Be very afraid, please
AMERICA and Israel often hint at military action to stop Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons programme. The latest rumblings, however, may be more serious. The atmosphere has been charged by a combination of factors: Iran’s expanding uranium-enrichment programme, faltering diplomatic efforts to halt it, a dying American administration and a nervous Israel. Throw in the latest war games by Israel, America and Iran—and Iran’s apparent rejection of the latest international incentives to halt its nuclear work—and some reckon the sparks could soon fly.
On July 9th Iranian television showed the test-firing of nine missiles (see picture), a day after an aide to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened to “burn” Tel Aviv and American ships in the Gulf, and strike at America’s “vital interests around the globe”, if it were attacked. More tests took place on July 10th.
This was a response to Israel’s demonstration of its own long arm in June, when about 100 Israeli jets took part in exercises that appeared to rehearse the bombing of distant targets. Western officials were struck by helicopter sorties of more than 800 miles (1,290km), about the distance from Israel to Iran, to simulate the rescue of downed pilots. Israel conducted the exercise with Greece, rather than its traditional partner, Turkey, maybe because Greece has some of the Russian SA-20 anti-aircraft missiles Iran recently bought.
In the Gulf, meanwhile, American, British and Bahraini ships are involved in a joint exercise to protect gas and oil installations. This seems to be a reaction to Iran’s threats to retaliate against any attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for roughly 40% of the world’s traded oil, and striking at neighbouring countries.
Does this public bellicosity really make military action more likely? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, dismissed the idea this week as a “funny joke”. And, yes, Israel could well be bluffing, waving its big stick in order to make the rewards the Europeans, Americans, Russians and Chinese are offering Iran in return for an end to uranium enrichment look more tempting. But whether or not Israel has frightened Iran, it has clearly rattled others.
France’s Total, an energy giant, said this week it was giving up plans to invest in Iran because of the risk. A top British government official puts the chance of an Israeli strike at 30%. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, was worried enough to say publicly that a third war (after Afghanistan and Iraq) would be “extremely stressful, very challenging, with consequences that would be difficult to predict”. As to whether Israel might act alone, he said: “This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to become more unstable.”
One uncertainty is how close Iran is to being able to make a nuclear weapon (an aspiration it vehemently denies). America’s controversial National Intelligence Estimate, made public in December, said that Iran had indeed run a weaponisation programme but seemed to stop it in 2003. The Iranians continue (despite UN sanctions) to enrich uranium, but most Western experts think they have much to learn before being able to make the high-enriched variety for a bomb. America’s estimate is that the soonest Iran could make enough for one device would be the end of 2009, but that it could take five or more years longer.
Israeli officials are less sanguine. So far Iran has produced only a small amount of low-enriched uranium, but this could eventually be converted to the bomb-making sort. For all its sabre-rattling, Israel still says that diplomacy is preferable to war. But a number of political and military considerations may yet convince Israel to act alone—sooner rather than later.
One of these is the departure of the friendly Bush administration and the possible advent of a President Obama, who has promised to do “everything” to stop Iran getting a bomb but who is distrusted by many Israelis. Another is that Iran’s Russian-built reactor at Bushehr is due to start working in October. This is less worrying than the underground enrichment facility at Natanz. But if Israel intends to bomb it, it would be best to do so before it is loaded with nuclear fuel. Finally, it would be easier for Israel to act before Iran deploys its SA-20s, which may happen in early 2009.
That said, an effective attack against Iran’s buried and dispersed nuclear facilities would not be easy, even if Israel knew where all of them were. There will be no element of surprise, as when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and a Syrian facility which America said afterwards was a secret reactor last September.
Another unknown is whether Israel would dare to strike Iran without a green or at least an amber light from the Americans. Without one, flying to Iran the direct way—through American-controlled Iraqi airspace—would be fraught with danger. An unauthorised Israeli strike that added to America’s miscellaneous woes in the Middle East would test even the closest alliance, jeopardising Israel’s relationship with its vital patron and armourer.
Against this must be weighed Israel’s visceral sense of vulnerability, sharpened not only by the Jewish state’s history but also by the implacability of Iran, whose government rules out any accommodation with the “Zionist regime” and repeatedly predicts its disappearance. Nobody can be quite sure that in a corner, confronting what it believed to be existential peril, Israel will not act—alone if necessary.
RUSH: All right, some of the details of the Bin Laden tape, the supposed Bin Laden tape, have been released. Now, this is a hoot. In the first place, there is no specific threat to the United States in the tape, unless there is one in code. But there’s no promise that we’re going to get hit again. There may be some code in there, but nothing direct. But it is amazing, folks, it is a liberal rant. He blames the US for global warming. He blames US corporate interests for corrupting the political process, because our politicians have to run out and raise so much money in order to run for president. He excoriates the Democrats. Now I understand why some people were saying earlier that this tape could not be good for Democrats, because what he apparently says on this tape, this Bin Laden look-alike — I’m sorry, I refuse to believe it’s Bin Laden. It’s just me. If I’m wrong, when we find out, I will be glad to admit it. I don’t have to do it very often, so I’m used to it, but I’m going to tell you this: He excoriates the Democrats, he lets it known, lets it be known, that he favors what they promise. He said, “You Democrats won the election in November because the American people want this war in Iraq over. But what have you done? You have continued to authorize billions and billions of dollars for the war. You are failing in your mission to the American people,” and on and on with things like this.He’s blaming the United States for global warming and stealing the world’s resources. It is a liberal rant. It’s everything you would hear out of San Francisco. It’s what you would hear from a major college campus, take your pick of a professor. It’s on the Senate floor. It’s anything you would hear out of the mouth of an average elected Democrat. It’s stunning. I can’t wait to get a hold of the actual transcript of this thing, because it’s obviously in a language — (speaking gobbly gook) — and it would be worthless to play that because we can’t understand it. We’re going to get the transcript of this. It may not happen until Monday, but I was watching the Drive-Bys. Jim Miklaszewski on PMSNBC was going through a brief summary of the transcript. He was focused on how this is not going to help the Democrats. Well, what do you think? Whose side are they on anyway? Why is this a surprise? The Democrats in this country are invested in defeat, they own defeat. They’re cementing that investment today and yesterday, and they’ll do so next week when the Petraeus report comes out. How can anybody assume they’re on anybody’s side but Bin Laden’s? “Rush, you can’t say it like that.” Why not? This is like back in the old Nicaragua days.
