Begin forwarded message:
From: Golsorkhi
Date: January 21, 2007 11:30:27 AM PST
To: Michael Butler
Subject: FW: (When) Will Israel Attack Iran
U.S. plans envision “broad attack” on Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. contingency planning for military action
against Iran’s nuclear program goes beyond limited strikes and would
effectively unleash a war against the country, a former U.S.
intelligence analyst said on Friday.
“I’ve seen some of the planning … You’re not talking about a
surgical strike,” said Wayne White, who was a top Middle East analyst
for the State Department’s bureau of intelligence and research until
March 2005.
“You’re talking about a war against Iran” that likely would
destabilise the Middle East for years, White told the Middle East
Policy Council, a Washington think tank.
“We’re not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of
targets inside Iran. We’re talking about clearing a path to the
targets” by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines,
anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the
Gulf, and maybe even Iran’s ballistic missile capability, White said.
….
[Israeli ‘surgical strike’ on Lebanon cost more than $ 8 billion, let
alone more than a thousand lives ]
Operation Iran: Past Pretence War Underway   Patrick Seal
Bush appears to have been influenced by pro-Israeli advisers such as
Eliott Abrams, the man in charge of the Middle East at the National
Security Council, and by arm-chair strategists at neo-conservative
think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, who have long
clamoured for regime change in Tehran.
Although Washington’s neo-cons have suffered some severe setbacks,…
more
President Bush’s Iraq Strategy: The [Persian] Gulf Dimension
By Simon Henderson; Washington Institute for Near East Policy (TIL)
Unnamed but Central: Iran   Following the January 16 meeting, an
official joint statement was released with the agreement of the Arab
foreign ministers and Secretary Rice. The statement opened with the
implication that Iran is the region’s first and foremost concern. It
then turned, in order, to terrorism, Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and, finally, Lebanon. To be sure, neither the passage in
question nor the statement as a whole mentioned Iran by name—the Arab
states are reluctant to openly point the finger at Tehran. But the
text touched on a series of issues that could only refer to Iran. For
example, the participants “welcomed the commitment of the United
States . . . to defend the security of the Gulfâ€â€”clearly an
endorsement of U.S. military presence in the Gulf, coming on the heels
of Bush’s announced dispatch of a second aircraft carrier and the
deployment of Patriot air defense missiles. Bush has also said, “We
will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and
dominating the region,†a theme picked up in the post-visit statement,
which emphasized that the peace and security of “the Middle East
including the Gulf region . . . is critical to the health of the
global economy . . . and its destabilization would threaten the vital
national interests of all.†…. more
US naval buildup in Gulf targets Iran  The Militant –
A central aspect of Washington’s preparations to confront Iran is its
ominous naval buildup in the Arab-Persian Gulf. The January 14 New
York Times devoted the back page of its Sunday “Week in Reviewâ€
section to outline this point.
As Bush’s War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for
the Apocalypse
By Sarah Posner, AlterNet
Is Bush pushing for a second war or a Second Coming?
Christian Zionists are dancing the hora in San Antonio. Armageddon
appears to be at hand…..
Biblical literalists, convened together through San Antonio megapastor
John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI), are now seeing the
fruits of their yearlong campaign to convince the Bush administration
to attack Iran……
Will Congress Stop the Iran Attack: Jorge Hirsch   Antiwar.com –
President Bush is invoking his “commander in chief” authority to
escalate the war in Iraq, and he will likely also invoke it to launch
an aerial attack against Iran. Congress has long ago abdicated and
delegated to the president its constitutional …
Will Israel Attack Iran (Part 2)
With Iran’s rejection of a weak sanctions regime passed by the
ineffective United Nations, and its continued pursuit of nuclear
technology that would allow the production of atomic weapons, the
subject of an Israeli first strike is worth revisiting.
REM [Nov-06: Part I]
Will Israel Attack Iran?
As Iran continues to move forward with its nuclear program, despite
demands by the United Nations that such activities stop immediately,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may be forced to take unilateral
military action to prevent Iranian acquisition of nuclear technology.
REM
1. Seymour Hersh new piece in The New Yorker, “The Next Act:
Is a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?”
2. Tony Karon’s “Israel’s Domestic Political Games Raises the Danger
of a U.S.-Iran War.”
