In this excellent overview of the Israeli’s view of the Iranian nuclear program in the Daily Telegraph, it’s made very clear by the government that attacking Iran before they can acquire a nuclear weapon is not a question of if, but of when:
Having already suffered a near-apocalypse in the form of the Holocaust, the Jewish people have no intention of being the hapless victims of Ahmadinejad’s genocidal designs. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, last month gave his most explicit warning to date that Israel was prepared to use military force to prevent Teheran from obtaining a nuclear weapon: “The Jewish people, with the scars of the Holocaust fresh on its body, cannot afford to allow itself to face threats of annihilation once again.”That single sentence sums up the consensus among most of the Israeli people. If the wider world is not prepared to take pre-emptive action to stop Iran from fulfilling its nuclear ambitions, then Israel is ready to act alone.
There are those who do not take the Iranian President at his word that he will “wipe Israel off the map.” But if you are an Israeli government official charged with the safety and security of your tiny nation, you cannot afford the luxury of wondering whether Ahmadinejad is serious or not. He is the leader of a nation that at the very least, is about to get his hands on the technology – uranium enrichment – that can be used for both peaceful and military purposes. If you can enrich uranium for fuel to drive a nuclear reactor, then you can certainly enrich it enough to build a bomb.
The process is exactly the same. The only difference is is in the percentage of isotopes that are converted from U-235 to U238. In short, all you have to do is run the centrifuges for a longer period of time.
Since the Iranians have not shown any willingness to allow for the very intrusive inspections and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which would give confidence to the Israelis that the Iranian program is peaceful, it is a virtual certainty that they will attack and take care of what they perceive to be a problem themselves:
As for Israel’s offensive plans against Iran, the Iran Command team’s task is to demonstrate that Israel has the capability to act unilaterally.“No one is going to take this threat seriously until the State of Israel can demonstrate to the outside world that we have the ability to deal with this menace on our own,” said a senior security official who serves on Iran Command.
“The only way we can put pressure on the outside world to deal effectively with Iran’s nuclear programme is to demonstrate that we can do this ourselves.
‘’Of course, we hope it doesn’t come to a military solution, and we hope that this can be resolved through diplomacy. But Iran’s track record is not good.”
If the Israelis do go through with their attack on Iranian nuclear sites, the United States will almost certainly suffer for the Israeli action. The Iranians have made it clear that they consider the US and Israel interchangeable in this matter and that an attack by either one will require a response against both countries.
Given this set of circumstances, the Bush Administration may very well be thinking that if they are going to get blamed by Iran for an Israeli attack on Iran, why not carry out the attack themselves? In for a penny, in for a pound.
Of course, our attack on Iran would set in motion a series of events in Iraq and elsewhere that would have consequences far more costly than a “pound.” The resulting turmoil in the Middle East could have a catastrophic impact on our interests not to mention any interruption in the oil supply deeply affecting our economy.
But it is in Iraq where we would suffer most from our attack on Iran. Some Shia militias would almost certainly turn on us and make any efforts to stem the violence there futile. For this reason, as well as all the other downside probabilities, I believe that we are not seriously contemplating a military strike on Iran.
In fact, we may be playing a willing cats paw for Israel. While we send more and more naval assets to the Persian Gulf while keeping up a constant drumbeat of charges and allegations about the Iranians assisting in the killing of Americans in Iraq, Israel can carry out the enormously complex planning involved in their own attack on Iran largely below the radar of world scrutiny:
For the Israelis, taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities is a very different proposition to the 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Back then, the Israelis had the element of surprise – the last thing the Iraqis expected to see was a squadron of Israeli warplanes in their airspace.Iraq’s nuclear programme also posed a relatively straightforward target in that all the facilities were concentrated at the Osirak complex, south of Baghdad. A few well-targeted bombs released in a single air raid were sufficient to do the job.
The Iranians, on the other hand, learning the lessons of the Osirak debacle, have scattered their resources around the country. Obvious targets, such as the controversial uranium enrichment complex at Natanz, are set in specially constructed bomb proof bunkers that would require high-precision, bunker-busting bombs to inflict any serious damage.
Yet another challenge is presented by the recent arrival of the Russian-made Tor M1 anti-aircraft missile system as part of an arms deal signed between Moscow and Teheran last year.
