Israeli leaders have repeatedly sounded alarms over Iran’s atomic ambitions, pointing at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s calls for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map”. Here is a timeline of statements between the two countries:

Oct. 2005 – President Ahmadinejad says that Israel should be “wiped off the map”, the official IRNA news agency reports. Ahmadinejad makes the comments at a conference called “The World without Zionism”, attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”.

— Governments from Russia to Canada condemn the Iranian president for his comments on Israel that once again raises questions about Tehran’s nuclear policy.

Dec. 2006 – Iran accuses the U.N. Security Council of pursuing a double standard in imposing sanctions on what it said was Tehran’s peaceful nuclear programme while ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

— Iran made the accusations after remarks by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who implied for the first time in a recent German TV interview that his country had nuclear weapons.

June 2008 – Israel’s then Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz says in a newspaper interview that Israeli strikes on Iran looked “unavoidable” given progress in its nuclear plans.

Sept. 2008 – Mofaz denounces his native Iran as “the root of all evil” and says its nuclear programme constitutes a threat to world peace.

— Outgoing Prime Minister Olmert dismisses calls by some of his cabinet colleagues for a unilateral attack on Iran as “megalomania”, saying on Sept. 29 that Israel must “act within the envelope of the international system”.

April 2009 – Ahmadinejad prompts a rare walkout at a U.N. conference on race when he calls Israel a “cruel and repressive racist regime”. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored the address which prompted dozens of delegates to leave their seats, which some Western powers including the United States boycotted.

— The boycott left Ahmadinejad, who has in the past cast doubt on the Nazi Holocaust, in the spotlight as the only head of state at the conference.

Sept. 2009 – A nuclear-armed Iran would not be capable of destroying Israel, Defence Minister Ehud Barak says in remarks that departed from long-running Israeli arguments about the threat posed by its foe.

Dec. 2009 – Ahmadinejad says Israel could not do a “damn thing” to stop the Islamic state’s nuclear programme, which the West suspects is a front to build bombs.

Feb. 2010 – Israel’s perspective on Iran’s nuclear programme differs from that of the U.S., and the two may part ways on what action to take, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

— “There is of course a certain difference in perspective and a difference in judgment and a difference in the internal clock, a difference in capabilities,” Barak says.”I don’t think that there is a need to coordinate in this regard. There should be understanding on the exchange of views, but we do not need to coordinate everything…”

March 2010 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in a speech in Washington that “a radical Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons could bring an end to the era of nuclear peace the world has enjoyed for the last 65 years.”

— He added Israelis will “always reserve the right of self-defence.”

Reuters AlertNet – ANALYSIS-Israel-Iran standoff challenges Mideast, investors.

The beach at Palmachim

By Alastair Macdonald

PALMACHIM, Israel, March 29 (Reuters) – Children skip over the beach at Palmachim as parents ponder a lazy Mediterranean sunset; far away, in London, or New York, traders scan other horizons, of economic data, watching for growth, or debt crises.

They may all be looking the wrong way.

Looming over the dunes behind the Israelis at play, the dump-truck shapes of U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries betray the presence of Palmachim air base — a keystone of the Jewish state’s defence should the war ever come with Iran that lurks, for now, just under the radar of the world’s financial markets.

In Washington this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Iran’s nuclear programme “an unprecedented threat to humanity”. He has likened Tehran to Germany in 1938, as it plotted the Holocaust. His words, aimed at Barack Obama’s bid to buy time for sanctions, reminded the U.S. president of Israel’s readiness to stop talking and act in its own interest.

“Israel expects the international community to act swiftly and to act decisively to thwart this danger,” Netanyahu said.

“But we always reserve the right of self-defence.”

Financial markets moved not a jot on those comments.

Yet Israeli forces are training for a possible long-range strike on Iran, their submarines have sailed routes that could take them to the Gulf and civil defence authorities have tested bunkers, air raid sirens and gas masks. Intelligence sources talk of covert action under way to hit Iran’s nuclear industry.

People living across the Middle East are anxiously aware of Israel’s record of air strikes on suspected nuclear sites, in Iraq in 1981 and in Syria less than three years ago. That such an attack might trigger a long missile war across the region or action by Iran’s guerrilla allies is a familiar fear to many.

