their previous encounters. Two years ago, Barack Obama reportedly left Benjamin Netanyahu to kick his heels in a White House anteroom, a snub delivered to show the president's irritation over Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank. In May, the Israeli prime minister struck back, publicly scolding his purse-lipped host for the borders he proposed of a future Palestinian state.

When the two men meet in Washington on Monday, Mr Obama will find his guest once more at his most combative. But this time, perhaps as never before, it is the Israeli who has the upper hand.

Exuding confidence, Mr Netanyahu effectively brings with him an ultimatum, demanding that unless the president makes a firm pledge to use US military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, Israel may well take matters into its own hands within months.

The threat is not an idle one. According to sources close to the Israeli security establishment, military planners have concluded that never before has the timing for a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities been so auspicious.

It is an assessment based on the unforeseen consequences of the Arab Spring, particularly in Syria, which has had the result of significantly weakening Iran's clout in the region.

Israel has always known that there would be an enormous cost in launching an attack on Iran, with the Islamist state able to retaliate through its proxy militant groups Hamas and Hizbollah, based in Gaza and Lebanon respectively, and its ally Syria.

Each is capable of launching massive rocket strikes at Israel's cities, a price that some senior intelligence and military officials said was too much to bear.

But with Syria preoccupied by a near civil war and Hamas in recent weeks choosing to leave Iran's orbit and realign itself with Egypt, Iran's options suddenly look considerably more limited, boosting the case for war.

"Iran's deterrent has been significantly defanged," a source close to Israel's defence chiefs said. "As a result some of those opposed to military action have changed their minds. They sense a golden opportunity to strike Iran at a significantly reduced cost." Not that there would be no cost at all. With the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas has chosen to throw its lot in with its closest ideological ally and forsake Iran and its funding, but it could still be forced to make a token show of force if smaller groups in Gaza that are still backed by Tehran unleash their own rockets.

Likewise, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, could seek to reunite his fractured country with military action against Israel.

Iran would almost certainly launch its long-range ballistic missiles at Israel, while Hizbollah, with an estimated arsenal of 50,000 rockets, would see an opportunity to repair its image in the Middle East, battered as a result of its decision to side with Mr Assad.

Even so, it is not the "doomsday scenario" that some feared, and a growing number in the security establishment are willing to take on the risk if it means preventing the rise of another nuclear power like themselves in the region. Israel is believed to possess over 50 nuclear missiles.

"It won't be easy," said a former senior official in Israel's defence ministry. "Rockets will be fired at cities, including Tel Aviv, but at the same time the doomsday scenario that some have talked of is unlikely to happen. I don't think we will have all out war."

The real urgency comes from the fact that Israeli intelligence has concluded that it has only between six and nine months before Iran's nuclear facilities are immune from a unilateral military strike.

After that, Iran enters what officials here call a "zone of immunity", the point at which Israel would no longer be able, by itself, to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power.

By then, Israel assesses, Iran will have acquired sufficient technological expertise to build a nuclear weapon. More importantly, it will be able to do so at its Fordow enrichment plant, buried so deep within a mountain that it is almost certainly beyond the range of Israel's US-provided GBU-28 and GBU-27 "bunker busting" bombs.

It is with this deadline in mind that Mr Netanyahu comes to Washington. Mr Obama's administration has little doubt that their visitor's intent is serious. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, stated last month that there was a "strong likelihood" of Israel launching an attack between April and June this year.

Senior US officials have, unusually, warned in public that such a step would be unwise and premature, a sentiment echoed by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Obama is determined that beefed up US and EU sanctions targeting Iran's central bank and energy sector be given the chance to work and is desperate to dissuade Israel from upsetting his strategy.

But to give sanctions a chance, Mr Netanyahu would effectively have to give up Israel's ability to strike Iran and leave the country's fate in the hands of the United States – which is why he is demanding a clear sign of commitment from the American president.

"This is the dilemma facing Israel," the former senior military officer said. "If Iran enters a zone of immunity from Israeli attack can Israel rely on the United States to prevent Iran going nuclear?"

Mr Netanyahu's chief demand will be that Washington recognises Israel's "red lines". This would involve the Barack administration shifting from a position of threatening military action if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon to one of warning of the use of force if Tehran acquired the capability of being able to build one.

