Posted on 12/31/2004 1:38:09 PM PST by CHARLITE
As Iran's possession of nuclear weapons looms ever closer, the threat these weapons pose to Israel has received much attention. Those who attended AFSI's {Americans For A Safe Israel) national conference on December 5 heard Professor Louis Rene Beres describe the Daniel Project, a group of privately funded experts who concluded that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a "rational" enemy (not an irrational nonstate enemy) were the single most urgent threat to Israel's survival. Iran clearly fits that bill.
But the threat is not limited to Israel. In November 1990 I wrote an editorial in Outpost entitled "What's Really at Stake in Iraq." At that time the first President Bush was declaring Saddam Hussein's seizure of Kuwait would not stand, but it was still not clear if appeasement or war would follow. I pointed out that the critical issue was whether the West could accept Iraqi hegemony over the Gulf and surrounding countries.
At that time the threat was of military action combined with political intimidation. If Saddam was able to maintain his grip over Kuwait and then, at his leisure, take the oil fields of northeastern Saudi Arabia, his power over the rest of the Gulf would be assured -- whether or not he actually seized more territory. The rest of the Saudi kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar would not dare to challenge Saddam's will. Jordan and Syria would have had little choice but to acknowledge the leadership of the new self-styled Arab Saladin. Saddam Hussein would have thus controlled much of the world's oil supply, most of the land mass of the Arabian peninsula and a huge military, measured in both men and materiel. In short order -- when he invaded Kuwait, Saddam was close to achieving his nuclear dreams -- Saddam's Iraq, as a power boasting nuclear weapons, would have been untouchable by the West.
In the event, President Bush, backed by a broad coalition, crushed Saddam's forces in Kuwait, and this nightmare scenario was avoided. But a similar scenario now looms in the case of Iran. A nuclear armed Iran would have no need to invade its neighbors; as a Wall Street Journal editorial (Nov. 22) points out, Iran would become the dominant regional power, "its influence spreading wide in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Caspian and the Gulf." In the case of Iraq, even now the U.S. is worried about the potential political influence of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy on its Shi'ite-majority neighbor.
Control of the Middle East oil spigot. The credible threat to unleash nuclear devastation on Israel or another target of the ayatollahs’ wrath. Possible transmission of nuclear devices to terror organizations like the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. These are threats so severe that the United States can ill afford to rest content with the European dance with Iran. As the Wall Street Journal editorial points out, the Europeans are engaged in a diplomatic charade, seeing Iran's emergence as a nuclear power as inevitable and something "that will have to be managed."
If President Bush acquiesces in the negotiating charade, he will be turning his back on his promise that the world's most dangerous regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's most dangerous weapons. The temptation to "leave it to the Europeans" and hope for the best is understandable, given the difficulties the U.S. experiences in Iraq. But as William Buckley has pointed out (National Review online, Dec. 7) Iran "is a concern that shoves Iraq to one side, because nuclear weapons close off alternatives and trade in a million deaths. That challenge has to occupy the American strategic imagination...It is one thing to endorse and encourage ongoing military efforts in Iraq, another to permit, based on what happens there, an impotent fatalism about the nuclear question, a fatalism already visible in our half-dealings with North Korea and Iran."
Herbert Zweibon is the Chairman of American for a Safe Israel
I have no doubt that Bush is paying attention to Iran.
I feel very strongly that the Kurds should have their country back!! This may cause a few belches of indigestion from the Turks and the Iranian's but right is right. The Shiites would have the Southern area of Iran, The Sunni would be in the crapper where they belong with Saddam. No doubt the Kurds and Shiite would control their Sunni cousins and treat them according to THEIR LAWS.
The Kurds would make very strong Allies also.
What about the Persians and the Shah's son?
The Shah's Son and the form of Government is going to be up to the Persian People. The Kurds will want their eastern lands, claimed by Iran since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI.
The Iranian Gov will not want to give it up, insurrection from the freedom loving people of Iran will work with the Kurds and gainm their freedom. The Turks will be very upset, oh well the price they must pay for not cooperating wiht the Northern Invasion of Iran.
We must have a reliable and strong friendly ally in theis region and if the Turks won't then the Kurds will. Along with the Iranian's after the New Republic of Persia is established.
Pay attention? This is the POTUS we are talking about here. Trust me, he well more informed and paying MUCH more attention then any news reporter or paper.
RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL
TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS)... One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them (the Islamic world) "damages only".