Traders, notably in oil, always price in some supply threat after years of angry words between Tehran and Israel. But beyond that, investors face a deep conundrum.

The likelihood and timing of any conflict, as well as its geographical scope, duration and outcome, are all hard to judge.

At their bluntest, investors’ big questions are: Will Israel strike? Will it go it alone? When? And what will happen next?

The safest bet replies (probably) are: Very possibly; Quite possibly; Maybe within a year; and, well, Heaven knows. Though not even Netanyahu can know all the answers.

LOOKING FOR CLUES

Scenarios for war range from Israeli strikes (from the air, by special forces or both) that Iran might not even respond to — perhaps denying their impact, or even concealing them — to, in the grimmest forecasts, a prolonged missile duel that might, in time, even tempt Israel to use its assumed nuclear option.

That’s a pretty perplexing spread of long-term imponderables but there are more immediate questions that may help narrow it.

— Is Iran satisfying Western powers and Israel that it is halting progress toward nuclear weapons capabilities? Tehran, of course, says it is not seeking nuclear arms at all, but the coming months may see a change in Western, and Israeli, perceptions.

— How far are Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who lead rival parties, committing themselves in Israeli eyes to action against Iran if sanctions fail, in their view, to stem the perceived threat? The more cautious their statements, the more they may be seeking room to step back from the brink.

— How far are Israel and Washington in step on Iran, and if they are not, is Obama willing — or even able — to hold back an Israeli strike that might prove popular with U.S. voters?

Much of the information available to Reuters from parties involved is divulged in private, off-the-record conversations with senior officials. Some of that information can be trusted. Some is doubtless part of the bluffing game among the powers.

Telling the difference is the hard part.

American sources have told Reuters since Vice President Joe Biden’s uncomfortable visit to Israel in early March that they believe Israel gave an undertaking not to take overt action against Iran before a U.S. move to force Tehran to change tack by means of international sanctions had had a chance to work.

Israeli sources see it rather differently, suggesting no guarantees are on offer when Israel’s very survival is, in its own eyes, at stake. But restraint, at least in the coming months, to avoid outraging allies abroad, would make sense.

At the same time, Israeli analysts who claim some access to Netanyahu and Barak’s thinking, reckon Israel is ready — and that when action comes it will surprise in both its timing and nature, as befits Barak and Netanyahu, both former commandos.

Bluff? Maybe.

MIXED SIGNALS

Under the previous, centrist-led coalition of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israeli officials prepared a defence policy paper that suggested the Jewish state might be ready to settle into a regime of mutual deterrence with a nuclear Iran.

As he prepared to resign, Olmert, once among Israel’s keener hawks, said the idea of attacking Iran alone was “megalomania”.

But faced by leaders of the Islamic Republic who wish openly for Israel’s demise, Netanyahu might risk his own future if he is seen backing down. Still, the year-old Netanyahu government rarely commits to more than “all options are on the table”.

Netanyahu and Barak do say that a clock is ticking toward an outcome — Iranian ability, in terms of technology and supply of fissile material, to build a viable number of warheads within, say, a few months. And Israel finds that to be a mortal threat.

U.S. generals and officials have warned about “unintended consequences” from a strike that could destabilise the Middle East. They also suggest Iran’s pace of nuclear work is slowing.

But Barak has told Washington that, if an Iranian nuclear arsenal seemed like something Americans could live with, his people felt differently and valued their independence.

“From a closer distance, in Israel, it looks like a tipping point for the whole regional order,” Barak said. “There is of course a certain difference in perspective … and a difference in the internal clock, a difference in capabilities.

“There should be understanding on the exchange of views, but we do not need to coordinate everything.”

SANCTIONS SCEPTICS

Israel is backing Obama over coordinating sanctions against Iran. But, in private, few Israelis share the confidence voiced by senior figures in Washington about their efficacy, especially if they are not as “crippling” to Iran as Netanyahu wants.

As Israel’s Foreign Ministry phrases it in the bold headline over a major section on its Web site devoted to Iran: “The international community is moving toward lower-level sanctions, which are not unimportant, but may not be enough.”

That is a quote from Netanyahu to parliament on March 3. It begs the question, what next if sanctions are “not enough”?

