Prepare for Iran war

[oberliner]

Excerpt:

If you seek peace, prepare for war

Now that the “secret is out,” the moment of truth has arrived, not only for Israel but for the entire world. If the international community seeks to restore any semblance of deterrence and credibility, preventing the mad mullahs from acquiring doomsday weapons and dramatically changing the global balance of power, it must act decisively, aggressively and forcefully.


A failure to harshly and uncouthly respond to the latest revelations would mark the growing disintegration of our world into a lawless, reckless realm of violence and chaos. A soft approach on Iran at this time would serve as a signal of global surrender and usher in an era of horror and terror, forcing large parts of the civilized world to live under the cloud of an unprecedented radical threat.


The era of futile words and half-hearted actions has ended abruptly. The world, headed by the West, must now impose paralyzing, severe sanctions on Iran that would bring the Ayatollah regime to its knees. Should this fail to cool off Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, the fighter jets will have to be scrambled. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to declare that the fate of modern civilization as we know it is now at stake. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4145765,00.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Israel can't do it alone. Iran is too expansive for their planes to make a full tour.

Either they need back-up from another country's military or go kamakaze.

[oberliner]

2. I actually think this is overheated rhetoric and bluster

I posted it primarily to show what sorts of pieces are populating the Israeli newspapers on this topic.

My hope (and belief) is that there will be no such attack.

[no_hypocrisy]

13. I could see speculators planting these kind of stories to raise the price of crude.

[leveymg]

3. "Mad mullahs with Doomsday weapons" is as bad as "Jew Generals with Nukes." Hateful stereotypes

are for hate and fear-mongering. Enough hate and fear, already. It isn't working. Just grow up and accept the fact that so long as Israel has nuclear weapons and threatens to use them, its neighbors will have reason to build their own.

[bemildred]

4. Quartet to meet with Israelis, Palestinians in order to jump-start negotiations

Announcement comes weeks after Palestinians agreed to resume talks with Israel on the condition that it freezes all settlement activity and accepts clear frames of reference for the talks.

Envoys of the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators will meet separately with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Nov. 14 in Jerusalem, their latest effort to jump-start the stalled peace process, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday.

"We expect these will again be Quartet envoy meetings with the parties separately," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news briefing, saying the meetings would seek to encourage both sides to offer concrete proposals on land and security concerns.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/quartet-to-meet-with-israelis-palestinians-in-order-to-jump-start-negotiations-1.394424

[bemildred]

5. A bad case of nuclear Iranophobia

As the climax to a leaking frenzy in Western corporate media that bordered on - literally - nuclear hysteria, United Nations inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally released a report essentially charging that Tehran had tried to design a nuclear weapon to fit in a missile warhead until as late as last year.

According to the report, Iran worked "on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components".

Besides the effort to redesign and miniaturize a Pakistani nuclear weapon, Tehran is also accused of trying to develop a covert operation to enrich uranium - the "green salt project" - that could be used "in an undisclosed enrichment program".

All this leads the IAEA to express "serious concerns" about research and development "specific to nuclear weapons".

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MK10Ak02.html

[oberliner]

6. Pepe Escobar?

Almost as out there a source as that of the OP.

[bemildred]

8. I like varied points of view.

Some of the purple paragraphs further down are quite invigorating.

[bemildred]

7. Israel is facing Iran in a two-person poker game

This is the Israeli version of the prisoner's dilemma: If the International Atomic Energy Agency's new report on Iran and the flood of reports about Israel's intent to attack Iran result in a new set of sanctions on Tehran, Israel will have to decide if that's enough, or if it must nonetheless attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

If, on the other hand, the United Nations finds it difficult to approve significant additional sanctions, due to opposition from China and Russia, Israel will face a terrible dilemma. If it doesn't attack Iran, it will lose its credibility: The international community will no longer take notice of its empty threats. But if Israel does attack, claiming that the international community is indifferent, it will turn "the Iranian problem" into an Israeli problem, thus effectively absolving the international community of any need to act.

