Everytime news like this comes out, the price per barrel of oil increases and tensions between the two countries increases. M

Israel Preparing for Iran Strike
Thursday, Aug. 07, 2008
By AP/STEVEN GUTKIN Article (JERUSALEM)

Israel Preparing for Iran Strike - TIME

— Israel is building up its strike capabilities amid growing anxiety over Iran's nuclear ambitions and appears confident that a military attack would cripple Tehran's atomic program, even if it can't destroy it.

Such talk could be more threat than reality. However, Iran's refusal to accept Western conditions is worrying Israel as is the perception that Washington now prefers diplomacy over confrontation with Tehran.

The Jewish state has purchased 90 F-16I fighter planes that can carry enough fuel to reach Iran, and will receive 11 more by the end of next year. It has bought two new Dolphin submarines from Germany reportedly capable of firing nuclear-armed warheads — in addition to the three it already has.

And this summer it carried out air maneuvers in the Mediterranean that touched off an international debate over whether they were a "dress rehearsal" for an imminent attack, a stern warning to Iran or a just a way to get allies to step up the pressure on Tehran to stop building nukes.

According to foreign media reports, Israeli intelligence is active inside Iranian territory. Israel's military censor, who can impose a range of legal sanctions against journalists operating in the country, does not permit publication of details of such information in news reports written from Israel.

The issue of Iran's nuclear program took on new urgency this week after U.S. officials rejected Tehran's response to an incentives package aimed at getting it to stop sensitive nuclear activity — setting the stage for a fourth round of international sanctions against the country.

Israel, itself an undeclared nuclear power, sees an atomic bomb in Iranian hands as a direct threat to its existence.

Israel believes Tehran will have enriched enough uranium for a nuclear bomb by next year or 2010 at the latest. The United States has trimmed its estimate that Iran is several years or as much as a decade away from being able to field a bomb, but has not been precise about a timetable. In general U.S. officials think Iran isn't as close to a bomb as Israel claims, but are concerned that Iran is working faster than anticipated to add centrifuges, the workhorses of uranium enrichment. "If Israeli, U.S., or European intelligence gets proof that Iran has succeeded in developing nuclear weapons technology, then Israel will respond in a manner reflecting the existential threat posed by such a weapon," said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking at a policy forum in Washington last week.

"Israel takes (Iranian President) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements regarding its destruction seriously. Israel cannot risk another Holocaust," Mofaz said.

Associated Press Writers Anne Gearan and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report from Washington.

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This seems entirely reasonable to me. Israel is a tiny sliver of land, not too different in size from the state of Delaware. A nuclear device, in the hands of the malignant mullahs in Tehran, would ensure Israel's demise; and no country should ever be asked to place its continued existence at stake, regardless of what steps might be necessary to defend its existence successfully.

As for the tuquoque line of reasoning that turns Israel's possession of nuclear weapons into a justification for Iran's developing the same thing, it is a silly comparison. Israel's leadership has never suggested a desire to incinerate Iran; but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frequently verbalized such sentiments as regarding Israel. To argue that the two nations should be treated exactly the same is tantamount to one's asserting that a convicted murderer, after having served 25 years in prison and then been released, should have just as much right to own a handgun as any other citizen in his neighborhood.

Good post pjohn.

Sorry to have to state this, but to be honest, I am getting concerned by the "coincidence" of everytime the price of a barrel of oil drops, there is a news story like this. Invariably, speculators have bought oil and gasoline futures just before this "news" is published. And then they hope for a panic, the price of a barrel of oil going up, and they are hoping for selling at that point for a large profit.

Sheesh, I must be getting cynical.

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Amazing. Israel is not even a party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, yet we concern ourselves that Iran MIGHT not be living up to their end of the treaty.

Well, i've got news for you - the USA isn't living up to their end of the bargain either - namely: disarmament and peaceful use of nuclear energy.

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Lets throw aside for a moment the total lack of real evidence that Iran is bent on making weapons (we do live by the rule of law that requires evidence, don't we?), why should any country threatened by an expanding traditional enemy be denied such weapons and a similar imposition not be placed on their opponent? Let's not even mention the "Iraq" scenario of full-scale invasion.

Iran's president has said stupid, war-mongering things. He's a prick. However, GWB has done the same and he has actually invaded non-risk states. Does that mean you support an attack against America by anyone who feels threatened by them?

Israel, meanwhile, continues to push into Palestian land, to mute response from the USA. Their borders creep further and further, with that kind of expansionist agenda, should their region not fear them? Especially considering the military might, with US backing on their doorstep.

Let us also reflect on Israels plainly stated intentions to bomb Iran if and when possible, to the point of holding very public exercises that clearly send a warning far greater than any the Iranian president could conjure. Ummm... and this article makes it quite clear Israels intentions very very clear. Empty threats (Iran) vs real risk of a military strike (Israel).

Your position is riddled with hypocracy.

