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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Nails on February 29, 2012, 07:34:06 AM

Title: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Nails on February 29, 2012, 07:34:06 AM: Can the Israeli Army do this ??? ???

(http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/129148-3/Walks-through-glass-door.gif)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/thinking-the-unthinkable-_b_1308354.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/thinking-the-unthinkable-_b_1308354.html)

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It may well be time to start thinking the unthinkable on Iran, Israel, and Afghanistan.

Consider:

* Israel may be on an inexorable path to an air war against Iran.

* With conventional weapons said by some to be ineffective against Iran's increasingly underground and hardened nuclear development sites, Israel may come to use nuclear weapons against them.

* And as this melodrama between two governments dominated by conservative religionists plays out, the US and its NATO allies may be on the verge of being run out of Afghanistan in the wake of the latest debacle there.

Israel may well have painted itself into a corner -- a metaphor which doesn't quite work in a dynamic situation -- with regard to Iran.

The Russian military predicts a Western strike against Iran by summer.

If the present Israeli government really does regard Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons as an "existential threat" to their nation, what would they not do to prevent it? And if conventional bunker buster bombs won't work, or at least not yet -- the Senate approved an advanced version earlier this month, but it apparently won't be ready till late this year -- why would they not use nuclear bunker busters to stop the Iranian program.

And the Iranians certainly seem bent on moving forward with their program, which they publicly insist is for civilian purposes only, despite all the moves against them and despite offers of having nuclear fuel enriched for them.

Israel has placed itself firmly on the path of brinksmanship. It is evidently in an intelligence war with Iran already and threatens overt war.

If Iran continues on its course, as it gives constant, indeed, accelerating signs of doing, especially in the past week, Israel will be faced with a classic go/no-go decision.

Follow through with the implicit threat to attack (which seems much more than implicit reading the Israeli press, as I do). Or back down.

If Israel backs down, it will be seen as a paper tiger. For a tiny Jewish island in a sea of Islam, that would leave Israel in a weaker position than before. This is the danger of brinksmanship. If one is not willing to follow through on one's threats, the military power that one has is devalued. Which might well force Israel to make an aggressive move on another line of engagement. Which gets at another danger of brinksmanship.

Had Israel taken a different stance, things might be different. But this Israeli government, clearly the most right-wing in the nation's history, has adopted a very bellicose posture.

In a brand new article, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in his meeting next week with Obama, will urge the president to publicly back an attack on Iran and describes an elaborate campaign by Israel to use conservative US interests and the Republican presidential campaign to push Obama to a more hawkish stance on Iran.

It may well be time to start thinking the unthinkable on Iran, Israel, and Afghanistan.

Consider:

* Israel may be on an inexorable path to an air war against Iran.

* With conventional weapons said by some to be ineffective against Iran's increasingly underground and hardened nuclear development sites, Israel may come to use nuclear weapons against them.

* And as this melodrama between two governments dominated by conservative religionists plays out, the US and its NATO allies may be on the verge of being run out of Afghanistan in the wake of the latest debacle there.

Israel may well have painted itself into a corner -- a metaphor which doesn't quite work in a dynamic situation -- with regard to Iran.
The Russian military predicts a Western strike against Iran by summer.

If the present Israeli government really does regard Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons as an "existential threat" to their nation, what would they not do to prevent it? And if conventional bunker buster bombs won't work, or at least not yet -- the Senate approved an advanced version earlier this month, but it apparently won't be ready till late this year -- why would they not use nuclear bunker busters to stop the Iranian program.

And the Iranians certainly seem bent on moving forward with their program, which they publicly insist is for civilian purposes only, despite all the moves against them and despite offers of having nuclear fuel enriched for them.

Israel has placed itself firmly on the path of brinksmanship. It is evidently in an intelligence war with Iran already and threatens overt war.

If Iran continues on its course, as it gives constant, indeed, accelerating signs of doing, especially in the past week, Israel will be faced with a classic go/no-go decision.

