Per the linked article below, Iran seems to be doing everything it can lately to provoke Israel and potentially justify Israeli options in considering a unilateral military response. Is Israel justiifed in considering his rhetoric to be reflective of Iran’s miltary intentions? there any real danger of this occurring in the near term?
Probably. If you had a neighbor who kept issuing statements that he was going to kill you, and you looked in his window and saw him building a bomb, would you wait to see if he uses it against you?
As background, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday flatly pronounced the Holocaust a “myth” and said Europeans have used this “myth” to help create a Jewish state “in the heart of the Islamic world.” :rolleyes:
Ahmadinejad isn’t saying anything that two generations of Islamic leaders have been saying re: the destruction of Israel. The big difference is that Iran is steamrolling ahead with plans to develop a nuclear arsenal and already has precision-guided missiles to place them well inside Tel Aviv or anywhere else in Israel.
For Sharon’s part, barring his taking out a full-page ad in the Tehran Times–complete with a link to a toll free 1-800-NUKEJEWS information line–he couldn’t be more explicit about his administration’s plans to attack Iran. The stated (not rumored) timetable is sometime in or around March 2006. U.S. military analysts conclude that Iran doesn’t have the means to do the job properly and Israel’s loud saber-rattling raises the specter of a forced Israel-US joint military response. (To which I say: ugh.)
All of this is a mere prelude to what is likely an all-out war in perhaps 10-15 years. Iran will be fully weaponized by then, so say many analysts.
(Ultimately, same thing.) 
Damn. I got it right the first time. :rolleyes:
From an international legal perspective, the idiotic blathering of this popularly elected dickhead cannot really be said to justify military force on Israel’s part. From [:
Clearly, this is not yet true. There is no movement of Iranian troops or military materiel which indicate an imminent attack. The level of threat at which justified self defence kicks in is usually exemplified by the [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Affair]Caroline Affair](]this excellent article[/url), ie.
The best modern example of such justified self defence was probably Israel’s last war. It most certainly wasn’t Iraq (ie. the US/UK in 2002, although Kuwait and only Kuwait in 1990 would count).
Once again, let’s remember that Ahmadinejad is nowhere near as powerful as an American-style president. For one thing he is not commander-in-chief and has no oversight over the military at all. He does have a bully pulpit for foreign policy and appoints ambassadors, but he can’t actually dictate foreign policy in any sort of unhindered fashion. Real power rests elsewhere, which is why Iran is a theocracy.
His rhetoric is just rhetoric. He’s a populist and his ranting plays to his base. He has no more ability to act on his reactionary nonsense, then Khatami had to force through his moderate policies.
- Tamerlane
Right. There’s not enough problems in the Middle East, what with Iraq and all.
Is Iran threatening to invade Israel? Not that I see. Is Iran posed to attack Israel? They’ve been funneling money to third-party terrorist groups for many years, but there’s nothing to suggest that Iran is doing anything more than having a crackpot shoot his mouth off again and again. Is Israel under some other imminent threat? Nuclear experts say that Iran is 10 years away from a nuke, and Israel already has its own capacity to retaliate.
It would be absurd for Israel to respond to those odious words with bombs and bullets. Is it really worth a country going to war to defend its honor and dignity from the half-baked racist conspiracy theories spouted by an extremist religious nutjob?
BTW, in case folks haven’t seen this about Ahmadinejad being guided by the Holy, it is very… illuminating.
No, of course not. Sticks and stones.
Is North Korea justified in attacking the USA cos Bush bad mouths it?
Or China for all those pesky human rights criticisms?
Can the UK attack Zimbabwe?
Sorry, the article I meant to reference.
No, but just for once I’d like to see rhetoric like this, that is, rhetoric with the intention to create a bargaining chip get a swift brutal kick in the ass.
But will a swift ass-kicking cost me more to fill up my SUV?
Yes, it justifies a “response”, a response proportional to the rhetoric. Israel would be well advised to step up espionage against Iran and make sure their nuclear missiles are zeroed in on Tehran.
But I don’t think bombing Iran is a very good idea. If it would destroy Iran’s nuclear development program and stop a war before it starts then they should consider it, but the reality is that it won’t.