Mr Obama will be reluctant to make such a commitment in public, though he might do so in private by pledging action if Iran were to expel UN weapons inspectors or begin enriching uranium towards the levels needed to build a bomb, according to Matthew Kroenig, a special adviser to the Pentagon on Iran until last year.

"Israel is facing the situation of either taking military action now or trusting the US to take action down the road," Mr Kroenig, an advocate of US military strikes against Iran, said. "What Netanyahu wants to get out of the meeting are clear assurances that the US will take military action if necessary." The American president may regard Mr Netanyahu as an ally who has done more to undermine his Middle East policy of trying to project soft power in the Arab world than may of his foes in the region.

But, on this occasion at least, he will have to suppress his irritation.

Mr Netanyahu is well aware that his host is vulnerable to charges from both Congress and his Republican challengers for the presidency that he is weak on Iran, and will seek to exploit this as much as possible.

Tellingly, Palestinian issues, the principal source of contention between the two, will be sidelined and Mr Obama has already been forced to step up his rhetoric on Iran beyond a degree with which he is probably comfortable.

Last week, in a notable hardening of tone, he declared his seriousness about using military force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, saying: "I do not bluff." Yet whatever commitments he might give to Mr Netanyahu it is far from clear that it will be enough to dissuade Israel from taking unilateral action.

Among the Israeli public, there is a sense of growing sense that a confrontation with Iran is inevitable. Overheard conversations in bars and restaurants frequently turn to the subject, with a growing popular paranoia fed by the escalation in bomb shelter construction, air raid siren testing and exercises simulating civilian preparedness for rocket strikes.

Last week, Israeli newspapers fretted that the government was running short of gas masks, even though more than four million have already been doled out.

But while the growing drumbeat of war is unmistakable, it is unclear whether or not Mr Netanyahu, for all his bellicose rhetoric, has yet fully committed himself to the cause.

Ostensibly, a decision for war has to be approved by Mr Netanyahu's inner cabinet. But everyone in Israel agrees that the decision ultimately rests with Ehud Barak, the defence minister who is unabashedly in favour of military action, and, most importantly, the prime minister.

"Netanyahu is a much more ambiguous and complex character," said Jonathan Spyer, a prominent Israeli political analyst. "We know where Barak stands but with Netanyahu it is less clear.

"Netanyahu is not a man who likes military adventures. His two terms as prime minister have been among the quietest in recent Israeli history. Behind the Churchillian character he likes to project is a very much more cautious and vacillating figure."

Were Mr Netanyahu to overcome his indecisiveness, as many observers suspect he will, real questions remain about how effective an Israeli unilateral strike would be.

With its US-supplied bunker busters, Israel's fleet of F-15i and F-16i fighter jets, and its recently improved in-air refuelling capabilities, Israel could probably cause significant damage to the bulk of Iran's nuclear facilities, including the Natanz enrichment plant.

But the second enrichment plant at Fordow, buried beneath more than 200 feet of reinforced concrete, could prove a challenge too far.

"Natanz yes, but I don't think they could take out Fordow," said Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. "They could take out the entrance ramps but not the facility itself."

With its Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker busters, each weighing almost 14 tonnes, the United States stands a much better chance of striking Fordow successfully, thus disrupting Iran's nuclear programme for far longer than the one to three years delay an Israeli attack is estimated to cause.

But whether Israeli is prepared to leave its fate in American hands is another matter.

"Israelis are psychologically such that they prefer to rely on themselves and not on others, given their history," the Israeli former senior defence ministry official said. "We feel we have relied on others in the past, and they have failed us."





or, maybe if they didn't act like total cunts to every single non-jewish nation around them, all the time, there would BE no 'doomsday scenario'. it's amazing that we're totally willing to be sucked into these assholes' war. wouldn't it be nice if we ever had the balls to just say, 'sure go ahead and start shit and sucker punch the guy next to you, that's your choice, but we won't be bailing you out this time, you fucking pussies.'
everything being written about this now assumes an upcoming war is inevitable. and aside from the fact of it being one more unjust, aggressive first strike war with massive civilian casualties, started by our ally [or by us], a war with iran will double gas prices, which will probably derail any domestic and global economic recovery, prolonging the recession. and, if this all plays out before the election this fall, it may well get some scumbucket like santorum or romney elected. this is totally fucked.

Originally posted by: sidney

yes but he works for a bunch of people that deny the Holocaust and that gays exist in their country.......

and?