Follow through with the implicit threat to attack (which seems much more than implicit reading the Israeli press, as I do). Or back down.

If Israel backs down, it will be seen as a paper tiger. For a tiny Jewish island in a sea of Islam, that would leave Israel in a weaker position than before. This is the danger of brinksmanship. If one is not willing to follow through on one's threats, the military power that one has is devalued. Which might well force Israel to make an aggressive move on another line of engagement. Which gets at another danger of brinksmanship.

Had Israel taken a different stance, things might be different. But this Israeli government, clearly the most right-wing in the nation's history, has adopted a very bellicose posture.

In a brand new article, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in his meeting next week with Obama, will urge the president to publicly back an attack on Iran and describes an elaborate campaign by Israel to use conservative US interests and the Republican presidential campaign to push Obama to a more hawkish stance on Iran.
US Marine General John Allen apologized repeatedly last week for the desecration of Islamic holy texts at Bagram Air Base, but protests flared across Afghanistan, demonstrating that 10 years of exposure to US and NATO forces has not developed a relationship of trust.

But conventional weapons, even bunker buster bombs, which Obama provided Israel with in 2009, may well not work. Or at most, only set back Iran's program for a couple of years. Which would present the distinctly unappetizing prospect of ramping up more sequences of sanctions that may well not dissuade the Iranian leadership or of a series of strikes over a period of years to keep on severely retarding the nuclear program. Meanwhile, Iran would be working to upgrade its air defenses and further reduce Israel's air power. And of course there would be ongoing severe repercussions from all this warfare.

Congress agreed this month to fast track improvements in the biggest conventional bunker buster bomb, but that reportedly won't be ready until late this year.

While conventional weapons might not work, nuclear weapons might well be able to. Some critics say that nuclear bunker busters would not work, but it's hard to believe that there is not a way to make them work.

If Iran becoming a nuclear power really does represent an "existential threat" to the State of Israel, as many present Israeli leaders say, why would the Israelis not use all means at their disposal to prevent that occurrence?

Israel is not an "official" nuclear power, but has made plain its capability for many years. While it refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has pledged that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Arab-Israel area." Whatever that vague statement means in practice, it's interesting to note that Iran is not an Arab nation.

In January 2007, the Sunday Times of London actually reported that Israel was planning to carry out a nuclear bunker buster strike against Iran's program. The Israeli Foreign Ministry denied the report and, of course, there was no attack. Then.

Last week was not a good one for those who insist that Iran is simply a benign, misunderstood nation.

The UN nuclear watchdog's mission to Iran ended abruptly when Iran refused to allow it access to key nuclear facilities. Then on Friday, it issued a report. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that, not surprisingly in light of the failed mission at the beginning of the week, it is not making progress in negotiation with Iran. And that Iran is accelerating its nuclear enrichment activities, violating UN Security Council resolutions and past accords with the the agency.

Iran's defiance of sanctions by the UN and international alliances, which are growing, has been very costly to the regime in Tehran. Popular unrest is growing along with unemployment and the costs of fuel and food. And moves by the Obama Administration and the European Union are causing a shift in Iran's oil customer base.

Meanwhile, Iran has been offered enriched uranium to run its plants both for purposes of electric power production and for medical isotopes. Which Iran has refused, choosing instead to pursue its own accelerating enrichment plans, increasingly away from the view of UN inspectors. In fact, in deeply buried and hardened facilities guarded by sophisticated anti-air defense systems.

At the least, it's highly suspicious.

As are any plans for a war.

Those who want a pre-emptive war, rather than a strategy of containment, have a very high hurdle of credibility to cross, not the least of it because they've offered little but hysteria.