Iran’s nuclear development program can’t be decapitated by one bombing raid. Iran is wealthy and well-educated by third world standards. Their nuclear program can’t be destroyed militarily unless you’re prepared to occupy the country. And even if a bombing raid could destroy the bomb-making facilities and kill the engineers that’s just going to be a setback for the Iranians, they could just start over from scratch. If Pakistan can build a nuclear bomb Iran certainly can build a nuclear bomb.
Building a nuclear bomb isn’t that difficult. The only hard parts are getting the fissionable material and delivering the bomb to the target. Any country that’s willing to spend the money, time and effort can build themselves a nuclear bomb. And Iran has an advantage over most third world countries since the rulers of Iran have oil money that doesn’t have to be squeezed penny by penny out of impoverished subsistance farmers like in Pakistan.
So…if a military strike would work then Israel could consider it. But that military strike won’t work. Therefore such a strike should not be considered. Threatened, yes…forcing the Iranians to harden and disperse their bomb making facilities means the bombs will take longer to build and will be more expensive.
And of course, even when the Iranians have nukes they almost certainly wouldn’t use them since they can’t nuke Israel without killing hundreds of thousands of muslim Arabs as collateral damage. Israel is a very small country, it would be like trying to nuke Brooklyn without hurting New Jersey.
So Israel’s likely response isn’t military, but to try to use these genocidal comments to diplomatically isolate Iran from Europe.
However, Iran has invited American companies to bid on the contracts for building nuclear power plants. Given the poorly kept “secret” that some of our people there would be CIA, would Iran really invite us to bid, if they were making weapons instead?
These genocidal comments are not limited to this one person on the Dope. I work with someone (more than one someone) who wants the U.S. involved militarily. These clowns want us to initiate and lead the attack. Racism and genocide? I think so.
It’s perfectly possible to have a civilian nuclear power program running in tandem with your nuclear bomb program. Having a civilian nuclear program makes your bomb program a lot easier. So what if the CIA is all over your civilian program?
Look, Iran isn’t going to build a nuclear bomb and then keep it secret. They are publicly denying their nuclear ambitions for now because that makes getting the fissionable material easier. Once you’ve got the U-235 it doesn’t matter how many inspectors or CIA agents you send, Iran will be able to put together a bomb. Will they be able to accurately deliver it by missile to Tel Aviv? Probably not, but there are other ways to deliver a bomb.
As for genocidal comments, I was talking about the genocidal comments of the Iranian president. I don’t see how the US or Israel attacking Iran to stop their nuclear bomb program would be genocidal unless the goal was to extirminate a large number of Iranian people. What exactly are you talking about?
I have two quibbles with your otherwise cogent analysis.
First, the design and fabrication of a nuclear bomb is indeed difficult, entailing the mastery of highly technical processes that few countries today have mastered. While Iran is well on its way to weaponization, they themselves will someday discuss the tremendous techical hurdles they today face–and that’s with ample Chinese, Russian and NK assistance.
Second, the diplomatic isolation of Iran is meaningless to Iran’s rulers, as they care not a whit about the economic fallout upon the teeming masses. Like all despots, there concern is power. Moreover, they know that any possible economic sanctions will be short lived and easily circumvented.
Diplomatic isolation is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Again and again, Europe’s diplomatic route–begging, cajoling, threatening, censuring–has proven fruitless. Europe’s propensity to talk, talk, talk an issue to death is breathtaking given its poor track record in the MENA arena. (Not that the US military route is more productive.
Some issues have no satisfactory answers. Israel’s threatened attack in 2006 will seal the Middle East’s fate 10-15 years down the road. The nation that will not forget the Shah will never forgive an Israeli attack, nor will its leaders likely confine themselves to proportion response.
proportionate response.
Are you referring to the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, or the 1967 Six Day War? (Obviously, you can’t be referring to 1973, since in that case Israel was caught by surprise.)
Israel is kind of in a bind, because justified or not they simply can’t launch an airstrike into Iran. They don’t have any aircraft with the necessary range.
A Jericho missle could probably reach, but I’m sure they don’t want to snatch open that particular box.
Israel might be able to reach Iran with drop tanks, but they’d be at extreme range and wouldn’t be able to carry much payload. And they’d have to overfly either Turkey, Saudi, or Iraq. Saudi and Turkey would never give such permission and would conceiveably attack any Israeli planes in their airspace. And if the US allowed Israel to overfly Iraq then we might as well bomb Iran ourselves and cut out the middleman.
There’s no way this would be confined to a simple “Israel bombs Iran, Iran sits there and takes it” scenario.