Yet heavier sanctions might be called for, but Israeli officials are fearful that Obama could pursue such a track until, in their view, it is “too late” and Iran has, if not a weapon, the ability to make one fast.

As Barak put it, Israeli and American clocks are running on different time partly because Israel’s limited firepower means that the longer it waits as Iran, allegedly, multiplies secret sites, the less chance Israel has of damaging them on its own.

In any case, Israeli officials believe the kind of strike they are capable of mounting could only delay, perhaps by a few years, any Iranian programme. That delay, however, as with the pressure from sanctions, could, they hope, bring a durable halt to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by bringing change in its leaders.

Hence the notion, prevalent among Israeli analysts, that a “window” for an effective strike by Israel may only be open for a year or two more. So can Obama hold it shut?

This month’s ructions in U.S.-Israeli relations offered mixed signals. The Netanyahu coalition’s unrepentant approval of new Jewish homes on occupied land around Jerusalem marred a visit by Biden that was both intended to seal peace talks with the Palestinians and get Israeli buy-in for more diplomacy with Iran, including sanctions, rather than moving to a war footing.

Some commentators saw Washington’s angry response as driving Israel toward more unilateral action. Others gave more weight to the view that Netanyahu was now less likely to annoy the United States any further by risking going it alone against Iran.

GOING IT ALONE

The latest has been a concerted effort, especially from the Obama administration, to smooth over the rough patch, and speak of the “unbreakable bond” the United States has with Israel.

Israel certainly does not seek a rift with Washington, its main arms supplier, guardian in terms of anti-missile forces and broader military protection and prime diplomatic ally. But, as Barak made clear in Washington last month, each state has its own interests.

In the case of the air strike on Syria in 2007 that targeted a suspected nuclear facility, Israel did inform Washington in advance that something of the sort was afoot — but it did not seek permission, a source familiar with the operation said.

While such a strike, which triggered no clear retaliation, might be ideal for Israel against Iran, the risk of Tehran launching either its own missiles or asking its allies in Hamas or Hezbollah to mount attacks, means Israel will be wary of any action that Washington would repudiate, or seek even to punish.

Israelis note, however, that Iranian leaders have said they would hit U.S. interests if Israel attacked. In that case, Israel may have less risk of being left to face Iran alone.

It remains a huge and unpredictable risk, however. That alone leads many to question whether Israel would take it. But those who believe they understand the enigmatic Netanyahu stress how the long term features in the prime minister’s thinking.

While U.S. officials may focus on a short domestic election cycle, Netanyahu, son of a noted Zionist historian, misses few opportunities to put his policy toward Iran in the context of millennia of struggle by the Jewish people. For example, he addressed American evangelical Christians in Jerusalem recently:

“We must prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said of “tyrants in Tehran” who “hope to wipe Israel off the map”. And adding biblical context, he concluded: “After centuries in exile … the people of Israel have come home and no force on earth will ever make us leave our home again.”

SCENARIOS-Global impact if Israel strikes Iran | Reuters.

SCENARIOS-Global impact if Israel strikes Iran

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON, March 29 (Reuters) – If Israel were to strike Iran over its nuclear activities, markets would be watching one thing only – Iran’s response.

The scale of that response could be the difference between a brief spike in oil prices and pushing the world back to economic crisis.

Below are possible scenarios together with projected potential market reactions suggested by analysts, economists and foreign policy strategists.

NO IMMEDIATE REACTION

Tehran announces that Israel’s military attacked civilian locations but inflicted little damage. It hurls furious rhetoric at Israel but stops short of any military response.

“It may make sense for the Iranians to play the victim,” said IHS Global Insight Middle East analyst Gala Riani. “They may also use it to build the regime’s legitimacy internally.”

— news of the strike would see oil prices spike $10-$20 and wider investor flight to safer assets such as U.S. treasuries, while equities and risky currencies would suffer. But without further action, sentiment would recover.

— relatively used to conflict, Israeli markets might prove more resilient to the initial news. Some analysts suggest that a successful strike that significantly put back an Iranian nuclear programme could be positive for Israeli markets.

Key unknowns:

— assessing the effectiveness of an attack on Iranian facilities could prove almost impossible. The longer-term impact of the strikes on Iran’s internal politics, regional politics and Western support for Israel would be hard to predict.

