Attack on Iran Imminent?

Categorized | Daniel Dessinger, politics

Tags | israel security, middle east war, nuclear iran

Attack on Iran Imminent?

Posted on 13 July 2008 by DanielthePoet

Times Online reported Sunday that George Bush has given Israel the "amber light" for a strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The amber light was explained as "get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready."

Pentagon officials have stated that President Bush will not instigate an American attack on Iran, but will seriously consider supporting an Israeli intervention. The scenario is further complicated by the likelihood of an incumbent Democratic President bent on negotiation versus military tactics.

Barack Obama is not likely to support a military strike against Iran, and therefore the Israelis have a very small window of opportunity to act with American approval.

The one thing that all sides agree on is that any strike by either Iran or Israel would trigger a catastrophic round of retaliation that would rock global oil markets, send the price of petrol soaring and wreck the progress of the US military effort in Iraq.

Bush is very concerned about the safety of Israel, as indeed are many Americans. Israel is one small country constantly threatened by several surrounding Arab nations. United States support has been a deciding factor thus far in the protection of the Israeli state.

Based on the soon-to-be changing political climes in the U.S., Israel will likely be working to formalize plans for an attack that President Bush will approve. With elections taking place in four short months, the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Will Israel take precautionary measures against a potential nuclear Iranian threat? As in the case of North Korea, it is unlikely that Iran step away from nuclear development until they have nuclear strike capability. Stay tuned.

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1 Comments For This Post

John Maszka Says:
July 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I wish that Bush would agree to meet with Ahmadinejad. Sadly, however, it’s doubtful that Bush will seriously give negotiations a chance.

Experts have been predicting that Bush would authorize a strike on Iran for years:

“I believe President Bush is going to order air strikes (on Iran) before he leaves office”
-Norman Podhoretz (Lyons, 2007).

Bush and his cronies say they want peace and diplomacy, but the problem with the members of Bush administration is that you can’t trust them. You can’t take what they at face value.

The administration secretly planned and prepared for war with Iraq without disclosing it to the general public.

Yet, when asked about Iraq, Bush’s favorite response was “I have no war plans on my desk.” At one point or another after the planning began, nearly every member of the administration publicly denied any plans to go to war with Iraq.

The question remains: Why would we expect the Bush administration to start being honest and up front about its intentions now?

A better approach to Iran would be negotiations. We need to give Iran an honorable path of retreat. While Fareed Zakaria agrees that there is no reason not to use sanctions and embargoes against states such as Iran, he suggests that we also need to “allow a viable way out.” That is to say, we need to negotiate and not merely mandate.

I think we should more concerned about acquainting ourselves with the realities of Iran’s foreign policy initiatives, and intelligently determining our most reasonable course of action.