The other day I wrote about Charles Krauthammer’s most recent column. He argued that since it’s clear that negotiation and sandtions have failed to prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb, the United States had to expressly state its support for defending Israel. I had thought that the column wasn’t the greatest I read. On the other hand, Krauthammer didn’t seem to be operating with the luxury of alternatives.At Contentions, Gordon Chang thinks that American deterrence is still possible. Noah Pollak thinks that such a declaration will have the exact opposite effect.
David Hazony, though, takes a different tack. He links to a Ze’ev Chafets column arguing that the Iranian bomb is out of American hands, however:
What’s more, it is fair to say that Israel is not a weak country. It has developed a powerful set of strategic options. In the best case, it would be able to act on its own to degrade and retard the Iranian nuclear program as it did in Iraq (and, more recently, Syria). In a worse case, if the Iranians do get the bomb, Iranian leaders might be deterred by rational considerations. If so, Israel’s own arsenal — and its manifest willingness to respond to a nuclear attack — ought to suffice.If, on the other hand, the Iranian leadership simply can’t resist the itch to “wipe Israel off the map†— or to make such a thing appear imminent — then it would be up to Israel to make its own calculations. What is the price of 100,000 dead in Tel Aviv? Or twice that? The cost to Iran would certainly be ghastly. It would be wrong for Israel to expect other nations to shoulder this moral and geopolitical responsibility.
Note that this isn’t just a discussion of an Osirak like strike, but of first use of nuclear weapons if necessary. I don’t believe that an Osirak like strike is possible: Iran is farther away than Iraq and the surprise factor can’t be as great anymore.
I would add that if it comes to that, and I hope it doesn’t, it’s not just the failure of the United States. There are many nations and world bodies who have been quite happy to humor Tehran and pretend that its extremism was just for public consumption. Sometimes it pays to take fanatics to heart.
Crossposted at Soccer Dad.
I’ve been thinking for a while that some Jewish group should organize, partly as agitprop and partly out of actual perceived necessity, preparations for the relief effort that will be needed after an Iranian nuclear attack.
Perhaps they could coordinate with Arab and Persian relief groups to help pre-plan for the retaliatory strikes or the Sampson Option.
Not only are the Iranian facilities farther away than Osirak, they are more spread out and hardened. Even minimally degrading them would be a large operation.
Are we sure that Israel can deliver nukes at that range? It’s beyond the unrefuelled range of an F-15, and I don’t believe Israel has any tankers, do they? Do we know if they have a missile system with that kind of range?
Actually Wikipedia lists the combat radius of the F-15 as 1900 KM, so it’s right on the edge. That seems high though.
OK, I was looking for something else, but I found this explanation as to how Israel could strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities – successfully.
I wonder if you could comment on this letter to Andrew Sullivan about Iranian nukes where he states that Iran wants nukes more for the ability to push around Europe and the Arabs and make them more than a regional power.
It makes sense, except for the fact that Iran’s leaders are crazy.
There is a certain amount of truth in that letter. Iran does want nukes to further its imperial ambitions and to terrorize Europe. But the Pharaohs of Teheran also want it for the genocide of the Jews. Rafsanjani was quite clear about this back in 2001, saying that while “Islam” might be damaged by a nuke exchange it would survive but Israel would be completely destroyed.
There is another considertion. If Iran used nukes on Israel everybody would realize how serious they were about using nukes. There would be no doubts that any Iranian nuclear threats would be carried out after that.
Another thing is that after Israel we are the targets. An Iranian official was quoted a few years ago as saying they had a plan for destroying 29 targets in the USA and Britain which would bring both countries down. It sounded like such planned destruction was so complete that it had to be nuclear, probably delivered by terrorist attack. Any American who is complacent about Iranian nukes is deluding himself. The Islamic Republic is at war with the USA and will be until one or the other is destroyed. The best thing would be for the Iranians to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which now stinks in the nostrils of so many Iranians. But there is no sign that such an event will happen in the near future. Either we must do something now or we must resign ourselves to seeing the Islamic Republic get nukes, and probably use them soon thereafter.
We can only pray that anti-missile defenses work or that the Mullahs are not really as crazy as they sound.