— can Israel achieve its aims with a single strike, or would it require a more sustained operation potentially lasting several days and hitting markets much harder?

PROXY RETALIATION

Iran steers clear of any overt response, but backs intensifying attacks by Hamas from the Palestinian territories and by Hezbollah from Lebanon. It might also back proxy attacks on Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The most likely response would be to increase their subversive activity across the Middle East,” said IHS’s Riani. “It would most likely be focused in Palestine, Lebanon and to a lesser extent around the Gulf.”

— might have some short-term impact on oil prices — particularly if the attacks included Iraq — but generally global markets would be little affected.

— Israeli markets would likely take initial attacks in their stride, but a prolonged campaign would drag on the economy, driving up defence spending and undermining markets as they did during the Palestinian Intifada.

Key unknowns:

— the duration of increased violence. Proxy violence could escalate to include militant attacks on Western and oil targets.

— If Hezbollah strikes Israel, Israel will retaliate in a way that quickly expands the conflict. Israel has threatened to hold the governments of Lebanon and Syria responsible for any Hezbollah attacks.

MISSILES STRIKE ISRAEL

Iran retaliates by launching ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. While more accurate than the Scuds launched by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War, damage from each strike would be limited.

“It’s certainly not something you can rule out,” said Metsa Rahimi, intelligence analyst for risk consultancy Janusian. “The Iranians are going to want to retaliate. But they know if they do this, they are going to get hit back again.”

— oil prices would certainly spike higher, although attacks on Israeli cities would not directly have any impact on oil production. Wider global markets would sell off and watch nervously for any further escalation.

— Israeli markets might again prove more resilient. They actually rallied in January 1991 during the missile attacks as it became clear the strikes were not chemical and not causing significant damage. Much would depend on the level of damage and for how long any missile barrage continued.

Key unknowns:

— Israeli and Western reaction. Would there be further retaliation? Would weapons used remain conventional? [ID:nLDE6023HI].

— Would Israel strike military targets and civilian infrastructure in Iran, possibly including oil facilities? That would push-up prices and force primary customer China to look for supplies elsewhere.

CLOSING HORMUZ

Iran makes good its threat to close the Straits of Hormuz to traffic, blocking the flow of some 17 million barrels a day of oil, roughly 40 percent of all seaborne oil trade — but likely inviting swift retaliation from United States forces.

“Iran doesn’t even need to be successful in their threat,” said Michael Wittner, global head of energy research at Societe Generale. “Even a credible threat or near miss and insurance rates will spike. Then no one’s going to send any oil through there for a couple of weeks until somebody’s navy can re-establish control.”

— analysts estimate this could push oil prices up towards $150 a barrel. Alternative oil producers such as Russia, Nigeria and Angola might benefit, but rising fuel costs would likely undercut growth everywhere. China, Iran’s main export destination, would have to seek supplies elsewhere.

— Other financial markets would suffer and fall sharply if they believed disruption would be long term.

— Israeli markets are likely to be affected by the wider frenzy, although probably less than volatile emerging markets.

Key unknowns:

— how long could Iran maintain its blockade? Military analysts believe its handful of mine-laying ships, helicopters and submarines might quickly be neutralised by the US military.

see also:-Iran unlikely to risk blocking Hormuz [ID:nLDE60612O]

SPARKING WIDER CONFLICT

Ultimately, the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran are hard to predict. At worst, it could fuel an upsurge in wider regional violence.

“I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike,” Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said on a recent visit to Israel.

— a more violent Middle East would put an inherently higher risk premium on oil, pushing up prices and possibly undermining global recovery from the financial crisis. It might also drive consuming nations towards non-Middle Eastern suppliers and alternative technologies.

— investors would also view Israel as much higher risk, while much higher defence spending would weigh on the economy.

Key unknowns:

— duration and severity of any conflict. Would the world’s wider powers – China, Russia, the United States and European Union in particular – move towards a consensus on the Middle East or would the conflict exacerbate their differences further?

Israel to focus on key Iran nuclear targets in any strike | Reuters.

This handout satellite image of the Natanz Uranium Enrichment plant in Iran, taken June 11, 2007, shows the facility being built by Iran with a new tunnel facility inside a mountain near a key nuclear complex.

