- \n
- Israel<\/a><\/li>\n
- Points East & West<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
22 November, 2011<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/standpointmag.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/files_u28_ottolenghileft_24.jpg\" "\\"Feature")
<\/p>\nAfter years of ambiguity, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has finally lifted the veil on Iran\u2019s nuclear secrets and forced even the most sceptical to take sides. Its quarterly report on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme released on November 8 was preceded by two weeks of intense speculation about a looming Israeli airstrike.<\/p>\n
What to make of the media frenzy \u2014 which politicians from Israel\u2019s president Shimon Peres to the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, all fuelled with contradictory statements? What to make of a highly publicised joint air exercise in which Israeli and Nato planes practised long-distance military operations with air refuelling?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is Israel\u2019s air force \u2014 the same that bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and the Syrian one in 2007 \u2014 gearing up\u00a0for the most daring airstrike in aviation history?<\/p>\n
If Israel were to embark on a difficult, long-distance military strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear installations, the first operational requirement is clear skies \u2014 something Israel needs to wait for until next spring. Even if the skies were clear, the political horizon is not. From Israel\u2019s point of view, the regional environment is the least ideal that it has been for some time.<\/p>\n
Iran is aggressively probing Israeli-Egyptian relations by having its client Palestinian Islamic Jihad shoot rockets daily at Israel\u2019s southern communities; by propping up a dying regime in Syria; and by\u00a0deploying in Lebanon a massive arsenal of medium-range missiles ready to rain down on Tel Aviv at a moment\u2019s notice. So Israel must choose its timing and targets carefully.<\/p>\n
Israel also has to confront renewed terrorism coming from Sinai. It had to evacuate its embassy in Cairo when a rent-a-mob crowd showed up for trouble unimpeded by local security forces. It had to watch helplessly as massive quantities of increasingly dangerous weapons flooded Gaza because of Sinai\u2019s increased lawlessness; and it had to allow more and more Egyptian troops into Sinai in breach of the peace treaty on the pretext that they needed to stop the inflow of weapons.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a rising tide of Islamic forces is sweeping the region. The Muslim Brotherhood are victorious in Tunis and (at the time of writing) bound to do well in Egypt\u2019s parliamentary elections. Surviving regimes feel shaky and, while Saudi and other Gulf rulers might like someone to dispose of Iran for them, an attack could fan the flames of revolt among their already restive peoples. And Turkey, having abandoned its strategic relation with Israel, will make sure its airspace will be closed to Israeli planes.<\/p>\n
All this complicates an operation that, even if ordered under more propitious circumstances, would still be daring and dangerous. Perhaps then the media frenzy was designed to help the IAEA, which had to resist huge political pressure from Iran\u2019s enablers China and Russia to make its report as crystal clear as possible about Iran\u2019s decade-long cover-up of its advanced military nuclear programme. The argument is simple: if Israel is isolated, it might act alone. But if the world treats Iran\u2019s threat seriously and acts upon it, Israel will take a back seat. If this was the case, it worked, for the report speaks for itself.<\/p>\n
By 2003, Iran had managed to successfully test all the components of a nuclear device. That year, according to a widely publicised 2007 US intelligence estimate, Iran stopped its weapons programme but continued to conduct studies and simulations designed to verify the existing components.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has also simulated how to shape uranium metal into spheres \u2014 the weapon\u2019s nuclear core; how to maximise the yield of a nuclear-armed implosive device; and how to mount it on a ballistic missile initially designed for conventional payloads.<\/p>\n
The only missing piece remains Iran\u2019s ability to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level \u2013 something that Iran is, at least in theory, already capable of doing given its advances in the enrichment business in the last two years.<\/p>\n
Israel, then, has every reason to be\u00a0concerned. And so should everyone else who cares about the stability of the Middle East, the affordability of energy resources, and the future of the non-proliferation\u00a0regime.<\/p>\n
Will the international community act? Hard to believe, if one looks at the last ten years\u2019 track record of diplomacy. Only this time is different. Iran is nearing the point of no return.<\/p>\n
And Israel, after two weeks of non-stop public debate, has gone quiet. The message is clear. The international community can stop Iran until the spring. After that, Israel might.<\/p>\n
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