So now that the situation has been allowed to develop (deteriorate is a better word to use), how can it be neutralized? I had this discussion with a fellow congregant at synagogue on Yom Kippur - and it appears that the only certain thing is that the solution is not easily apparent. Military action against the Iranian facilities is a difficult option - it seems clear that this is not just a case of replicating Israel's pinpoint raid on the Osirak reactor in Iraq - the distance is much further, the Iranians are anticipating an attack whereas the Iraqis were pretty much asleep at the switch, the facilities are spread out and well-protected.
I do not doubt that the IAF could hit the targets, but the question is what damage they will effect and what losses are likely. Here is an interesting article from the spring 2007 edition of the International Security journal that examines the likelihood of success from a military perspective.
My sense is that in order to really cause major harm to the facilities and significantly set back the Iranian nuclear program, there would have to be a ground component to the operation - such as was apparently the case in the destruction of the nuclear facilities in Syria a year or so ago. This would make the mission much more risky and raise the spectre of serious losses. As good as the various special forces of the IDF might be, this ain't the movies, where James Bond, Jason Bourne or Rambo can go into a seriously hostile environment, wipe out all the defenders and accomplish the assigned task.
So what to do? We had the pleasure of hosting Kadima Party MK Nachman Shai in Halifax recently. He spoke convincingly of the seriousness of the Iranian threat. When asked what he thought should be done, he simply more or less said that there could be many ways to stop the program.
To be clear - he (I assume deliberately) did not say anything specific, but I believe that he meant tactics such as - in no particular order - (a) sanctions, (b) targeted killings of people in the nuclear program, (c) targeted killings of the Iranian leadership, (d) seeking the overthrow of the regime from within, (e) diplomacy, and (f) seeking to deny or delay the supply of essential materials to Iran.
My final thought for the day on this issue, which clearly will be at the forefront as the days pass, is to think back to the situation with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Hitler and his henchmen had made their intentions regarding many issues - specifically regarding Jews - perfectly clear. The West had many chances to stand up to the Nazis and stop them, but Hitler's bluster and bravado and his contempt for international treaties and law, compounded by the weakness, fatigue and moral failure of France and Great Britain (in particular) resulted in the Nazi ascendancy over Europe.
"In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance only the Jewish race that received my prophecies with laughter when I said that I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and with it that of the whole nation, and that I would then among other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of their face. Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
Six years later, 6,000,000 Jews and millions more Russians, Poles, French, Brits, Yanks, and others were dead and large parts of Europe has been utterly devastated. Shall we dither and allow history to repeat itself?
8. Settlements and Their Legitimacy - want to argue facts? OK - then read this.
12. BESA Paper - a new paper from the wonderful BESA Center at Bar-Ilan University (which I visited in May) about President Obama and Israel - BESA Center for Strategic Studies.
The term, which is quite fluid in definition, has also been described as "marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies" and "marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger...
- aptly descriptive, in many ways, of the world today.
17. Savage Satire of the Sappy Morning Shows - from The Onion:
18. Do You Remember the Heinz Ketchup Ad That Used the Carly Simon song "Anticipation"? It would apply here as well.
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