Posted on 06/23/2008 2:31:32 PM PDT by blam
Israel 'will attack Iran' before new US president sworn in, John Bolton predicts
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 9:18PM BST 23/06/2008
John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
Bolton: 'the argument for military action is sooner rather than later'
The Arab world would be "pleased" by Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
"It [the reaction] will be positive privately. I think there'll be public denunciations but no action," he said.
Mr Bolton, an unflinching hawk who proposes military action to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons, bemoaned what he sees as a lack of will by the Bush administration to itself contemplate military strikes.
"It's clear that the administration has essentially given up that possibility," he said. "I don't think it's serious any more. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards."
Israel, however, still had a determination to prevent a nuclear Iran, he argued. The "optimal window" for strikes would be between the November 4 election and the inauguration on January 20, 2009.
"The Israelis have one eye on the calendar because of the pace at which the Iranians are proceeding both to develop their nuclear weapons capability and to do things like increase their defences by buying new Russian anti-aircraft systems and further harden the nuclear installations .
"They're also obviously looking at the American election calendar. My judgement is they would not want to do anything before our election because there's no telling what impact it could have on the
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
December 27th. Gotta get through Christmas and the second-busiest mall day of the year.
Let's break this down: first, we're not participating (i.e. not dropping bombs on Iran. IOW, we're out. Second, we look the other way when 100-200 Israel planes cross over Iraq, drop bombs and come screaming back the other way (followed by Iranians), and then shoot down whatever surviving Iranian planes are following the Israelis and missiles headed to Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc. IOW, we're in.
Either we're in or we're out. We simply cannot have plausible deniability here - we can't play stupid and say, "Gee, sorry, all of our radar operators must've been asleep or drunk, and we didn't see the Israelis coming or going...but we did see Iran try to attack Israel, so we shot down its planes. Sorry, but we'll try to make sure that this doesn't happen again." It just doesn't work. Either we block Israel from doing this (which I think would be the height of both foolishness AND immorality), or we go in whole hog by sending in about 1,000 cruise missiles and a few hundred fighter-bombers and bombers of our own to make sure the Iranians are smashed but good (IOW beyond any capacity for serious retailiation against anyone). Any option in between guarantees both an insufficient pummelling of Iran AND an Iran pissed off at us and capable of retaliating.
Do we have the cajones or not?
Whether the US can "afford" to abandon Israel, or not, is moot. The US *will* become like the other "nations" and not only abandon her, but oppose her. One can see this happening in fornt of one's eyes, and it's no longer really deniable, in fact it's laughable to deny it at all.
This was all foretold, long before there even *was* a US, and so, should come as no surprise...
the infowarrior
IIRC, Iran bought the same defense system from the Russians that the Syrians had at the time of the Sept. 6th raid. You remember, the one that “went blind.”
“The Israelis do noting half ass...”
Their last war against Hezbollah in Lebanon certainly was. What did it accomplish?
First Sentence: John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.
That wasn't even half-assed. That was like no-assed.
Note the disclaimer - "could". Not "would", "could". I can just as easily say "Israel could attack Iran at 6:56 Central time tomorrow night" and be just as correct. Doesn't mean that it's going to happen.
You need to become the “spell checker’
Unless Israel limits itself to SLBMs, it will have to fly over Iraqi territory. If that happens, the Iranians will attack American forces. If that happens, we will finish the job that the Israelis started. Besides the spike in oil prices, if this scenario happens, I would expect cells in the US to be activated also.
Interesting. I remember reading that the Israelis had a large military exercise earlier this month that appeared to be a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. I hope they turn Iran’s military and nuclear facilities into parking lots.
spell checkers unite
We always carry the water for Israel and/or pay their tab! GMAB
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Perhaps now Pat Buchanan and his supporters can see the advantage of our special relationship with Israel.
BTW, our flyboys could use the practice, and we need to test the F-22 and our bunker busters out in real combat.
That’s been my prediction as well.
I thought it was congress that determined the size of the military. Certainly they control the appropriations for it.
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