Strike on Iran Still Possible, US Tells Israel, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Strike on Iran Still Possible, US Tells Israel

By: Paul Richter and Julian E. Barnes, The Los Angeles Times

Wednesday 30 July 2008

During Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak's visit to Washington on July 29, he met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A possible attack on Iran was a main topic of discussion in Barak's meetings with administration officials.

Washington - Bush administration officials reassured Israel's defence minister this week that the United States has not abandoned all possibility of a military attack on Iran, despite widespread Israeli concern that Washington has begun softening its position toward Tehran.

In meetings Monday and Tuesday, administration officials told Defence Minister Ehud Barak that the option of attacking Iran over its nuclear program remains on the table, though U.S. officials are primarily seeking a diplomatic solution.

At the same time, U.S. officials acknowledged that there is a rare divergence in the U.S. and Israeli approaches, with Israelis emphasizing the possibility of a military response out of concern that Tehran may soon have the know-how for building a nuclear bomb.

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Iran thinks the US and Israel must be bluffing, unless they are crazy, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Iran thinks the US and Israel must be bluffing, unless they are crazy

By Gwynne Dyer

This explains the bravado of Iran’s little propaganda show on July 9, when it test-launched a number of ballistic missiles, including one that has the ability to carry a nuclear weapon and the range to strike Israel. This elicited the usual veiled threats of an attack on Iran from both Washington and Jerusalem, but the Iranians don’t believe them any more.

The Shahab-3 missile that the Iranians tested has flown before, and it could indeed reach Israel. However, it lacks a proper guidance system, and probably could not penetrate Israel’s anti-ballistic missile defences. More importantly, as the US National Intelligence Estimate of last December affirmed, Iran has no nuclear weapons, and closed down its programme to develop a nuclear weapons capability in 2003.

The main purpose of the tests was to strengthen the position of hard-liners in domestic Iranian politics. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the organisation that carried them out, wants to keep the confrontation with the United States and its allies alive because it fears that other elements in the regime might bargain away Iran’s right to enrich nuclear fuel for civilian use.

If neither the United States nor Israel intends to attack Iran, this is a cost-free strategy: you win the domestic political struggle and nothing bad happens to you internationally. If you miscalculate, however, you get a war out of it. What are the odds that the Iranians are miscalculating?

President George W. Bush seems to have convinced himself that something must be done about the “Iranian threat” before he goes, but he faces the almost unanimous opposition of the US military and intelligence establishment, who are horrified by the prospect of an unwinnable war against Iran. Last December’s National Intelligence Estimate was a deliberate attempt to undercut the Bush administration’s relentless propaganda about the “Iranian nuclear threat.”

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