Saddam thought about the same idea, however in June 7, 1981 his plan was aborted...
...but only for a short time until January 17, 1991....then for only a short time until March 19, 2003
What was your point?
MY point was that same as Israel took the risks (and there were many of them) and saved its existance in 1981 after Saddam wished that a nuclear bomb will be used to destroy Israel, the same Israel would do against Iran when needed.
There are many many risks in attacking the Iranian nuclear sites, but the risks of a nuclear Iran are much greater.
"The alternative is our destruction".
-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan,
briefed the Israeli pilots personally, and depicted the importance of the mission, moments before dispatching them to bomb Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor in June 1981.
GW has always had his eyes on the ball. What do you think Iraq is all about?
GW also has his eyes on China, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Syria.
Soviet Union? Whats that? :)
What was your point?
The plan was never aborted until Saddam was dragged out of hole in the ground. How long did that take? Over 20 years!
Indeed, but the immidiate destruction threat on Israel was aborted. The strike was meant to abort his plan for some years, the strike wasnt supposed to destroy the threat forever.
Israel also had a plan to kidnap Saddam in the early 90s. Sayeret Matkal, the same unit that preformed the Entebbe operation (Operation Jonathan), was supposed to preform it, but the mission was cancelled.
Friday December 19, 2003
Israeli plot to kill Saddam disclosed after his capture
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/1565/format/html/displaystory.html
This way or another way, I believe that Israel will not stand the threat of a nuclear Iran, not after Iran's statements about Israel's destruction in the past few years and therefore if the USA wont act, Israel will.
Europe is out of this game and same goes for the UN.
I agree.
Friday December 19, 2003
Israeli plot to kill Saddam disclosed after his capture
Israeli media revealed Tuesday, Dec.16, that the Tze’elim disaster, a 1992 military accident in which five Israeli soldiers were killed at a Negev training base, came as the army’s top commando unit was rehearsing a complex plot to assassinate the Iraqi leader in retaliation for his Scud salvos during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Though that scenario had been rumored for years, it officially was kept under wraps by military censors and top military brass.
Israel’s army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, called the release of the information this week “irresponsible.”
“Some things should be kept to ourselves rather than shared with the world,” he told reporters.
Media reports describe a bold and brutal plan. A team from Sayeret Matkal — Israel’s version of the Delta Force or the SAS — would be airlifted quietly to Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, where he was expected to attend the funeral of his father-in-law, who was dying of diabetes-related ailments.
They would hit Saddam with guided missiles and in so doing restore to the Jewish state the deterrent power it had enjoyed in the region. Many believed Israel had forfeited its deterrent power by not responding to Saddam’s Scuds during the war.
“The mission was seen as a strategic necessity, not some macho stunt,” Danny Yatom, a former Sayeret Matkal member and Mossad chief, told Channel 1 television.
The exact type of weapon that was to be used against Saddam still is a state secret. According to security sources, it was an Israeli-made missile that, using a miniature camera fitted into its nose, can be visually guided to its target and fitted with a variety of warheads suiting different needs.
Israel sometimes uses an adapted version today, fired from helicopter gunships, to target Palestinian terrorists, the sources said.
But it all went drastically awry on Nov. 5, 1992. During a rehearsal run at the Tze’elim military base, the missile misfired and slammed into the commando team, killing five.
The Israeli military chief of staff at the time, Ehud Barak, left the scene as medics moved in to help.
Though Barak was cleared of criminal culpability in the incident — he was needed in a command capacity overseeing the response to the incident, rather than administering first aid — charges that he fled the scene would haunt him throughout his political career.
Ironically, one of the few survivors of the botched test was Eyal Katvan, the soldier “playing” Saddam; he ended up hospitalized with serious injuries.
The mission was then called off and Saddam was spared.
Labor legislator Ephraim Sneh, who was a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in 1992, said then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had ordered the assassination operation.
“The credit should be given to the prime minister because it was his courage to approve this operation,” Sneh told The Associated Press.
Israeli radio said the troops involved were volunteers and understood that they were to “fight to the death” or commit suicide in Iraq rather than allow themselves to be captured.
Though the Military Censor’s Office lifted the gag order on the Tze’elim affair on Monday, the reports caught the top brass by surprise.
But Yatom was unfazed.
“I am confident that Sayeret Matkal has and continues to carry out missions which will never be known, and rightly so,’’ he said.
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