Either that, or it’s just sheer exhaution.
Somehow I think you’ve probably just read more history from Europe than other places.
Oh. I absolutely agree. This is a big fish, small fish world, and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that. American might, have allowed the Europeans to conquer the moral high ground at little cost or danger and even less real world consequence. The more powerless and impotent Europe has become the shriller and absurd her demands have grown. Pathetic.
But I don’t think Europeans have been any more bloodthirsty or warmongering than any other group of people in the world. We’ve just been so much more skilled at it. If the rest hadn’t sucked so bad, it would just have been them doing the kicking. These days it seems it’s the European nation, USA, which is best – though they don’t have the heart for it. Modern Israel can also be termed a European nation. Created out of European history & science and thoughts and ideas - and guns & military theories and on basis of a European political necessity, initially mostly peopled by European emigrants. Perhaps the reason Israel has done so well in her many wars, is this European bloodthirsty warmongering skill at murder and mayhem? Out of curiosity, do Israelis still to some extend think themselves as Europeans?
Anyway. Israeli nuclear attack on Iran is completely out of the question at this point. And I think there won’t be a conventional attack either. But I might be mistaken on the last. Who thinks Israel will try to take out Iran’s nuclear ambitions by conventional means?
Most likely, the Israelis will overfly Jordan or SA at a low level to avoid radar detection (as they did in 1981 in striking Iraq) or claim that their aircraft are US aircraft. But the actual method of carrying out the attack is irrelevant to the consequences.
Nitpick: that’s not what it says. The President wrote in 2002:
That means preventative military strikes, a practice that has been viewed as illegitimate under customary international law for hundreds of years.
But then consider the war that spech was made to explain, and I’m not sure that pans out.
Do their planes have enough range to make it there and back?
It wasn’t a speech. It is a quote from the National Security Strategy of 2002.
My mistake (you did say ‘wrote’), I was thinking of an SOTU address. Although I *still[i/] wonder if the point remains.
And most likely the one they will use.
Have America do it.
Oh, those insidious Jews!
What’s your suggestion on how we can stop the rootless cosmpolitian Jews…er, Israelis…from controlling us, Reeder?
Which raises the question of whether the new Iraqi gov’t would allow Israelis to use Iraqi air space to strike Iran, and what the U.S., which has taken on the responsibility of protecting Iraq’s sovreignty, would do if the Iraqi gov’t told us to keep Israeli planes out.
what a fun geopolitical pickle that would be.
Actually, he’s not the first person to make that point.
This is not a point about the insidious Jews. In light of the information that has come out since the Iraq invasion, I think it’s actually a valid comment.
As others have said, not that much risk. They’d likely be long gone before anything happened to them.
[quote]
Would it not be feasible for Israel to use missiles to nuke the suspected targets?
[/quote
I don’t think they have the right missiles for the job. Moreover, even the US doesn’t. Missiles are good, but not nearly as good as a pilot using a smart bomb. Hence, you don’t see us launching as many missiles/cruise missiles as flying sorties of bombers.
Silly, silly boy. What nukes? Israel has no nukes. (wink) They’ve been maintaining that ambiguity for years, and they probably aren’t going to show their cards unless it is for the survival of their country. Regular bombs would work just fine, assuming they could get them there.
Deny, deny, deny, claim they were off-course, etc.
No. How would it benefit them? Let them go and complain loudly afterward, per Alessan’s assessment.
Huh? Totally different, unrelated circumstances. Israel can work up a justification for striking Syria that has nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear facilities. See the developing furor over the death of Rafik Hariri.
Your concerns about the jets being at risk while overflying Jordan/SA are not the real concerns here. The real problems for Israel are:
- How to get to Iran, period, since it’s so damn far
- How to make sure that you hit enough of the Iranian nuclear facilities–since there isn’t just one (a la Osirak), and even taking them all out may not be the death-blow to a nuclear weapons program that the Osirak strike was (since Iran may have far more facilities and technical know-how than we know about, and since Iran actually has its own Uranium mines)
- How to get your pilots back alive, since it’s so damn far
- How to conduct the all-out war between, Iran, Israel, the US, the new Iraq, and lord knows who else, that will likely follow such a strike
Europeans are a “people”? What did my people, the Swedes, ever do to yours, for instance? I can only conclude that you are a racist.
Wait, it’s a valid comment that the Israelis tricked us into overthrowing Saddam?
I thought that was because Saddam tried to kill Dubya’s father. That and the oil.