The military challenges may seem like a picnic when Israel considers the diplomatic nightmare of what the world’s reaction would be to their attack. Although the Jewish state can hardly be more isolated, actual sanctions would almost certainly be considered by the UN (and vetoed promptly by the US). And the idea of Israel attacking Muslim country would almost certainly roil the Arab street, although it would meet with secret approval in several Arab capitols where Sunnis dominate.
There simply are no consequence-free options on Iran for either Israel or the United States. But for the Israelis, who believe that Iran is willing and will be capable of carrying out another Holocaust of the Jewish people, the only consequence they fear may be from not doing anything at all.
4:02 pm
I actually suspect the Bush Administration hopes the Israelis will take the lead in any military adverturism in Iran.
There will still be political backlash from the Dems, however they would not be able to point the direct finger at Bush.
Under these circumstances it would be like Bush saying to Israel, “I got your six.”
The thing is Publicly I do not think Bush would act like he has Israel’s back. I do think Bush would involve the US in any Iranian counterattack (I hope).
4:34 pm
Not going after Iran because of what might happen in Iraq is a classic example of our current President’s stupidity/stubborness.
It’s only because Bush has invested so much in Iraq that he refuses to see that Iran getting nukes is a far worse threat to us and our allies than whatever might happen in Iraq as a consequence of us attacking Iran (and remember, it’s no sure thing that the worst case scenario in Iraq would in fact take place).
4:54 pm
Rick,
Interesting and well written post, as usual. I agree with your overall explanation of the dilemma Israel is in but quibble with some of your supporting evidence.
First, a technical correction – uranium enrichment is not a conversion process, but a separation process. So uranium isotopes are not “converted from U-235 to U238” – instead, they are separated from each other. And for the record, enriching natural uranium to reactor-grade fuel (3-5% U235) represents 70-90% of the separative effort required to achieve weapons-grade (HEU) material. I know it sounds crazy, but you can read a good explanation here (scroll down to read comments by Yale): http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1388/bellows-bearings-and-rotors
Here’s the cliff-notes version from the link:
Now imagine reaching in the bowl and pulling out unwanted green balls. You are doing “separative workâ€. You will be leaving the red balls in the bowl.
Remove 840 green balls, a long and tedious job.
Now you have 153 green
balls and 7 red balls.
You are now at “4.4% Red Enrichmentâ€
Last step. This time remove only 152 green balls.
This leaves 7 red balls and 1 green ball or an “88% Red Enrichment.â€
So note: It took EIGHT-FIVE percent of the work to go from 0.7% to 4.4%!
2nd point: I think the big problem in the event of an Iranian attack will not be in Iraq, but in the Gulf. Iran will certainly encourage proxies to attack the US forces in Iraq, but the real thrust of Iranian retaliation could be efforts to limit or regulate shipping traffic in the Gulf and strait of Hormuz.
3rd point: I don’t think Sunni Arab leaders will be quietly cheering and attack on Iran. They want, most of all, stability, and such an attack would not provide it. Saudi Arabia is particularly vulnerable since it has so much critical petroleum infrastructure on the Gulf in easy reach of Iranian attack. There will also be Iranian accusations that Arab states between Israel and Iran (notably Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq) allowed the Israeli aircraft, tacitly or not, to cross their airspace. Many Arab states encourage a certain amount of anti-American and anti-Israeli activity by the populous, but the outcry from this attack could destabilize Arab governments themselves, particularly those like Saudi and Egypt who are US allies.
4th point: To further complicate the Iraq picture, what if the US gave permission for Israel to pass through Iraqi airspace – the most direct route to most of the targets? Although the US manages the airspace over Iraq, it is still the sovereign territory of Iraq. The Shia-led government would be justifiably pissed and the resulting consequences would likely be severe.
5th point: You’re right that Israel and the US will be lumped together if Israel attacks alone. But Israel can’t really attack without some tacit approval and coordination from the US. Our intelligence and air surveillance assets would detect Israeli aircraft no matter what route they took. The Israelis would have to coordinate with the US to a certain extent to ensure that we don’t shoot their aircraft down due to misunderstanding. This is particularly true as Israeli strike aircraft leave Iran after dropping their bombs. They’ll probably be hotly pursued by Iranian aircraft and unless pre-planning took place, our radar operators won’t know which blips are Israeli and which are Iranian. If the the aircraft start flying toward a US carrier, well then god help them, because they’ll probably be shot down.