And when you consider that the advocates of a war with Iran also advocated the war with Iraq -- which actually empowered Iran, in addition to being not only a massive distraction from the problem of jihadism which 9/11 brought into such tragically sharp relief but also a driving factor in the growth of jihadism -- that high hurdle becomes a pole vault.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: El Diablo Blanco on February 29, 2012, 07:36:07 AM: lol. So the USA Fighter Jets and USA missles and USA guns that the USA gives to Isreal for free and they call it an Israel army? LOL. Israel attack will come from the Aircraft carrier that the USA has out there or the bases they built at the Iran border in Iraq.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: lovemonkey on February 29, 2012, 07:38:38 AM: Fucking idiots all of them. Starting nuclear wars so they can settle their own dumbass dispute.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: dj181 on February 29, 2012, 07:40:08 AM: "afganistan should be turned into a glass desert" -Arthur Jones
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: monstermunch on February 29, 2012, 07:43:17 AM: I'm pretty sure that GH15 will be getting a memo or two.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: MORTALCOIL on February 29, 2012, 07:47:04 AM: Israel is about to do the US's dirty job and not the contrary. Iran doesn't give a fuck about Israel. But with a nuclear weapon, they'll be eyeing the goat keepers turned kings of Saudi Arabia, Koweit, etc....King Abdullah made it pretty clear that he wanted the Americans to take care of this.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: bigkubby on February 29, 2012, 07:49:54 AM: i hope a world war 3 happens ;D lets have a nuc war i been wanting to see what they are like ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: hematocritter on February 29, 2012, 07:50:59 AM: They are all assholes.
Can't we all just get along?
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: freespirit on February 29, 2012, 08:05:42 AM: America's "friendship" with Israel has no benefits.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: liberty on February 29, 2012, 08:24:21 AM: I don't think they will need nukes....we just sold them some bunker busters.
Imagine if you drop 20 of these on the same spot ?
Fucking crater would be miles deep!
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: dj181 on February 29, 2012, 08:29:27 AM: Quote from: freespirit on February 29, 2012, 08:05:42 AM
America's "friendship" with Israel has no benefits.

you're kidding right?
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Soul Crusher on February 29, 2012, 08:30:41 AM: Israel can't trust Obama to keep his mouth shut. I dont blame them one bit when you have the Islamist - in- Chief at POTUS.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: freespirit on February 29, 2012, 08:34:51 AM: Quote from: dj181 on February 29, 2012, 08:29:27 AM
you're kidding right?

What are exactly the benefits?

http://zzpat.tripod.com/cvb/march_2007/poll_us_third_most_hated_country_on_earth.html

http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374177724/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330520086&sr=8-1

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/02/27/james-abourezk-tales-of-the-israel-lobby-threats-dershowitz-embedded-lobbyists/

;)
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: freespirit on February 29, 2012, 08:37:53 AM: Quote from: dj181 on February 29, 2012, 08:29:27 AM
you're kidding right?

No I'm not....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_affair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: freespirit on February 29, 2012, 08:41:02 AM: Quote from: dj181 on February 29, 2012, 08:29:27 AM
you're kidding right?

::)

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/fiveisraelis.html

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2012/02/gordon-duff-weekly-intel-drop/

http://rense.com/general77/nus.htm

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/destroycaps.html

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/mearsheimer-israel-has-used-nuclear-coercion-to-force-u-s-s-hand.html

All I can say is, Fuck Israel.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: buresu on February 29, 2012, 08:49:42 AM: Fuckin Israeli soldiers crying after kidnapped by turks which were unweaponed and bringing food to ghaza population...israeli soldiers killed innocent 8 turks which were unweaponed on the ship...fuckin israeli soldiers...son of bitches are gonna see what war means if they only have the courage to step the iranian borders...hope I can post some videos in the near future getting some fuckin israeli head cut off by iranians..can't wait!
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Radical Plato on March 01, 2012, 12:20:32 AM: War, what is it good for?