Credit: Reuters/Courtesy of DigitalGlobe-ISIS/Handout

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Should Israel attack Iranian nuclear facilities, it would probably carry out precision strikes while making every effort not to hit the oil sector or other civilian sites.

World

Past Israeli operations, such as the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak atomic reactor and a similar sortie against Syria in 2007, suggest a strategy of one-off pinpoint raids, due both to military limitations and a desire to avoid wider war.

A simulation at the Brookings Institution in Washington last December theorized that Israel, intent on halting what the West suspects is Tehran’s covert quest for atomic arms, would launch a sneak attack against half a dozen nuclear facilities in Iran.

Israel might then argue the mission “had created a terrific opportunity for the West to pressure Iran, weaken it, and possibly even undermine the regime,” Brookings expert Kenneth Pollack wrote in a summary of the wargame, though he saw little chance of the Obama administration looking kindly on this tack.

Israel’s advanced F-15 and F-16 warplanes have the range to bomb western Iran and strike further inland with air-to-air refueling and using stealth technology to pass through the air space of intermediate hostile Arab nations.

Israel could also launch Jericho ballistic missiles with conventional warheads, according to a 2009 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Israel’s three German-built Dolphin submarines are believed to be capable of carrying conventional and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. They would have to transit through Egypt’s Suez Canal — as one did last year — to reach the Gulf.

Special forces might be deployed to spot targets and possibly launch sabotage attacks. Israel has also been developing “cyber warfare” capabilities and could use this together with other activities by Mossad secret service agents on the ground, security sources say.

Israel would not want to risk drawing in Iranian allies like Hezbollah, Hamas or Syria. Israel also does not want to damage ties with neutral Arab powers or the United States. And finally – speaking in favor of a short, sharp assault – its conventional forces are designed for brief border wars, not prolonged action.

STRATEGIC FOCUS

“If there were to be an Israeli attack, the only thing that might be contemplated by Israel would be a precision strike focused on nuclear facilities alone,” said Emily Landau, senior research associate at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

“Israel has no issue with Iran beyond the fact that it is developing a military nuclear capability, coupled with the harsh rhetoric coming out of Iran,” she said.

Israel would be loath to attack Iranian energy assets, like oil production and shipping facilities. This could stoke the inevitable spike in oil prices, turning international opinion against Israel, while alienating the Iranian dissident movement.

Still, Israel could be forced to broaden its target book.

Should Iran retaliate for a sneak Israeli strike with Shehab missile launches against Tel Aviv, for example, the Netanyahu government would find it hard not to escalate. It would need outside assurances that the Shehab salvoes would stop — say, through a U.S. military enlistment against Iran, or a truce.

“It would obviously not be in Israel’s interest to enter into any wider conflict with Iran, because there is always a wider danger of escalation. When conflict spirals, it is hard to say how it will end,” Landau said.

After losing the tactical edge of any initial sneak ambush, Israeli forces would find it hard to keep up precision attacks.

Iran would be on alert for hostile warplanes, submarines and commandos. Iraq, Turkey or Saudi Arabia — which a 2006 study by the Massachusetts Institutes of Technology saw Israeli warplanes overflying en route to Iran — would shut down their air space.

The Israeli public, meanwhile, would chafe at living in shelters and the loss of troops.

In such a situation, Israel might rely increasingly on “stand-off” weaponry such as the Jerichos, which Jane’s missile experts believe are accurate only to around 1,000 yards (meters). This could mean more damage to Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including the lifeblood energy sector

Passover Hagaddah Conclusion “Next Year in Jerusalem” Deemed Unhelpful by Obama Administration (Satire)

(Satire)

(Radical Islam strikes Russia – Joseph Wouk)

Blasts in Moscow metro kill at least 37 – Russia- msnbc.com.

MOSCOW – At least 37 people were killed Monday when two separate blasts rocked metro stations in central Moscow during rush hour, law enforcement and emergency officials said.

Russian prosecutors said they had launched a “terrorism probe.”

Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said the dead in the first explosion included 14 people who were in the train’s second car where the blast occurred and another 11 people who were on the platform at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The explosion occurred at 7:56 a.m. local time (11:56 p.m. ET).

The headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is located just above the station.

State news agencies ITAR-Tass and RIA Novosti report a second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later. City police spokesman Viktor Biryukov told The Associated Press that at least 12 people were killed in that blast.