As the Wikipedia article that you cite notes, "[T]he wording of Article VI [of the NPT] arguably imposes only a vague obligation on all NPT signatories to move in the general direction of nuclear and total disarmament, saying, 'Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament.' Under this interpretation, Article VI does not strictly require all signatories to actually conclude a disarmament treaty." And that, notwithstanding the protestations of nuclear wannabes and their apologists to the contrary.

No, let us pursue the point, if only briefly. The fact that (a) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly gloated that Iran is plowing ahead with its nuclear program, and will not be deterred, does not sound like the sort of thing one might say about the development of nuclear power plants; (b) Ahmadinejad's (again, repeated) boasts that Iran will wipe Israel off the map does not sound much like the calm and rational observation of a person whose only nuclear goal is to help power the citizenry's homes; and (c) even the wimpy IAEA has complained that Iran has been far from completely forthcoming.

One may draw one's own conclusions from such matters.

And why, precisely, has Iran had reason to view Israel as a "traditional enemy"? When, prior to Tehran's frenzied efforts to acquire nukes, and its ceaseless threats against Israel's continued existence, has Israel ever said or done anything that could have reasonably been interpreted as a threat against its Persian neighbor?

If President Bush has ever said that a democracy should be obliterated, I am unaware of it. In any case, this "you too" reasoning is illogical to its core.

It is clearly a question-begging formulation when you phrase the disputed territories as "Palestinian land." Besides, I cannot recall a moral or ethical principle that would require the victor in a war (in this case, in 1967; and again in 1973) to return land lost by the aggressor states.

A nuclear-armed Iran poses a serious existential threat to Israel's continued existence. The mantra "Never again!" may have lost some of its luster in modern times, considering the genocide in Cambodia (briefly renamed "Kampuchea" by the late Pol Pot & Company) between 1975 and 1979, and the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. But it is certainly understandable that the Jewish community would stand steadfast in its refusal to be victimized by another Holocaust, such as what occurred between 1939 and 1945.

It should be clear to any unbiased analyst that Israel's intention to bomb Iran is purely defensive in nature. Such bombing would be directed at Iran's known and suspected nuclear facilities; it would surely not be an attempt to vaporize Iran's citizenry--quite unlike Iran's apparent intentions toward "The Little Satan."

..using Western "intelligence", no doubt impartial. A report written by "Fredrick Fleitz, a Republican staffer, former CIA employee and anti-Iran hard-liner."

Maybe some aspects of the report are accurate, maybe they're not. Has the IAEA said anything other than "if true, then its bad"?

I would have thought that abvious. Apart from humiliating numerous neighbours with aggressive military endevours (Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan) Israel and Iran have one massive difference - US allegience.

Israel is the American proxy in the region. They have also threatened Iran with military strikes (as has the USA) if a deterant is developed. They have nuclear weapons and easily the regions most powerful military.

Wouldn't you feel threatened?

So Bush declaring it would mean more than 50 years of imperialist aggression? Iraq, while not a democracy was invaded (illegally) not long ago. Without America's support, the anti-demcratic coup that Iran suffered through, would not have been successful. While not on GWBs watch, American foreign policy has not changed. Bush continues to undermine Venezuela's democracy (among others), supports murderous vile regimes such as Uzbekistan, Khazahkstan among many, many others. US foreign policy has not really changed for decades.


They're not disputed, except to Americans and Israelis. Even your own hard-right nutters in office are "asking" Israel not to build even deeper into Palestian territory.

Hell, even Palestinian towns are managed by Israeli checkpoints. It's the worlds biggest prison. Conditions that brought Hamas to power.

You cannot recall a principal? How about a precident: Germany. It's been a long time since civilised nations have been able to annex new lands... and keep doing it for 50 years after the event.


Cambodia. A reigime America opened the door for (and flung out the welcome matt), by ILLEGALLY bombing Cambodia. Yes, it was illegal. You know what the American president (Nixon) said about bombing Cambodia? He said "Bomb anything that flies on anything that moves". He is a war criminal, as is Henry Kissenger, who carried out the orders in secret. How about Indonesia, and America's support for a the most corrupt man in modern history. Suharto killed 300,000 people. With America's blessing.

Israel's rights do not extend to military agression and annexation. Whatever the rhetoric of Iran, it doesn't come close to matching Israel's actions.

One cannot be unbiased with Israel/Palestine. But that's not the issue. The issue is Iran's RIGHT to defend itself against a history of agression by Israel and America against itself and anyone else who dares challenge the supreme authority.

IF Iran were to launch an attack on Israel - it would be total annihilation for Iran. I honestly don't see why America and Israel can be bombing countries left, right and centre and no one is even allowed the deterrant.

How many overt attacks has Iran launched in the last 20 years? How many has Israel and America? Throw in "pre-emptive" in there and i think you'd see the balance even further askew.

How many democratic governments has Iran toppled in the last 50 years? How about America?

How many dictators, fascists and criminals has Iran installed or actively assisted in their continued attrocities against their own people? How about America?

With America's history of violent aggression, i'm stunned not everyone wants nukes. It's the only proven deterrant against American imperialism - that or subservience.

