http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/ap_ ... vwWe4LewgF

I've created this thread to state that as of now, Israel will not strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Here are the reasons.

1. At present, Israel doesn't have the military means to carry out such a mission. They lack the proper fighters with good range and the bombs necessary to penetrate Iran's bunker defense. Iran is not Syria or Iraq. It is larger than anything Israel has faced and has a modern western like air defense system.

2. If such an attack would occur while the US was still occupied in Iraq, the southern Shi'ite region would explode in violence backed by Iran. Causing much death to Americans and the Iraqi effort. Not to mention the Iranian potential to shut down the oil supply in the whole middle east, or at least seriously disrupt it. That fact alone will be enough for western nations to put diplomatic pressure on Israel not to strike.

3. Any Israeli attack on Iran will be costly to the Israelis. In '06, Iran has proved it can bog down and put serious military pressure on Israel via Hezbollah.

The three factors are enough to prevent Israel from striking Iran. Sure, they'll prepare, as a way to put pressure on the Iranians not to develop a nuclear program.

1) That is precicely why Israel is bolstering its forces to deal with such threats.

2) Probably will cause a lot of damage, but they have made it clear they don't want Iran to have nuclear capabilities at all costs. The way Israel sees it Iran are developing weapons capable of them off the face of the earth (something they had actually hinted at doing) and are merely preparing for a pre-emptive strike at whatever nuclear capability iran does develop. I agree that this is there to put pressure on the Iranians not to develop their nuclear program, but I doubt it will work and think it quite likely that Israel would be prepared to strike (they haven't demonstrated themselves to be a peace-loving nation).

3) If your existance is threatened you will find a way to handle the cost, plus the americans could easily take the tab as they have done in the past.

They'll have to bolster them pretty good. Attacking Iran would be the equivalent of attacking Iraq in '91. We're talking bunkers and modern air defense systems.



Sure, Iran "Says" that, but in truth, Iran needs Israel as much as Israel needs Iran against the Arabs, which are the Jews and Persians common enemy. In other words, Ahmadinejad is full of crap and only saying that to attempt to gain Arab support.



This isn't going to be an isolated conflict in a far away land not affect any Americans. Lots of Americans are going to die in Iraq because of it and when Iran takes out the Saudi ports, middle eastern oil will be cut off from the rest of the world. Putting massive pressure on the American population at home.

Who's going to give a shit about Israel when they can't drive their cars to work?

Iran would have to be MAD to bomb Israel with nuclear weapons.

Who's going to give Israel nuclear weapons?

Huh? I thought Israel already had nuclear weapons =| Sorry if I am just being silly here I just got home and I'm knackered.

And also yes, Iran would have to be insane to make any hostile action towards Israel. Perfect that iran are peace-lovers with a very stable government seperate from military and religious pressures

Who would be crazy enough to give or let Israel develop nuclear weapons? They might go mad and nuke the oil fields.

quit being a boob, virg...

israel has them. they swapped technology/know how for matts with south africa waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back.

on the other hand, iran has pretty good supplies of uranium. so, really, if it came down to it, they could just dust israel with that.........

That's just a rumor. Do you have any idea how big of a pain in the arse it is to build nuclear weapons? Just ask Iran. America had to create a city of industry to create only a few weapons.

Right, MAD doesn't apply to Iran because their government is run by extremists... They hate Israel so much they would sacrifice their lives, their country and everyone inside it... Makes perfect sense.

virgil...

atomic weapons are easy to build. the fissionables are the hard part.

the bombs built in WW2 took a ton of work, because they were the first. now, the theory is proven, research is done... you just need the parts.

which, if you are a soveriegn state with uranium deposits, are easy. so iran can make em. hell, canada could build them so fast your head would spin.

hell, wouldn't surprise me if israel bought "missing" soviet warheads.

remember - to the israeli leaders, ANY action taken in service of israel's existance is not just justifiable, it's mandatory. of course they have nukes.

Virgil,

A few things, I'll just cite Wikipedia's article on the same since it has more than a few citations and references on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and ... estruction

Israel is still proactive against perceived threats of this type (witness the recent Syria event). Iran is posturing, just as all countries do. In some ways I see Iran and Israel's nuclear tete a tete as similar (though obviously not identical) to that between Pakistan and India.

Iran recently held war games and tested several missles with Israel-focused ranges (Shahab-3), Israel did games with Greece, US goes with UK and Bahrain to show how they'd counteract simulated movements by Iran.

None of this is unexpected really.

If the government / nuclear weapons facilities were somehow in the hands of terrorists then yes. Suicide bombers are entirely illogical but the simple fact is they are prepared to die. I am just saying that they are more likely to use nuclear weapons because of these circumstances, not that they will.

You could also argue Israel is more likely to use nuclear weapons as they will do anything to protect their nation, or that a former USSR state would as they are unstable, or that Pakistan and India are as they have extremist factions running around that could take control of a warhead. etc

Except that israel won't be overrun and forced to use their nuclear arsenal because their military is bolstered by the US. And other countries may have small degrees of instability, or comparatively small religion-motivated terrorist factions but they also have much less support and are very well dealt with to minimise such a risk. But still, yeah, I would say they are marginally more likely to initiate a nuclear holocaust than the UK or france for example.

except that, well, with iraq going on... israel won't get much real support from america if they start a war.

israel's big problem with the chance of iranian nukes is this...

no matter how any war goes, israel has the "back the hell off or we nuke you card" to play, and it's a safe play, because, without nukes, you are trumped.

if iran had nukes, if israel and iran went to war... israel would have no final card to play to force iran to cease hostilities... a threat to nuke tehran would only prompt iran to nuke, or threaten to nuke, tel aviv.

being the only country in a region with nukes is a huge strength. having somebody else with nukes means a stalemate, and having to consider actions and their repercussions.

I don't mean to discount Iran's capability to wage war, because they certainly can do that. However, if you think Iran can just "take out the Saudi ports", I believe, you are severely overestimating both their ability to do it and underestimating our ability to stop it. Especially when you consider the amount of military power we have in such close proximity, at this juncture.

There was an article a while back about Bush stating he was worried about Iran hitting Saudi Ports, but I can't find it.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/ ... bomb_iran/

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... n0703.html

I don't doubt that Bush doesn't want Israel to attack Iran and I also doubt Israel would be so collosally stupid to do it, at least at this point. I was merely stating, that I also don't think Iran would be stupid enough to attack Saudi ports, at least at this point when we have so many military assets so close to them, even if Bush has expressed concern that they might/

Israel isn't colossally stupid. They're colossally desperate.

And their approach to foreign policy is both adolescent and colossally hypocritical.

Is Iran's approach any better? Most of the foreign policy in the Middle East seems to consist of nothing more than threatening to attack someone if they don't comply with the demands being made.

Not better, so much, no. At least Iran isn't blaming it's violent tendencies on its past.

True, but surely Israel does have a little bit of a reason to dislike its neighbors. I'm not sure who is worse; someone who blames their hair-trigger violent response on the fact that have been attacked on a regular basis or someone who has a history of violence and makes no excuses for it.

well, if the neighbour's are pretty certain former tenants were evicted to make room for the new ones....