The last time Moscow was hit by a confirmed terrorist attack was in August 2004, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a city subway station, killing 10 people.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Iran sanctions top concern at G-8 summit.

OTTAWA — Iran’s nuclear program is of “critical concern” and will top the agenda when foreign ministers from the Group of Eight nations meet Monday to discuss global security, Canada’s foreign minister said.

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said he’ll press for stiffer sanctions against Iran when G-8 ministers assemble in Gatineau, Quebec for the meeting which begins Monday evening and continues through Tuesday.

The United States and its Western allies have been pushing for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful means only, but Western powers believe the country is working to produce an atomic weapon.

“Unfortunately I believe we are left with little choice but to pursue additional sanctions against Iran ideally through the United Nations Security Council,” Cannon said.

Cannon said he’ll discuss with his G-8 colleagues what they can do to put additional pressure on Iran to persuade it to stop its nuclear enrichment activities and convince them to return to the negotiating table.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be attending the meeting that comes just days after their countries struck a landmark agreement cutting their nuclear arsenals by a third.

Russia’s position at the conference is key because it has close commercial ties with Tehran and has used its position as a veto-wielding permanent UN Security Council member to water down Western-backed sanctions.

Lavrov said recently that Iran was allowing an opportunity for mutually beneficial dialogue with the West to “slip away.” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday imposing more sanctions is not the best option, but cannot be excluded.

The G-8 meeting of foreign ministers precedes June’s G-8 summit uniting world leaders in Huntsville, Ontario that will also focus on non-economic issues like nuclear proliferation. The G-8 includes the US, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia. Canada will also host a G-20 economic summit of leaders a day after the Huntsville meeting.

Before welcoming the G-8 ministers, Cannon will host a summit of five Arctic coastal countries to discuss continental shelf delineation. Canada, the US, Denmark, Norway and Russia have competing claims to the Arctic where melting ice is expected to free up valuable resources.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told The Associated Press the combination of vast resources and new transport routes could increase tension. He said the meeting is a good idea because there’s a lot more interest in the Arctic now than there was five years ago.

The five countries are expected to reaffirm a commitment to international treaties governing the region, he said. He also expects each state to update where they are at in mapping the continental shelf.

“As climate change takes place, and new transport routes open up, it can be managed in a way which will avoid conflict,” Stoere said. “If you want to avoid conflict you better engage governments, put them around the table and agree on the basic principals.”

EMP: Answer to a Jewish prayer | The Daily Caller – Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment.

If the king of Saudi Arabia were to be invited to the White House, President Obama would make the usual deep bow, have a long conversation with lots of photo ops, and then give the king a grand halal dinner. But it was not a Muslim king who was the honored guest last week. It was the Jewish Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, here to provide the president with another opportunity to embarrass himself and the United States.

There were no handshakes in the White House last week, no negotiations, no photographs, no joint statements, and definitely no kosher dinner. Just the presentation of a list of demands, take it or leave it. When the stunned Netanyahu hesitated, the president left the room, saying, “Let me know if there are any changes. I’ll be around.” Then mainstream media obliged their White House masters, as usual, with a complete news blackout. It was as if the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East had never been in town.

What was the prime minister thinking as he ate his dinner on the plane taking him home? Did his thoughts go back to the days of atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, and what they might mean to Israel today?

In 1962, at Johnson Island in the Pacific, the United States conducted a test code-named Starfish Prime. A nuclear device was to be detonated in near space, 260 miles above the island, and instruments were ready to monitor effects on the ionosphere. When the 1-megaton explosion flared there was no radiation or blast felt on the island below. Instead, a man-made aurora borealis appeared and an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) knocked out streetlights and a communications microwave link in Hawaii—930 miles away! The age of EMP weapons had begun.

The Soviet Union’s spies told Moscow about Starfish Prime and the effects of the EMP pulse. The Soviets, worried about underground bunkers built to house the government and command centers in the event of a nuclear war, conducted their own tests. They were horrified. The EMP pulse could fry computers, communications, and all kinds of electrical equipment on the surface and hidden far underground. Our own concern was heightened when Russia shared that data with us during the happy days of Perestroika. The Pentagon began to take steps to harden key military equipment against EMP, like ICBM silos and Air Force One.