Ultimately, what you're saying is that Iran's rhetoric denies them the right to aquire weapons (if they are), while American and Israeli actions are quite acceptable, and they may continue to threaten any country with annihilation that dares aspire to true independance.

You may be the crier of : "Geez, it isnt fair. If we have nuclear weapons, our enemies should."

Israel and US are allies. Iran is not.
Personally, being in the US, I would not care if the US and Israel had nuclear weapons, and Iran did not.
When it comes to survival, I don't care whats fair. Iran is not a friend of the US, and certainly not of Israel.

One need not be especially perceptive to notice your strident contempt for the West--which is to say, for that portion of humankind that has led to enormous advances over the past few centuries, in science, medicine, art, music, culture...well, you name it.

The IAEA has said that Iran has continually stonewalled them (I am paraphrasing here, but that is the essence). Perhaps that is a matter of no consequence to you?

If Israel has "humiliated" its neighbors, it is only in the same sense that Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy were humiliated in WWII. Aggressor states fully deserve to be humiliated.

This is the recurring mantra of the left. One is supposed to believe that Israel is merely America's pawn in the Middle East, in some grand geopolitical game. It is, of course, simply untrue.

Yes, Israel has threatened (if that is the proper word for it) to take out Iran's known and suspected nuclear facilities, in a clear act of self-defense. It is very hard for me to see anything objectionable in that.

Well, (a) the slur "imperialist" comes complete with Marxist undertones; and it is very difficult for me to take seriously anyone who is steeped in Marxist philosophy; (b) to call Venezuela a "democracy" is just about as accurate as one's calling Third Reich Germany a democracy would have been in 1940; and (c) if anyone seriously thinks the post-1979 mullocracy in Iran is preferable to the government that existed under the shah...well, it would not even be worth arguing the point.

If you mean that the Palestinians and the Euro-pacifists do not dispute the Palestinians' right to them (the silly cliche, "Land for peace," sounds eerily like Neville Chamberlain's "Peace in our time"), that is no doubt true. So what?

Prior to Hamas' rise to power, the late Yasser Arafat, of Fatah fame (or infamy, more precisely) steadfastly refused to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. Oh, he would pretend, in weasel-word language, to recognize Israel's right to exist--sorta-kinda, anyway--but he would then inform his Palestinian clients, in Arabic, that the Palestinian people would never recognize "the Zionist entity."

Hitler's attempt to "annex" Austria, Poland, and Czechoslavakia (which is really just a euphemistic way of saying, his attempt to gobble them up) was an act of aggression; Israel's taking of the Golan Heights, by comparison, was the result of a war of aggression by the Arab states in 1967. Big difference.

Those who claim that the act of a sovereign nation is (or was) "illegal" invariably mean: according to the norms of international law. But law--any law--requires a law enforcer; or else it is moot. Simply put, there is no credible enforcer of "international law" (what, the UN? are you kidding?); nor should there be, as that would violate the exceedingly important principle of national sovereignty.

President Bush is a quite ineloquent speaker; but he was certainly on target when he commented that the US need not seek a permission slip from any other authority in order to legitimately act in its own self-interest. That goes for earlier decades, as well as the present.

I have never had warm and fuzzy feelings toward the late Richard Nixon--albeit for reasons entirely unconnected to your own apparent distaste for the man. (His naive belief in the efficacy of detente with the Soviet Union; his silly belief in the usefulness of wage and price controls; his relieving the US of its last vestige of the gold standard, in favor of a fully "floating" dollar--the list goes on and on.)

And Henry Kissinger, although a rather intelligent man, was the very emblem of realpolitik--a cynical and amoral geopolitical strategy--during the Nixon years. So I have no deep affection for him, either. (In all fairness, Nixon and Kissinger did not invent realpolitik--it goes all the way back to the Eisenhower Administration, from 1951 to 1959--but they seemed to elevate it to an art form.)

You speak as though you viewed the mullahs in Tehran as serious, cost-benefit-ratio pragmatists. Of course, they are not. The radical Shiites in charge of this malignant mullocracy wish to hasten the day of the long-deceased Twelfth Imam's return; and this can be accomplished only by the True Believers' subduing "the infidels." A nuclear exchange with Israel would be a truly glorious event, according to radical Shiite eschatology.

And as for the comment that "it would be total annihilation for Iran" if it were to attack Israel, that presupposes that Israel would respond with overwhelming nuclear force--a most gratuitous assumption, and a most doubtful one also. Whereas it is conceivable to me that Israel might break the 63-year-old Western taboo as regarding the first-use of nuclear weapons, I could far more easily imagine that happening with tactical nuclear weapons, targeted at Iran's known and suspected nuclear facilities--perhaps in conjunction with 500-lb. or 1,000-lb. bunker-buster bombs--if that were determined to be the most effective way of destroying the Iranians' hardened facilities. But as for an Israeli nuclear strike against the Iranian citizenry...well, it is simply beyond anything I can imagine.