ABSOLUTELY NUTTIN! What is it Say IT Again
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Oly15 on March 01, 2012, 09:20:50 AM: Quote from: bigkubby on February 29, 2012, 07:49:54 AM
i hope a world war 3 happens ;D lets have a nuc war i been wanting to see what they are like ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

How old are you 3? If I saw u in real life I would kicm u in the fucking head and curb stomp ur ass til u screamed like a little bitch you fucking pedophile. What a little gay homosexual for wanting a nuc war to happen. If it does ur worthless human body and disgrace to mankinf should be in the middle of it getting incinerated you fucking savage guy monkey pedophile homsexual bitch.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: dr.chimps on March 01, 2012, 02:59:04 PM: Quote from: 333386 on February 29, 2012, 08:30:41 AM
Israel can't trust Obama to keep his mouth shut. I dont blame them one bit when you have the Islamist - in- Chief at POTUS.
Another rational post by our resident simpleton.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Mr Nobody on March 02, 2012, 12:43:15 PM: .
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: jon cole on March 03, 2012, 05:43:29 AM: i think israel is simply one of the biggest a threaten for the peace of the world, like taliban and muslim extremist.
allin the same bag.
Title: Re: Isreal says they will not alert America when they declare war on Iran
Post by: Soul Crusher on March 03, 2012, 05:47:56 AM: Quote from: dr.chimps on March 01, 2012, 02:59:04 PM
Another rational post by our resident simpleton.

Can Israel Trust the United States When It Comes to Iran?
Yossi Klein Halevi March 2, 2012 | 12:00 am

When Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Barack Obama on Monday, the main issue will be trust. Obama will ask that Israel trust America’s determination to stop Iran, and trust that when he says all options are on the table he means it. Netanyahu will likely be thinking about May 1967.

In late May 1967, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol dispatched his foreign minister, Abba Eban, to Washington. Egyptian and Syrian troops were pressing on Israel’s borders; Egypt had imposed a naval blockade on the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s shipping route to the east. Eban’s request of President Lyndon Johnson was that America honor its commitment to back military action if Egypt blocked the Straits of Tiran. That commitment had been made by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1957, to secure Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai desert following the 1956 Suez War. Only a declaration by Johnson that he intended to immediately open the straits to Israeli shipping even at the risk of war—one idea was for the U.S. to lead an international flotilla—could stop a unilateral Israeli strike. Though Johnson was viscerally pro-Israel, he proved unable or unwilling to honor Dulles’ commitment. Preoccupied with Vietnam, Johnson wasn’t ready to support another war, let alone initiate one.

Even if Barack Obama is truly the pro-Israel president his Jewish supporters claim he is, the Johnson precedent tells us that it may not matter. Like Johnson, Obama presides over a nation wary of another military adventure, especially in the Middle East. According to Israeli press reports, Netanyahu intends to ask Obama to state—beyond the vague formulation that all options are on the table—that the U.S. will use military force if Iran is about to go nuclear. But few here expect Obama to make that policy explicit.

What the world remembers of the Six Day War era is Israel’s military victory in June 1967. But these days Israelis are recalling the vulnerability of May 1967, in the weeks that preceded the victory.

To be sure, Israelis understand that, in several crucial ways, today is different from 1967. Then, Israel was entirely on its own in facing the threat on its borders. Today, by contrast, many countries, including in the Arab world, regard a nuclear Iran as a very real threat. In 1967, the war was localized, while this time the consequences of an Israeli preemptive strike will directly affect the international community and especially the United States—and perhaps not only economically. Iranian attacks against American targets—or Israeli difficulty in fighting a multi-front war—could draw America into conflict. And that could risk the stability of the American-Israeli relationship.

The Iranian nuclear threat could force Israel to choose between two of its essential national values. On the one hand, there is the commitment to Jewish self defense. On the other hand, there is the longing to be a respectable member of the international community. Allowing an enemy that constantly threatens Israel’s destruction to acquire the means to do so would negate Zionism’s promise to protect the Jewish people. And launching a preemptive strike without American backing could lead to Israel’s isolation and risk Zionism’s promise of restoring the Jews as a nation among nations.