6:20 pm
With all due respect, the way people continue to use this dishonest argument is just puzzling. Anyone who knows anything about the problem knows that Ahmadinejad never said this. Anyone who understands anything about the problem knows that Ahmadinejad could never say this. Yet people continue to bring up this false quote.
Ahmadinejad said that he thinks that history will destroy the state of Israel. I.e., his position is identical to that of Hamas that refuses to recognize the state of Israel and insists on the “one state solution”—the “Great Palestine”. This is a vile and extremist position, but it has nothing to do with nuclear holocaust.
Nuking Israel would mean: 1) killing millions of Arabs, 2) destroying some of the holiest Muslim sites, 3) burying the Arabic “Palestinian project” forever. He could as well say that he wants to nuke Mecca.
Now, some would argue that he doesn’t give a damn about Arabs and Islam, that he’s really crazy and he wants to nuke Israel anyway.
That could be true, but he never said anything to this effect. What he did say is a pretty consistent pro-Hamas position.
To claim that Ahmdanijad publicly pledged to wipe Israel off the map is to lie, and this is not a good thing when discussing such serious matters.
6:24 pm
I really don’t see how the Iranians could make things worse for us in Iraq. They’re already trying pretty hard to plunge the country into chaos. Who knows what Iraqi Shiite groups might do? I doubt if they know.
The “Arab Street” is a paper tiger. How many times have we seen angry Muslims denounce Israel and the U.S., then go back home and pout? It’s the authoritarian governments of those people we have to curry favor with, and they don’t seem to be too keen on the idea of Iranian hegemony.
How much credibility will the mullahs have with their own people, if they have staked so much national prestige on their nuclear program, if that program is taken out by the hated Jews?
And how much does our stock go up if we become dangerous and unpredictable again, as we were in the initial aftermath of the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns? The conventional wisdom is that an attack on Iran is unwise. Is it really? Their infrastructure can’t take too much of a pounding, and their economy is suffering already, under weak sanctions. We can accept the consequences of destroying Iran’s ability to produce oil, but can they?
I think there is too much emphasis on all of the things that Iran might be able to do to us, and not nearly enough on what we certainly can do to them. It’s kind of hard to sustain a regional insurgency when your primary source of income is burning, and your military is being systematically whittled down.
9:01 pm
“The only difference is is in the percentage of isotopes that are converted from U-235 to U238. In short, all you have to do is run the centrifuges for a longer period of time.”
Ummm, no. The centrifuges separate the isotopes, they do not “convert” anything. The centrifuges are cascaded in order to achieve an ever higher concentration of U-235 (the desired fissionable end product), until bomb-grade material is achieved in sufficient quantity.
9:41 pm
Nikolay:
Thank you for giving us the Juan Cole propaganda version of what Ahmadinejad said.
Other, more erudite scholars, have so thoroughly debunked Dr. Cole’s “translation” that for you to keep harping on it only shows a towering ignorance of the facts.
In fact, the Iranian President said that Iran would wipe Israel off the map not once, but twice. He repeated it when questioned by western reporters on it.
Next time you call me a liar on this site, you’re banned.
3:41 am
This is not about Dr. Cole’s translation, although it’s probably accurate (and, BTW, identical to MEMRI’s own translation)—and it really makes no real difference, wiping the the country off the map or “off the pages of history”, it’s still wiped out, i.e. doesn’t exist anymore.
You in this post talk about ‘his word that he will “wipe Israel off the map.‒ What he said was “[as Khomeini said], Israel should be wiped off the map”. This is a significant difference, because the only way the he could do this is by nuking, meanwhile for Palestinians fully implementing the “right of return” would likely be enough. You know, kind of a little Mark Steynian “death of Europe”.
You can read the whole text—it’s all about his support for “Palestinian struggle”.
Saying “_I_ want to to wipe Israel off the map” effectively means “I want to kill millions of Palestinians and destroy their homeland”. Is it really not obvious that Ahmadinejad would not say in the speech in support of the “Palestinian struggle” that he wants to kill millions of Palestinians and to destroy their homeland??? Some people argue that he wants to nuke Israel because he hates Arabs and Palestinians:
This is a consistent position, although it’s kind of tricky to understand how would someone want to show “special contempt for Palestinians” in the speech praising “Palestinian struggle”, but at least it’s consistent.
