WarSclerotic

Why an Attack on Iran and Another War in Middle East are More Likely Than Not – International Business Times.

By Jijo Jacob

Osirik Redux: Will History Repeat Itself? – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IAF F-16 (file)

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Confidential documents released Thursday revealed Israel’s June 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirik reactor didn’t just stun Saddam Hussein, but Israel’s firmest friends – including the Americans.

Files released by Britain’s National Archives under the 30-year rule show that the UK’s ambassador to Washington, Sir Nicholas Henderson, was with US defense secretary Caspar Weinberger as the news came in.

“Weinberger says that he thinks Begin must have taken leave of his senses. He is much disturbed by the Israeli reaction and possible consequences,” Sir Nicholas cabled London.

Britain’s ambassador in Baghdad, Sir Stephen Egerton, disclosed that the Iraqis had been just as surprised when the Israeli F15 fighters appeared in their skies.

“The diplomatic corps had a ringside view of the belated ack-ack and missile reactions to the raid when we were gathered for the Italian national day reception on the Bund,” he wrote.

“The raiders had gone but the fireworks were spectacular.”

At the time world reaction to the operation – codenamed Operation Opera – was a mix of shock and dismay. But despite high-prase for the audacity of Israel’s pilots, even Israel’s traditional friends were furious.

US officials, pride wounded at having been caught unawares, joined the world in condemning Israel for an act that would later be hailed not only as effective deterrence – but a blessing for world security.

The US condemnation came after then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher talked the Iraqis and their Arab allies down for pressing for sanctions against Israel – telling them the condemnation would not pass if they persisted.

The documents revealing the US surprise at Israel’s Osirik raid comes as officials in Jerusalem and Washington haggle over what “triggers” will prompt a raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Amid the debate some American officials are concerned history may repeat itself and that Israel may choose to go it alone.

US General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged earlier this month that there are differences in perspective between the United States and Israel over the best way to handle Iran and its nuclear program.

Dempsey said the United States was convinced that using sanctions and diplomatic pressure was the right path to take on Iran, along with “the stated intent not to take any options off the table.”

He said, however, “I’m not sure the Israelis share our assessment of that. And because they don’t and because to them this is an existential threat, I think probably that it’s fair to say that our expectations are different right now.”

The Israeli raid, by F15 and F16 jets, on Iraq’s French-supplied nuclear facility, followed intelligence reports that the reactor was on the point of producing weapons-grade nuclear material – despite Iraqi protests that it was developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

“I will not be the man in whose time there will be a second Holocaust,” Prime Minister Begin told his military chiefs.

US officials have to be wondering if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who recently cast himself in Begin’s mold, will make the same decision should Iran reach the same point as Iraq in 1981.

Iran announces long-range missile test amid Strait of Hormuz row with U.S. – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Ten-day Iranian military drill overshadowed by Iran-U.S. verbal row over an Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which 40% of the world’s ship-borne crude oil is passed.

By DPA

Amid a verbal row with the United States over blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route, Iran proclaimed on Friday that it will start testing long range missiles in the Persian Gulf.

“On Saturday morning the Iranian navy will test several of its long-range missiles in the Persian Gulf,” navy deputy commander Admiral Mahmoud Moussavi told Fars news agency.

	A Saegheh ground-to-sea missile is fired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard during a military maneuver, April 25, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

The testing of the missiles is part of ongoing navy maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and, according to Moussavi, the main and final phase is preparing the navy for confronting the enemy in a warlike situation.

The maneuver has been overshadowed by a verbal row between Iran and the US over an Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, through which 40 per cent of the world’s ship-borne crude is passed.

The spark for the row was a Tuesday remark by Iranian Vice President Mohammd-Reza Rahimi that, “if Western countries sanctioned Iranian oil, then Iran would not allow one drop of oil to cross the Strait of Hormuz.”

Following his remarks, Iranian navy commander Admiral Habibollah Sayari said, although there was currently no necessity for Iran to close the strait, “it would be as easy as drinking a glass of water.”