In this excruciating dilemma, the question of whether Israel can trust the administration to act militarily against Iran becomes all the more crucial. Israeli leaders believe that their window of opportunity in launching a preemptive strike will be closing in the coming months. America, though, with its vastly superior firepower, could retain a military option even after Israel’s lapses. In other words: An Israeli decision not to strike this year will mean that it effectively ceded its self-defense—against a potentially existential threat—to America. When Obama tells Israel to give sanctions time, what he is really saying is: Trust me to stop Iran militarily when you no longer can.

Yet the message from Washington in the last few weeks has only reinforced Israeli suspicions that we are back in May 1967. The spate of administration leaks to the media questioning Israel’s military capability in confronting Iran has undermined Israeli confidence in American resolve. An adminstration serious about stopping Iran to the point of military intervention would convey messages that raise Iran’s anxiety, not Israel’s. By insisting that Israel’s military threat isn’t credible – without at the same time explicitly stating that America’s military threat is—the administration reassures Iran that it has little to fear from military action. The Israelis can’t and the Americans won’t.

Then there was the comment by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, to the effect that Iran hasn’t yet decided to build a bomb. If Dempsey’s point was to reassure Israel, he managed the opposite. Dempsey reinforced a long-standing Israeli fear that the administration is prepared to live with nuclear ambiguity—that is, a situation in which Iran could quickly assemble a bomb while choosing for the time being not to. According to this scenario, Obama would negotiate an agreement that would allow him to claim he’d stopped Iran while in fact ensuring its nuclear capability. For Israel—and for Arab countries—that outcome would hardly differ from an explicitly nuclear Iran. In either case Tehran could credibly threaten Israel and blackmail the Arab world.

In the last few days, in anticipation of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, Washington’s tone has finally begun to change. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that America’s goal is to prevent Iranian nuclear capability, period. And U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz announced that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have a detailed plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites should that become necessary.

While those statements help ease the tension between Washington and Jerusalem, they don’t go anywhere far enough. Israel needs a public, unambiguous warning from Obama to Iran that, if sanctions fail, America will use military force—that a nuclear Iran is as much a red line for this administration as, say, an Iranian blockade of the Straits of Hormouz. Only that kind of threat has the chance of restoring American credibility—not only for Israel, but also for the Arab world and, not least, for Iran.

Given that Obama is unlikely to make that threat, Israel will hope, at least, for a change in the administration’s signals about an Israeli strike. Iranian leaders need to hear from Obama that Israel has the right to defend itself against a nuclear threat.

And if that message, too, is not forthcoming? Faced with an imminent existential dilemma, Israel will probably opt for preemptive self-defense, even if that means risking its special relationship with America—a different kind of existential threat.

The precedent of the two Israeli attacks against Arab nuclear facilities—in Iraq in 1981 and in Syria in 2007—reinforces Israeli determination to stop Iran, unilaterally if necessary. Israel, after all, prevented a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein and a nuclear-armed Bashar Assad. And it did so without asking America’s permission. Yet the administration can credibly counter that in neither case did Israeli unilateralism threaten to draw America into an armed conflict, as it does now.

In the end the dilemma for both Israel and the U.S. isn’t only strategic but ethical. Israel has a moral responsibility not to surprise its closest friend with an initiative that could drastically affect American well-being. And the U.S. has a moral responsibility not to pressure its closest Middle East ally into forfeiting its right to self-defense against a potentially genocidal enemy.

In better times, the two allies might have been able to navigate these conflicting needs. But in the absence of mutual trust, what could remain are conflicting perceptions of interest.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a contributing editor for The New Republic and a fellow of the Engaging Israel Project of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerualem. He is completing a book about the Israeli paratroopers who fought in Jerusalem in the Six Day War.