I’m sorry if I offended you, and it’s obviously not a lie as long as you yourself believe in it, but you’re seriously misguided on this. I certainly agree with you that Ahmadinejad is genuinely scary, regardless of his stated positions. And Israel’s wish to eliminate Iran’s nuclear facilities is pretty understandable, better safe than sorry. But, speaking about diplomatic repercussions for Israel were it to take such actions that are the subject of this post, using the misconstrued quote certainly wouldn’t help their argument.
5:02 am
“Other, more erudite scholars, have so thoroughly debunked Dr. Cole’s “translation†that for you to keep harping on it only shows a towering ignorance of the facts.”
Would you happen to have a link?
9:33 am
An Israeli attack on Iran would probably make the Israelis feel better in the short run, but it would undoubtably give the Iranians an excuse to withdraw from the NPT and redouble their efforts to get nukes.
10:01 am
Nikolay,
The debate of exact translations and the context in which Ahmedinijad said is besides the point when you look at the totality of what he’s said about Israel: The new Iranian hard-line movement, along with its titular head Ahmadinijad, wants Israel to cease to exist as a state. His solution may or may not including nuking parts of the country, but it’s clear from his other writings and speeches that the destruction of Israel, at the very least, as a political entity, is his goal.
Now, I don’t subscribe to many of the conspiracy theories about the Iranian President (the 12th Imam “death cult” being the most famous), but he is still a dangerous man.
It’s also important to point out, since most blogs and the MSM never bother to, that the office of the Iranian President cannot declare war and does not control the armed forces, nor is it in charge of the nuclear program. Those powers are reserved for the Supreme Leader. So the question becomes, does Ahmadenijad speak for the Iranian hierarchy? Probably not – Iranian internal politics are very factional and even the press has recently reported that Ahmadenijad is not the dictator (in terms of military and political power) that many have made him out to be.
To be fair, Rick is basically suggesting that given the totality of the “relationship” between Israel and Iran, Israel is justified in perceiving Iran as an existential threat and I think his assessment that no leader will allow Israel to be threatened with another holocaust is spot-on. Perhaps Khamenei will not nuke parts of Israel or threaten to, but there are others who might come to power that might. Can Israel gamble on that not happening? I don’t know, that’s for Israel to decide, but I certainly appreciate the real dilemma Israel is in and I think Rick’s post argues that well.
6:23 am
Andy:
Thanks as usual for your excellent analysis – including your correction of my ignorance in physics regarding uranium enrichment cycle.
Your comment about other Sunni states not endorsing an attack on Iran may be technically correct but is belied by the very real probability that the Saudis will allow Israeli planes overflight rights in case they attack. That smacks of some kind of support even if it would be deniable publicly.
Also, as often as you point out the limitations of power in the office of President in Iran, I will point out that Ahmadinejad (like Rafsanjani before him) has an independent power base that perhaps gives him more influence on government actions than is spelled out in the Iranian constitution. One of the least commented on aspects of Ahmadinejad is that he is the first President to have strong ties to the IRGC. Indeed, he was a high ranking officer in the Qods force and, according to Interpol and other European intel services, participated in the assassination of an Iranian dissident in Austria.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/ahmadinejad.htm
This makes the idea of probable participation of the Qods force in Iraq take on a whole new aspect and raises some interesting questions on Iranian involvement in Iraq; does Khamenei know what his President is doing? Can it both be true that Iran is not officially helping the militias and insurgents kill Americans but that an off the books operation countenanced by Ahmadinejad is being run via the Qods force?
Doubtful we’ll be able to sort it out but it should give pause to both pro and anti military strike proponents.
8:40 pm
I’m pretty late getting to this post, but I have a question for anyone who cares to comment—or direct me to a discussion elsewhere. Seems to me we are assuming Israel will launch an air attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities because that was the way they eliminated the Iraqi reactor. What about the idea of Mossad identifying and targeting key Iranian scientists and technicians who operate the facilities? With this approach, the program would certainly be slowed or stopped, and US could plausibly deny involvement.