Tag Archives: Iran

Iran wants, at the very least, to put itself in a position where it has the expertise and materials with which to build deliverable nuclear weapons quickly. It may well want, at some point, to develop the bombs themselves. This is deeply worrying to Israel, which is threatened by Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, and disgusted by the anti-Semitic rants of Iran’s leaders. It also alarms Arab states, which fear Iranian power (and their own Shiite minorities). That alarm could lead some of them – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, perhaps Turkey – to seek nuclear weapons of their own. Many fear that this would make the region even less stable than it is. Even if it did not, it would make the possible consequences of instability much more terrible. — The Economist (February 29)

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While evidence suggests that Iran continues to make progress toward a nuclear weapons program, American intelligence officials believe that there is no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. But the possibility that Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike has become a focus of American policy makers and is expected to be a primary topic when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel meets with President Obama at the White House on Monday. — The New York Times (February 29)

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Most experts agree that Israel could hit multiple targets in Iran and do considerable damage to its nuclear program. They would, however, do much less damage than a full-scale US attack using all of the resources at Washington’s disposal.

The Israelis would be operating at the very limits of their capabilities. “If they pulled it off,” says Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, “it would be an impressive display of power projection against a difficult and dispersed set of targets.”

Only a small number of air forces in the world, he notes, could mount such an operation. But, Mr. Barrie stresses: “Even if successful, it would only delay Iran’s nuclear program.”

That’s a view shared for now by Israel’s most important ally.

Only a few days ago, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff said that an Israeli attack would not be prudent.

Such a strike, he said, “would be destabilizing and would not achieve their long-term objectives.”

However, Israel’s calculus is very different. Knowing all their operational limitations, might they launch such an operation anyway? — Jonathan Marcus, BBC (February 27)