President Obama’s most explosive foreign policy crisis will occur within months. Israel is not going to let Iran get the bomb. Virtually the entire Israeli political spectrum views the nuclear program of the fascistic mullahs in Tehran as an existential threat. Israeli intelligence apparently believes Iran will be able to put together a bomb before the end of next year. Does the Obama Administration truly comprehend the situation?

Our State Department has concluded that the world can live with a nuclear-armed Iran, that Iran can be contained, just as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. Much of the Pentagon shares that assessment, as do the Europeans. The White House may be under the illusion that it can bring the Israelis around to our way of thinking: There’s no need to worry; Iran will never attack with nukes because of the ghastly consequences to itself. But given the Iranian regime’s apocalyptic outlook–and its madly messianic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is powerful enough to have gotten away with rigging the presidential election and successfully quashed open dissent–the Israelis won’t take the risk.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (as well as that of his predecessor) hasn’t been coy about how it sizes up the situation. Israel has conducted open military exercises clearly aimed at preparing for a hit on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu has long made it clear that his prime mission in life is to eradicate–or at least severely set back and impair–Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “It’s 1938,” he has said repeatedly. There will be no second Holocaust on his watch. For the past six years the Israelis have stood by while the U.S. and Europe engaged in futile diplomacy with Tehran. But their seeming passivity was for appearances–to let the world witness that diplomacy had been given a thorough, leisurely paced chance. The Israeli government backed down when the Bush Administration refused to give it a green light for a strike on Iran in early 2008. But that was before Netanyahu took office. The Obama Administration is deluding itself if it thinks the Netanyahu government will ask anyone’s permission to strike Iran.

In fact, the Israelis have rarely given us a heads-up when they’ve undertaken significant military actions. They didn’t do so regarding the Suez Crisis in 1956 or the Six-Day War in 1967 (and no wonder–the Johnson Administration had made clear it didn’t want the Israelis to initiate hostilities, even though Egypt was clearly ready to attack). The Israelis didn’t ask permission to take out Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981 nor did they seek our counsel before invading Lebanon a year later.

In 1987-88 the U.S. engaged Iran in the so-called Tanker War, when the Khomeini government made moves to block oil shipments from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia through the// <![CDATA[//

Moreover, what the Obama Administration may not fully grasp is that if the Israelis do attack, the U.S. will be involved in the conflict almost immediately. Tehran’s fanatics will use missiles to try to close the critical Persian Gulf, through which flows much of the world’s oil supply. Our Navy will then likely take out Iran’s missile sites and obliterate its navy if it interferes with our efforts to get the oil flowing again.

Wars always have unpredictable consequences. Yes, Iran’s nuclear dreams will be shoved onto a back burner for many years, and behind the scenes the Sunni governments in Egypt and elsewhere will quietly applaud, for they deeply fear an Iran-dominated Middle East. But who knows what other forces might be unleashed in various countries when this happens and in the years ahead? Global economies will certainly be impacted by a fundamental disruption–even a short one–in the oil markets.

Is military action avoidable? The odds of a peaceful solution get slimmer by the day. Iran is working feverishly to build up refining capacity because it currently must import a significant amount of its gasoline. It has already raised the price of this heavily subsidized fuel in order to cut back consumption. In other words, a blockade will be far less potent now than it would have been a year ago. And certainly nothing the Obama Administration has done vis-à-vis terrorists and rogue states will assure the Israelis that this Administration will take effective steps to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

http://www.forbes.com/global/2009/1005/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-and-comment.html