![]() ![]() It is likely that Prime Minister Netanyahu will adapt his outlook according to any new policies from the next US administration, and new intelligence on Iranian advances in nuclear- related arms. Israeli President Shimon Peres is especially concerned with the potential damage to US-Israel relations from any unilateral strike. Mr Netanyahu has faced opposition within his cabinet and from former Israeli security chiefs to any go-it-alone attack on Iran, at least in the near term. Some feel the advantages of setting back the Iranian nuclear programme for a couple of years, which a unilateral strike could do, are not worth the human and economic cost of missiles from Hezbollah landing in Tel Aviv. The answers from Israel are complicated by the absence of any single Israeli view. Many Israelis are uneasy about the ‘containment’ scenario in which it is estimated there would be a 10 percent probability that they would be hit by a nuclear attack launched from Iran.ĭecision-makers in Israel are even more concerned about the geopolitical impact on the region of a rising Iran and a declining America. Their views reflect current US public opinion where a majority in a recent poll thinks the US should take a neutral posture on an Israeli attack, neither discouraging nor encouraging an Israeli strike. There are fears that other countries in the region might start their own nuclear weapons programmes, and that groups such as the Lebanese Shia militants, Hezbollah, are likelyto be emboldened by an Iranian nuclear deterrent.īut he was somewhat less hawkish in the second televised presidential debate in October when both President Obama and Mr Romney said they would back Israel if it were attacked. Huge US military resources will be also required to extend the nuclear containment umbrella to at least some of the Gulf states. In the increased global and regional tensions resulting from a nuclear Iran, oil prices could rise and stay high.Ĭountless hours are likely to be spent by Western national security councils in managing potential crises, such as a move by Iran to impose a partial blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, which would close a vital oil route. The US can live more easily with a nuclear Iran which many in Washington and European capitals believe is a threat that can be contained.īut containment in a region where the US still has allies and responsibilities is likely to be anything but simple. The US is not only more relaxed over the military option timeline, it also differs from Israel over the actual nuclear threat. An American attack would be more effective with its new US GBU-57 bunker buster bombs droppedfrom giant B-2 bombers than anything Israel could mount. The efficacy of a US strike could also make Iran’s efforts to reconstitute the nuclear programme more difficult. Monitoring the enrichment of uranium at Iran’s declared sites is something that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does reasonably well in 30-day intervals.īut Israel is concerned over the absence of any monitoring of Iranian weapons factories where the testing of detonators and related military activities are carried out in smaller laboratories which are difficult to detect by inspection, satellite surveillance or intelligence. Iran may opt, instead, for nuclear ambiguity and keep their bombs ‘in the basement’. While US officials believe they will be able to discover when Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, decides that Iran will go ahead with enrichment of its uranium from 20 percent to 90 per cent weapons-grade level, Israel is anxious that there may not be such a clear ‘yes’ from the top, and that Iran may not test a bomb which can be detected by the West. Israel is, therefore, pushing to stop Iran’s programme well before the US thinks it is necessary. It says that Iran will reach the level of uranium enrichment needed to make a bomb by 2013 and after that date, it will be up to Iran whether and how fast it will be able to assemble a nuclear weapon. Israel believes the critical time is 2013, not 2014.
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