Moffaz upped the ante (though in some ways only slightly) regarding Israel-Iran rhetoric claiming:

if Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective. Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable.

This drew predictable responses from familiar sources. El Baradei claimed:

…with unilateral military actions, countries are undermining international agreements, and we are at a historic turning point.

but also added:

he readiness of Iran’s side to cooperate leaves a lot to be desired…[they are] sending a message to the entire world: we can build a bomb in relatively short time.

Iran’s Ambassador, Mohammed Khazaee:

Such a dangerous threat against a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations constitutes a manifest violation of international law and contravenes the most fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and, thus, requires a resolute and clear response on the part of the United Nations, particularly the Security Council.

High-minded words for a guy representing a country that routinely calls for Israel’s destruction. the white house (Dana Perino):

I understand that Israel is very concerned about their future and their safety when they have a neighbor in their region – Iran – that says they want to wipe them off the map…We are trying to solve this diplomatically.

So, any readers care to weigh in on whether the attack is inevitable, when if it happens it will happen and why it hasn’t happened yet?

Latest posts by grandmuffti (see all)

About the author

grandmuffti

11 Comments

  • Right-wing Hoover Institution guru Daniel Pipes believes Bush will leave the issue to McCain if the latter wins, or take action himself between Election & Inauguration Days if Obama wins. Pipes also favors a US over an Israeli attack, figuring it has a slightly better chance of success.

    Looks to me like Bush decided to let the Europeans’ negotiations/UN sanctions take their course (a strategy Obama with rich irony mocked during his AIPAC speech). After Iraq, Bush had to trim his sails, at least until it becomes clear to all that negotiations and sanctions won’t work. (Sound familiar?)

    My guess is that if Bush is told that a group of stealth bombers can at least materially delay/damage the Iranian effort, he’ll order the effort before he leaves office. Nice payback for all the IEDs the Iranians have sent to Iraq.

    Now Muffti, as chairman of Atheists for Obama, simply wants him to meet face-to-face with Ahmadinejad. Surely two reasonable men who want the best for their peoples, speaking together frankly, can work this out. We are all human, with mothers, spouses, children. Please. Let’s do it for the children.

  • Mofaz is running for Olmert’s seat and Olmert appears to be in his corner. So on the one hand, this can be seen as a play to impress Israelis that Mofaz is the strong, military type. On the other hand, his proximity to Olmert suggests he might actually be saying this with permission.

    Either way, it’s a stupid thing to say and if officially sanctioned, indicates the Israelis don’t mean it. When they mean it, they tend to do things quietly. It’s not as if this announcement is going to make the Iranians cower in fear in the corner and end the program. They planned for an attack by the Israelis before this program was launched.

  • Muffti is too irresponsible to be chairman of anything! But if he were chairman of such an illustrious organization, he would probably admit his ignorance of what is best and do a lot of reading up on what the real costs and benefits of meeting up with the various level of authority of your enemies actually comes to. He’d study some of hte bush success cases in particular: Libya and North Korea and compare them with what have so far been bush failures (Iran).

    Muffti has no strong opinions about who should meet with who and when. What he is always surprised about is just how strong people’s opinions are when they have no deep knowledge of foreign policy, history or the culture of the enemy and what meeting with them will actually mean in the long and short run.

    But the parodying tone you take make Muffti wonder: do you dislike humans with mothers, spouses, children? 🙂

  • Its all smoke I agree with TM

    Israel bombed Syria without any hints.

  • I just don’t understand why they haven’t done it already. I certainly hope that with the Americans in Iraq the Mossad took the opportunity to flood Iran with agents.

    I hope the US does it, myself, rather than Israel. But somebody needs to, and fast.

    If even that stooge Al Baradei can be that blunt, he must really think that they’re very close to a bomb.

  • They haven’t done it already because they’re scared. The Iranians are and would be a formidable enemy.

  • Other than Iran’s missile capability, they would have trouble inflicting much damage on Israel. Depending on how much Iran is responsible for already in Iraq they may or may not be able to inflict more damage to US soldiers.

    A conventional war with conventional troops is out of the question for Iran against either the US or Israel. And Israel/US response to a ballistic missile attack would greatly increase with the number of missiles and amount of damage inflicted.

    Economically a missile campaign would be disastrous for the Israeli economy and create a state of fear for the entire population, not just the south like Sderot or the north during Lebanon 2.

    Hezbollah would be a wild card, we’d really get to see the true face of the Hezbollah/Iranian connection if there were any attack, by either Israel or the US.

  • I disagree, Yoni. They have two proxy armies adjacent to Israel, Hizbullah and Hamas. Both have missile capabilities, especially Hizbullah, and can make Israel lose soldiers while bogging down substantial parts of the fighting military who could be used on other fronts. If convenient, the Syrians may join the fighting if Iran makes both of its proxies launch wars. Iran has missile capability of hitting Israel and apparently has chemical weapons. Unlike Iraq with its inaccurate missiles, these are the real deal and will be very targeted. Additionally, Iran may soon have great influence and sway over Iraq, and that will place them a mere Jordan-length away from the Jordan River. Even if this doesn’t happen immediately, you can be sure they won’t forget or forgive an Israeli attack for many years. Finally, Iran reportedly has excellent intelligence services and if they were behind the Argentina bombings, you can expect more of those types of attacks these days.

  • Maybe Olmert’s Syrian initiative is designed to peel away that country from Iran’s influence, reducing the potential costs of a confrontation with Tehran.

  • We haven’t done it yet because of people like middle who’d then condemn us for endangering their galut freedom. Scared? We can be only certain that pulling off nothing less than a perfect operation would literally unleash the wrath of Islam hate, sleeper cell attacks the world around against Israeli targets, Jews, visible or not, and the great Satan of course. Oil would go through the roof and Jews would get blamed. Americans would be forced to make aliyah (and painfully remember that in the 2000s olim were getting paid to do that).

    We’ve already heard about the fact that the Iranians do not have one major nuclear installation, rather dozens of smaller ones spread around Persia. Launching on operation would involve sending a few hundred of Israel’s limited air force into the air, many on known suicide missions for lack of mass refueling abilities as well as the statistics of some getting shot down. I think there is some speculation that planes might be afforded to land in some Emirates country(ies) also apprehensive about the Iranian threat, but we can only assume that we wouldn’t get our planes back for a while if at all.

    What to do? Pray, tshuva, and have faith that God does everything for the best of us.

    On the other hand, I would be so proud of our corrupt leaders if we learn that they are playing the psy-ops game that the Arabs do all the time with us. Nonetheless, I would not want to be Iranian anti-aircraft soldiers now. Poor saps are probably getting no respect.

  • BS”D
    Well, Mofaz is Sar Hatachburah, something like the Secretary of Transportation in the US — anybody knows who he/she is? Well, I’ll tell you: Secretary Mary E. Peters. Imagine Mrs. Peters declaring one sunny day that the United States ought to attack Venezuela (or Cuba or whatever). Wouldn’t she probably need to find another job?