The next shoe dropped in 1998, when Iran tested missiles fired from a barge in the Caspian that exploded a hundred miles above the surface. The Iranians knew about EMP too, and were making plans to menace any nation they could reach from a cargo ship as soon as they had the necessary nuclear warheads. Concerned at last, Congress established a commission in 2001 to examine the potential damage to the United States from an EMP attack. The final report was published in 2008, and the news was not good. Attacked by EMP weapons, the United States infrastructure would suffer catastrophic and irreversible damage—unless defensive preparations were made. The cost for hardening vulnerable things such as electrical power transmission lines, communications, and computer-controlled systems like refineries and water supplies would cost billions of dollars. Speeches were made, but expensive action was left to disappear from congressional agendas.

EMP, however, did not disappear. It is a hot topic these days, and getting hotter. The signs were evident over 20 years ago:

• Iran tried to buy nuclear warheads from Pakistan as early as 1987.
• Ten years later, Iran tested a sea-launched ICBM capable of delivering an EMP attack.
• Contemplating Israel’s potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, the Center for Strategic and International Studies recently said, “…some believe that nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground…”
• The Heritage Foundation is calling for an EMP Recognition Day to bolster adoption of defensive measures and a national recovery plan.
• US Navy EMP team of engineers, inactive for ten years, has been resurrected and is finding ways to protect the fleet from EMP attacks.

Now, let us go back to Prime Minister Netanyahu, drinking an after-dinner coffee in his plane, deep in thought. He never got to ask the American president for bunker-busters, refueling tanker planes, and other critical support needed for an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons factories. He knew that if he tried it without that help, it would be almost impossible to inflict enough damage to completely stop the weapons program. Casualties in men and material would be very high. And if an attack was made without prior notice to Washington, the American president would surely refuse to resupply Israel with aircraft. Nevertheless, an Iran with nuclear weapons is out of the question—they already said that tiny Israel is a “one bomb target.” So Israel is alone, as always. What to do?

The prime minister knows the calculus well. First, he thinks, will be the salvo of Jericho III missiles. EMP from their nuclear warheads will destroy Iran’s electrical power grid, communications, television, radio, air defenses, and most of the industrial infrastructure. At noon the flashes will not even be noticed, so high there is no blast or radiation on the ground. Then cruise missiles from submarines for high value targets. They should save one for Ahmadinejad’s presidential palace. With chaos in the dark streets, maybe our commandos have time to open that Evin prison hellhole and let out the political prisoners. Those kids, that ‘Green’ opposition—they can deal with the mullahs if they like. And the best part, with the radar and air defenses inoperative, our air force can overfly Iran. They will finish the job with none of my boys lost, God willing. And when no parts for American aircraft come, there are always Russian aircraft. Avigdor will love it—like he loves being Foreign Minister. If the Russians tell him to get lost like last time, I’ll send him to China. They sell anything to anyone, especially if it annoys Washington.

Netanyahu smiled for the first time in days. Afterwards, he thought, to show no hard feelings I invite President Obama to make a visit to Jerusalem. If he comes I will make him a present. Perhaps a little framed photo from our satellite that shows such a peaceful Iran. And he can go home after Sarah gives him a nice kosher dinner.

Israel gets ready to strike at Iran’s nuclear sites – media | Top Russian news and analysis online | ‘RIA Novosti’ newswire.

Israeli air force have practiced simulated strikes at Iran’s nuclear facilities using airspace of at least two unidentified Arab countries, a newspaper published in east Jerusalem reported.

According to Al Manar paper, several Israeli combat jets carried out in late February bombing drills “targeting” known Iranian nuclear sites “in two Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, which are close territorially with the Islamic republic and cooperate with Israel on this issue.”

Al Manar said Israel had received the permission to use the airspace from the top leadership of these countries and Washington “gave a blessing” to Tel Aviv to conduct these exercises.

Despite broad international efforts to persuade Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment, both the United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran, which is currently under three sets of UN sanctions for refusing to halt uranium enrichment, insists it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity, while Western powers suspect it of pursuing an atomic weapons program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently called for the international community to impose a new set of ‘crippling’ sanctions on Iran to make the Islamic republic scrap its controversial nuclear program.

MOSCOW, March 29 (RIA Novosti)