3. Aluf Benn’s “Olmert’s Drums of War” in Haaretz.
4. Bush:I would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran.
5. Olmert hints at possible military action against Iran
By Aluf Benn: Ha’aretz – Nov 13, 2006
6. Michael Oren’s op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on November
16 which is only accessible to subscribers. So here are a few
interesting quotes:
Much like 1967, Israel faces a Middle Eastern leader who has
repeatedly sworn to wipe it off the map, and to that end is
assiduously trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Like Nasser, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad can cripple Israel economically by keeping it in a state
of alert, driving away foreign investment and tourism. In the absence
of international commitment to thwart Iran’s nuclear plans, Israel
has no choice but to consider striking pre-emptively. Doing so,
however, requires explicit U.S. support, or at the very least, an
indication that the U.S. will not oppose such action. Like Eban 40
years earlier, Mr. Olmert came to Washington in search of a green
light.
But the U.S. is hardly in the position to sanction an Israeli attack.
Bogged down in Iraq and hemorrhaging political capital at home, Mr.
Bush resembles Johnson in his inability to approve risky military
initiatives. As inimical to Mr. Ahmadinejad as his predecessor was to
Nasser, and at least as sympathetic to the Jewish state, Mr. Bush is
nevertheless unable to undertake a unilateral attack against Iran or
even to endorse an Israeli one.
This was bad news for Mr. Olmert. The Israeli prime minister hoped to
secure a hard-and-fast timetable for interdicting Iran’s nuclear
program first by diplomacy and then, if that failed, by force.
Instead, he heard that the U.S. would only support measures to
isolate Iran economically and balked at the use of bombs. Though he
and his administration have routinely stated a determination to
prevent Iran from obtaining strategic capabilities, Mr. Bush, in the
aftermath of his party’s electoral defeats, avoided all public
mention of armed power as a means of achieving that goal. [emphases
added]
[ . . . ] Mr. Bush is unlikely to be more successful than Johnson in
marshaling international strictures against a defiant Middle Eastern
regime. Nor was Mr. Olmert liable to extract from Mr. Bush more
concrete backing for pre-emptive action than Eban did from LBJ. At
most, Mr. Bush could have signaled his sympathy for Israel’s plight
and for the steps it must take to ensure its survival. The light Mr.
Olmert received in Washington was probably not green, but neither was
it flashing red.
[ . . . ] The Six-Day War was a seismic event that profoundly altered
the Middle East, with reverberations that continue to convulse the
region. An Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities could well
have a similar impact, especially as Mr. Ahmadinejad and the mullahs
are certain to react violently.
Mr. Olmert and his government must consider such consequences as they
decide on Israel’s next moves. The ramifications of that decision are
certain to affect America as well. Many Arabs to this day believe
that the U.S. was complicit in the Six-Day War, and even that
American pilots flew Israeli planes. Such rumors will again be rife
if Israel attacks Iran, and especially if Israeli jets pass through
Iraq’s American-controlled airspace. Israel may indeed act alone, but
in the minds of a great many people in the Middle East, the U.S. acts
with it.And… finally. According Baker-Hamilton Commission
recommendations on re-starting of the Israeli-Palestinian peace
process (meaning more U.S. pressure on Israel).
So… when you take all the above items into consideration I would say
that Israel has a “window of opportunity” of about two months to
attack Iran’s nuclear sites. Such an attack will certainly be good
news for the neocons and their allies, since it would sabotage any
possible U.S. efforts to engage Iran and to end the Iraq mess. An
Israeli attack will also probably ignite a U.S. confrontation with
Iran.
REM
Will Israel attack Iran?
According to The Times Online, Israel may be preparing to attack Iran
with a limited nuclear strike.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnelsâ€
into the targets. “Mini-nukes†would then immediately be fired into a
plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of
radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one
strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,†said one
of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been
prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s
assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched
uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no
longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment
facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete
and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used
only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States
declined to intervene, senior sources said.Well, the U.S. has
declined to intervene so far.
Israel’s targets may include:
Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for
uranium enrichment
A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a
statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for
the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels
A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough
plutonium for a bombThe report is certainly interesting, but it
doesn’t indicate a time frame in which limited strikes might occur.
It makes sense that such plans exist, especially given Iran’s
continuing rhetoric about the total destruction of Israel and the
lack of strong sanctions from the U.N. for its nuke program.
Given the current political climate in both the U.N. and the U.S.,
Israel may not have a choice.
A year-old bet
A bet: Will the US or Israel attack Iran?  Kalimna_ 12-Feb-06
The gambling service, Intrade, forecast about a 33% chance that Israel
or the US will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities before March 2007: see
Intrade
If you invest $1 you will have roughly $3 returned to you should an
attack occur.
—— End of Forwarded Message
After reading the article please share your thoughts in the comment section below.