What’s this is about is that Bibi’s coalition is reaching terminal mass and Israel may have a snap election (which are really the only kind of elections the country has any more) within the next few months. As usual, Netanyahu is trying to position himself as the Only Guy Who Ca Deal With Iran ™, a strategy that has worked pretty well for him in the past. I don’t think he really wants the U.S. to attack Iran - Bibi’s a master of brinkmanship, but he’s terrified of any actual risk or change.
That’s said, it really was a fine intelligence coup. Kudos to the Mossad and Military Intelligence. Maybe one day they’ll have an administration that deserves them.
Another interesting data point - the announcement came a few hours after a mysterious attack on an Iranian base near Homs in Syria, which may or may not have been carried out by Israel. The attack was rumored to have killed over 20 Iranian soldiers, including high-ranking officers, and destroyed some 200 ballistic missiles. There’s a connection here, but I’m not sure what it is yet.
Seriously though, political gripes aside, you got to hand it to the Mossad: this really was an amazing op. We’re not talking about some candy-ass Wikileaks hack, here. Agents actually located and broke into top-secret defense archives and stole half a ton of original documents and disks and shipped them to Israel with the Iranians being none the wiser; apparently, it took them several weeks before they noticed anything was missing. Give credit where credit is due - that’s some Mission Impossible-level shit right there.
Beyond immediate political expediency for Bibi in the (seemingly) unavoidable election, this announcement seems to be motivated by Iran’s involvement in the Syrian conflict and other hot spots around the M.E.
This coupe (bravo, Mossad!) of getting documents out of Iran doesn’t seem to reveal anything the international community didn’t already suspect. Hence the JCPOA. What this does, however, for Bibi and Israel, is give further justification to insist on punishing Iran by cutting off their existing financial support. He wants to starve Iran’s military adventurism in Syria and the rest of the region. This cache of evidence about Iran’s nuclear program isn’t new to anybody. But it’s an excuse for Bibi to once again make the same legitimate case he’s been making about Iran for years. He doesn’t want direct conflict with Iran. He wants harsher punishment for Iran by the international coalition. And he’s willing to blow up the JCPOA to get it.
At least that’s my impression based on his interview with CNN this morning.
When Trump was elected, I made the over-under a year and a half for a war with Iran. I’m going to be off, but I think that’s only because the current administration knows that it is vulnerable to public opinion, otherwise I think it would be happening already.
I’d like to know how JCPOA opponents plan to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons once we pull out of the JCPOA. Clearly they must have a better way, right?
I’m guessing he thinks if he can nudge the U.S. into invading Iran and overthrowing its government in favour of something friendlier, (or at least reducing its industrial infrastructure to rubble) they won’t be able to independently develop nukes, regardless of desire.
Personally, I’m guessing that the he’s hoping that the threat of an invasion would spook the Iranians into pulling their forces from Syria. I doubt he actually wants the U.S. to attack Iran; as Iraq showed us, the fallout from something like that can be unpredictable and catastrophic.
That said, Bibi seems convinced that he can get Trump to do what he wants, which means he’s not nearly as smarty as he thinks he is. Trump will sell Israel out, eventually. It’s in his nature.
Would they need to build them or would it be easier to try to buy one from N.Korea, Russia or Pakistan and sneak it in somehow…not sure if it’d be feasible but sneaking a completed bomb has to be easier than sneakily building a whole bomb-making facility.
Ever since North Korea went nuclear, the international community’s outrage-over-nukes meter went down a lot. Now, Iran going nuclear won’t even raise eyebrows.
Because he thinks the Iranians are developing them anyway, but with the deal in place, they have more money to arm Hamas and Hezbollah (and now, militias in Syria as well). I don’t think that the Israelis are worried that the Iranians would use nukes if they had them - it would guarantee that the serious nuclear powers flatten Tehran in response. The Israelis are concerned about Iran’s ability to support proxy armies on Israel’s borders.