This week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "After what happened in the Second World War, the survival of Israel is essential, and its creation was a central political event of the 20th century. We will not compromise on this." This statement alone is enough to show to what extent Israel has managed to reduce the global threat posed by Iran to a local threat against Israel. This, by the way, is the very same Sarkozy who warned in April that an Israeli strike on Iran would be "disastrous."

Israel's deliberate chatter did not merely divert attention from fear of Iran's nuclear program to fear of an Israeli response. It also transformed the question of Israel's response from a strategic dilemma into a logical dilemma. No longer is this a dilemma whose key questions are whether Israel can actually carry out a military strike, whether it knows where to attack, whether it can withstand an Iranian counterattack or what the political implications might be. The key question now has been reduced to whether it's reasonable for Israel to attack - or in other words, whether Israel will act like an irrational country that doesn't even consider the consequences of its actions.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-is-facing-iran-in-a-two-person-poker-game-1.394470

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. Where does the prisoner's dilemma come in to it?

That looks like a common or garden dilemma to me.

[bemildred]

14. It's my impression that that is an error.

Which I suppose indicates one of:

1.) An incorrect understanding of the Prisoners Dilemma.
2.) Perhaps based in some obvious but wrong guess at what it means.
3.) Or just not caring all that much about the technical details, one dilemma is as good as any.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

[bemildred]

9. Russia says wont back new Iran sanctions over nuclear program

Iranian army general: Dimona nuclear site could be targeted in response if Israel attacks Iran.

Russia will not support new, tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Wednesday.

"Any additional sanctions against Iran will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran. That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals," Interfax quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

Earlier on Wednesday, France said it wanted to convene the UN Security Council and could push for unprecedented sanctions against Iran after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran had worked to develop an atomic bomb design.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/russia-says-wont-back-new-iran-sanctions-over-nuclear-program-1.394602

[bemildred]

10. Iran wins

---

This is what we do know. And if we know it, Iran does as well:

To bring an end to the existence of a Jewish state, to erase Israel from the map, this is the sum total of what Iran must do now: Nothing.

Play it out: Say the response of the United States and Western Europe to the IAEA watchdog report on Iran's nuclear program, a response mitigated by arm-twisting and interest peddling by Russia and China, stays tepid.

Say Israel decides against going it alone. Say Iran goes about its business, and remains a few years, or a few months, or one turn of a key, away from assembling its nuclear device.
Iran wins.

Iran wins because of what many Israelis now see that Israel is turning itself into: Iran.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/iran-wins-1.394609

[bemildred]

11. Can Israel live with the Iranian bomb?

It may well be that Israel will have to get used to the idea of a nuclear Iran, and its public, raised on the notion that the IDF can solve anything, will need to undergo a profound change.

The IAEA report on Iran didn’t bring any surprises, but it confirmed Israel’s and the Western World’s fears: there can be no reasonable doubt that Iran is working actively towards the atomic bomb. Given Iranian regime’s declared intention to destroy what its representatives tend to call “the Zionist entity,” it is clear that Israel feels threatened by the prospect of a nuclear Iran. Neither do Europe and the U.S. look forward to this eventuality, given Iran’s support for extremist groups and its sponsorship of terrorism.

There is no simple answer to what needs and what can be done. But the discussion in Israel has developed in an interesting direction. Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, is certainly not a fainthearted man. He stayed in the job through three governments, and was known for planning daring operations.

Yet, briefly after his tenure was ended, he did something quite unusual: Dagan repeatedly stated publicly that attacking Iran would be “a stupid idea” for a number of reasons: It would lead to a regional war with uncontrollable consequences; it would not set back the Iranian atomic development significantly; and it would only increase Iran’s determination to go nuclear.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/can-israel-live-with-the-iranian-bomb-1.394592

[leveymg]

15. I guess the question really comes down to: how many hands in a row can you bluff and not be

called on it.

That's the dilemma that Israel now faces. They're running out of chips. Do they want to double-down, again? Can they?