Before the November elections, Israel needs the support of the United States in an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities
By MOSHE GIT
After about half a dozen years of the world bustling with activity against the nuclear designs of Iran, one may conclude the following with a sufficient degree of confidence:
• Sanctions aren’t likely to work.
• The United States cannot be counted on to demolish Iran’s nuclear facilities (as I will explain in a bit).
• Other countries in the region, such as Egypt or Saudi Arabia, which view an Iranian bomb as a menace, have concluded likewise on the preceding points, and have decided that if you can’t scuttle the Iranian designs, join Iran. This explains the recent warm contacts between the leaders of those countries and the leaders of Iran. (More than a year ago, I advocated in an op-ed in the AJW that Israel should conclude the same, and actually offer its help to Iran to complete its bomb, especially since Iran and Israel share a common interest: to contain the Arab might in the Middle East.)
If there is any chance for the United States to pull Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire, it is now, when the candidates for president are fervently vying for the Jewish vote.
True, President Obama insists that the U.S. won’t let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, but history teaches that such promises cannot be relied upon. American presidents vouched that the U.S. wouldn’t let North Korea or Pakistan acquire nuclear weapons either, but those countries did — and the administration isn’t doing anything and doesn’t intend to do anything about that.
When the Marines were getting hit in Lebanon, President Reagan pulled them out, while insisting that this wasn’t a withdrawal, but redeployment. (The U.S. would use naval power instead of ground troops.)
In compliance with Reagan’s declaration, the Battleship New Jersey moved to a location near the shores of Lebanon, ready to pound U.S. enemies there. During the entire time it was anchored within sight of Beirut, it managed to shoot a single volley towards Lebanon, and then it quietly disappeared off the scene. Nobody mentioned the fact that the president went back on his word.
If Israel truly believes that Iran having a bomb poses a mortal danger, it cannot risk its existence by relying on commitments made by a U.S. president; it must take things into its own hands.
It is rumored that the White House believes that it will be able to know when Iran is a few days away from producing the bomb. Perhaps all that Iran is after is being perpetually on the verge of assembling the bomb, not actually having it; therefore, the administration reasons, there is no need to rush.
Well, intelligence has been known to fail sometimes, and the U.S. may not have sufficient lead time to ward off the final assembly of the bomb. The stakes are too high to take the risk.
Many say that Israel will not be able, on its own, to crush the Iranian bomb project. At the most, Israel’s air force might be able to damage it and set it back a little, but Iran will soon be back on its path to producing the bomb.
Precisely for this reason, Israel needs the United States’ active involvement in irreversibly destroying the Iranian facilities. One must get the U.S. to pull Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire; it is a sine qua non. Israel’s window of opportunity to accomplish this will close by the November elections.
Israel’s main hurdle now isn’t how to attack the Iranian facilities — Israel’s IDF has had its plan set for a long time — but how to get the U.S. involved. The most likely way to accomplish this is for Bibi to attack Iran. The U.S. will have no choice but to follow.
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Moshe Git lives in Minnetonka.
