To Attack or Not to Attack


The first meeting of the president of the United States, Barack Obama, and the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, confirmed that the long-time partnership of Israel and the USA was under the pressure from the “Iran issue.”

The fact that Iran will soon become a nuclear power, if not stopped, is Israel’s biggest nightmare. Israel sees this as a potential threat and does not believe that diplomacy, without any perquisites, can help stop this threat. Per Israel, Iran’s ultimate goal is to pull the attention off nuclear weapons and gain time while it achieves nuclear status. For this reason, Israel wants to take immediate and solid action against Iran, and if that does not work, use military power to knock down the nuclear site in Iran.

If that plan goes into action, Israel wants the USA to take ownership. If it doesn’t work out, Israel wants the USA to let them attack Iran. However, it seems like Netanyahu did not get the go ahead from Obama at their long meeting in Oval Office on May 18.

Obama’s message to Netanyahu

Obama’s message to Netanyahu was not to make any moves that will cause instability in the Middle East while Washington focuses on ensuring stability in Iraq and resolving the issues of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would rather try to talk Iran into giving up the nuclear status by diplomacy.

Netanyahu wanted to at least know that the conversations between USA and Iran would come to a conclusion in a reasonable time frame. Obama said that they expect the results of their diplomatic measures before the end of the year, and that they would not have endless negotiations with Iran.

However, we cannot deduce that the USA will invade Iran in the event that the negotiations do not go well. Washington has been discussing the consequences of being in a war with a “nuclear Iran” for a long time. They have confidence in their deterrent power and expect their allies to have confidence in them too, although they do not know how they would stop the arming of the region after Iran’s first nuclear test. And that is the USA’s nightmare.

CSIS’s Report on Israel’s Possible Attack

Washington’s prestigious Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has published a report on “Obama, Netanyahu and the Future of USA-Israel Relations” on May 15. The report, detailing the possibility of Israel attacking Iran and its consequences, bears the signature of well-known national security agent Professor Anthony Cordesman and is the most detailed work prepared on this subject so far.

The report states that Israel is capable of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, but that there are no factors guaranteeing the success of such a risky operation. That is the main idea of the report. One interesting fact in the report is about the Israel secret intelligence service: According to the report, Israel expects Iran to have nuclear weapons sometime during 2009-2012; however, the USA expects it no sooner than 2013.

Israel has never made any strategic moves in the Middle East that would conflict with the interests of the USA. However, given the fact that every 1 in 4 Israelis is planning to leave the country if Iran becomes a nuclear power, and 41 percent of the population is in favor of attacking Iran, it seems like Israel will have a hard time managing the expectations of both the nation and the USA.

In any case, it looks like 2009 will be a somewhat peaceful year.

About this publication


7 Comments

  1. Attack

    America is designed by its very submission to its industrial military complex to always have perpetual wars or threat of war for profits.

    In America there is always a threat of war or they are at war.

    Few in the world understand the control the American industrial military complex has on its media, its corporations and its politicians. Very few.

    Tell Americans their personal freedoms and their ability to own assault guns depends on having their mega large military industrial complex and they get out their checkbooks.

    700 American military bases around the world says it all about American imperialism

    I dare anyone to travel through the southern states and Midwest states in America and find one American that believes they are an imperialistic country. Just one.

    How many Germans in the late 30’s knew they were imperialists.

    The Germans lined the streets to congratulate Hitler and called their soldiers heroes for fighting in their invasion and occupation of other countries for land and profits.

    Nationalism and patriotism can warp the rational mind. Even the Christian mindset in America that is more about greed and arrogance than the teachings of Jesus.

    Americans are living proof that greed, arrogance, nationalism and patriotism can warp the rational mind.

    Universal laws apply to nations also. Best kept secret in the world.

    The fruits of karma await the nation of America while they are busy blaming politicians that they put into office term after term after term for their economic problems.

    Please do not hate or despise Americans, as they will learn as other countries have learned about the price of imperialism. The national ego in America loves the concept of being a super power.

  2. As an American I want to live in peace with my brothers and Sisters around the world. But the sad fact is, if you have Israel or the United States as a neighbor, and don’t have nuclear weapons, you are living on borrowed time.

  3. @researcher
    Hey I think I’ve ran across most or all of your posts on this site since they added a comments feature and I don’t know how to say this, I’m not trying to be antagonistic but…
    You don’t have a list of 100 or so bullet points that you randomly spam to articles do you?

  4. well not that i know of

    but i would suspect it would be less than 100

    they are in my mind and not listed anywhere

    but thanks for the response

    it appears that not many read these comments

    my point is and has been that amerians dont understand they are imperialists just like the germans did not while they were invading other countries

    they called their soldiers heroes like we do

    if you think our soldiers are in iraq to fight for our freedoms then you are the exact person I am referring to.

    I saw first hand the terrible things we did to the vietnamese and I suspect we are doing to the iraqia and the afghans.

    9 out of 10 americans did not even know who we were fighting during the war in nam.

    these are wars for profits that ike warned us about if we did not detune our industrial military complex during peace time.

    wealth can be as harsh of lessons as poverty

    how many points did i get this time 🙂

    as a country we had great potential to do good in the world instead we chose greed and arrogance.

    now we pay the price for that greed and arrogance.

    we all learn even nations, karma demands it.

  5. “they are in my mind and not listed anywhere”
    Fair enough, I’m certainly not trying to keep you from speaking your peace. The one “bullet point”,if you will, that always sticks out in your posts and tipped me to their repetitiveness is this one:
    “I dare anyone to travel through the southern states and Midwest states in America and find one American that believes they are an imperialistic country. Just one.”
    The reason it sticks out is because I always think to myself I could easily find a small army of people that think America is imperialist at any of my local college campuses. I don’t even have to go that far, just a knock on my neighbors door and I will find “just one”.
    It’s hard for me to tell through text whether your engaging in hyperbole to illustrate a point or if you truly believe that you’re alone in your beliefs.
    Your opinions would definitely carry more weight with me though if you adapted your politics more specifically to the article at hand and less on overarching themes.
    But hey, that’s just me. It’s a free country…right?

  6. “I dare anyone to travel through the southern states and Midwest states in America and find one American that believes they are an imperialistic country. Just one.”

    Just go to any college campus anywhere in the Midwest or the South and you will find plenty of folks that do not adhere to your generalizations.

  7. they are not out in the streets protesting like many where during the vietnam war.

    the difference? the draft.

    the students were concerned about fighting in a war not that the war was illegal or we were killing over one million vietnamese.

    if they felt strongly today about america’s imperialism they would be out in force protesting.

    the last time i protested against the iraq war on a college campus not one student joined in the protest. most were too busy talking on their cell phones.

    amercians dont look at themselves as imperialists rather just we got in the wrong war with iraq.

    hey during the vietnam war 90% of americans did not even know who the viet cong where. most americans thought it was a just a war between north vietnam and south vietnam.

    it was a civil war in south vietnam until we got involved.

    the challenge is still on find one person in the midwest or south as you travel though those states that will say these words. “we americans are imperialists”.

Leave a Reply