I thought the whole point of the Israel bombing scenario was that the US could stand aside and pretend we had nothing to do with it. How is Israel exactly going to convince us to bomb Iran for them? We aren’t talking about a US-Iran war, but an Israeli bombing of Iran.
But Israel isn’t going to bomb Iran, even conventionally, because it would start a new regional war. Do you honestly think the Iranians would differentiate between the Israelis and the Americans? No, they think like Reeder and Sevastopol…either the Jews control America, or the Crusaders control the Israelis, or both at the same time, it hardly matters.
If the Israelis overflew Iraq, they’d have to have our consent. There goes “plausible deniability”. And suddenly we’re at war with Iran across the Iran-Iraq border. I know you guys imagine the Bush is just peeing his pants in anticipation to invade Iran, but somehow I doubt it. And out goes the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire. I know that logically the cease-fire has nothing to do with relations between Israel and Iran, but you know and I know and Israel knows that a war between Israel and any other Muslim country would spark a third intifada, or rather would restart the second intafada.
We’re not going to bomb Iran, we’re not going to invade Iran, we’re not going to nuke Iran.
Israel is not going bomb Iran, they’re not going to invade Iran, they’re not going to nuke Iran.
We are all going to complain mightily and make Iran pay for its nuclear ambitions, but there will be no war, much as the left would like one (since that would demonstrate how awful Bush is). And Iran will build its nukes, and we are all going to be on edge for the next genertion, unless and until the next Iranian revolution throws out the Mullahs. Any country that wants nuclear weapons will have them, unless the United States invades and occupies the country. Since we’re a little busy in Iraq right now, that’s not going to happen, and wouldn’t happen even without the Iraq debacle.
The invasion of Iraq was greenlighted because they thought it would be easy, due to the unique weaknesses of Saddam’s regime. Do you honestly think the Bush administration thought we’d still be fighting today? Now, do you honestly believe that they would imagine an invasion of Iran would be as easy as an invasion of Iraq? Oh, you say they’re stupid bloodthirsty genocidal war criminals, so they won’t have learned a thing from the Iraq invasion? Too dumb to know any better? Too politically tone-deaf to know when they are already on thin ice? You honestly beleive Karl Rove doesn’t know how a war against Iran would affect the president’s popularity?
Sorry. Bad coding. That middle part should be:
I don’t think they have the right missiles for the job. Moreover, even the US doesn’t. Missiles are good, but not nearly as good as a pilot using a smart bomb. Hence, you don’t see us launching as many missiles/cruise missiles as flying sorties of bombers.
Yes. Depending on where in Iran they are striking, they might need to tank, but their F-16I and F-15I certainly have the range and payload capacity to do the deed.
This is the only thing I see wrong in your post (the rest of the analysis of the difficulties and fallout seems spot-on). A war against Iran would boost the Pres’s popularity immensely–assuming we look justified. That could happen a number of ways, but I can see one likely scenario:
-
Israel conducts air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, overflying Iraq and demonstrating US complicity to the Iranians.
-
Iran declares both Israel and the US guilty of the attack, and declares that all US and Israeli targets are now fair game for reprisals.
-
Iran launches a flight of cruise missiles at one of our carriers in the Gulf, overwhelming its defense systems. The carrier is seriously disabled, nearly a thousand sailors are dead, and almost three thousand more are wounded.
-
The US administration, US press, Congress, and everyone else here decries this “unprovoked attack” on the US.
-
Amid surging poll numbers, buoyed by the outrage over our loss, Bush orders three days of airstrikes on Revolutionary Guard units and facilities throughout Iran.
-
Iran retaliates on US forces throughout the Gulf (including next door in Iraq).
-
Broader war ensues, but we look justified in our response, and Bush’s poll numbers stay high through 2007, at least.
I don’t see it.
I know it is an article of faith that a good ol’ war boosts the president’s popularity, but how would a debacle with thousands of dead US servicepeople improve the president’s popularity?
What improves a president’s popularity are short, easy victorious wars. A war with Iran will be long, brutal, and costly, with no end in sight.
They thought the war in Iraq would improve the president’s popularity, because they thought it would be a short, easy victorious war. They aren’t going to think the same thing about a US-Iran war.
Hu? No, you guys are cool. If I came across as generalizing and hyperbolic, I apologize. I was referring mainly to the former “Great Powers”, the ones who are the most vocal in their criticism of other nations’ policies. Listening to them speak of morally driven foreign policy and peaceful resolution of conflict is like hearing a bunch of reformed whores speak of abstinence. It’s hard to keep a straight face.