After the U.S. Navy said it would not accept any Iranian disruption of the free flow of goods through Hormuz, Iran continued the war of words with Revolutionary Guard deputy chief Hossein Salami saying that the U.S. was in no position to tell Iran what to do.

Salami also called the U.S. “an iceberg which is to be melted by the high degree of the Iranian revolution,” and “a sparrow in the body of a dinosaur.”

Neither President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor the ministries of defense and foreign affairs have so far commented on the issue.

The only official comments on the matter came last week, before the exchange of words, from Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, who said that closing the Hormuz has never been on Iran’s agenda.

However, he added: “if the region would face a warlike situation, then everything would then become warlike.”

US military chief to visit Israel to reassure … JPost – Defense.

    In a sign of bolstering military ties between Israel and the United States, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey will arrive in Israel next month for talks aimed at reassuring Israel that the US is serious about stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

Dempsey will arrive in Israel in mid January in a trip that comes as the US escalates its rhetoric regarding US military preparations to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
In an interview with CNN last week, Dempsey said that preparations for a military option “are evolving to a point that they would be executable if necessary.”

The former commander of the US Army, Dempsey was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in October succeeding Adm. Michael Mullen, whose term was marked by increased cooperation with the IDF and chief of staff at the time, Gabi Ashkenazi.

Current Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz knows Dempsey from his days as the IDF attaché to Washington DC but it will be their first time meeting in their current posts. Mullen and Ashkenazi met over a dozen times during their joint terms.

Talks with Dempsey are expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program as well as regional developments such as the challenges Israel faces from a possible Islamic takeover in Egypt and from Hezbollah and Syria in the North.

In a recent interview, Dempsey said that Israel would likely not update the US ahead of a strike.

Dempsey is also expected to meet with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The visit comes at a time of rising tension between Jerusalem and Washington over the continued impasse in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Defense officials stressed though that despite political differences between the countries, military and intelligence ties have seen a significant boost in recent years

The visit comes months before Israel and the US hold the largest-ever joint missile defense drill.

Scheduled for May, the drill is called “Austere Challenge” and is expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel. It will also include the establishment of IDF command posts at European Command headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.

The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome and live interceptions are expected to take place during the drill.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 29, 2011, 6:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

A naval mine

Thursday afternoon, Dec. 29, Tehran raised the pitch of its threats to the United States when Dep. Chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen. Hossein Salami declared: “The United States is in no position to tell Tehran what to do in the Strait of Hormuz,” adding, “Any threat will be responded [to] by threat… We will not relinquish our strategic moves in Iran’s vital interests are undermined by any means.”

The Iranian general spoke after the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group passed through the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and into the area where the big Iranian naval war game Veleyati 90 is taking place.
At around the same time, Israel’s chief of staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz spoke of “the rising potential for a multi-arena event,” i.e. a comprehensive armed conflict. Facing in several directions as we are “between terrorist organizations and Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon… we can’t afford to stay on the defensive and must come up with offensive measures,” he said.

Earlier Thursday, Dec. 29, debkafile reported that an Iranian plan to mine the Strait of Hormuz had put US and NATO forces in the Persian Gulf on the alert.

US and NATO task forces in the Persian Gulf have been placed on alert after US intelligence warned that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are preparing Iranian marine commandos to sow mines in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The new deployment, debkafile‘s military sources report, consists of USS Combined Task Force 52 (CTF 52), which is trained and equipped for dismantling marine mines and NATO Maritime Mine Counter measures Group 2 (SNMCMG2). The American group is led by the USS Arden mine countermeasures ship; NATO’s by the British HMS Pembroke minesweeper. Other vessels in the task forces are the Hunt-class destroyer HMS Middleton and the French mine warfare ships FS Croix du Sud and FS Var.
Also on the ready are several US Expeditionary Combat Readiness units of the US Fifth Fleet Bahrain command. Seventeen of these special marine units are attached to the Fifth Fleet as America’s answer to the Iranian Navy’s fast assault boats and marine units.

US military sources told debkafile Wednesday, Dec. 28, that United States has the countermeasures for sweeping the waterway of mines and making it safe for marine passage after no more than a 24-48 hour interruption.

At the same time, leading military and naval officials in Washington take Tehran’s threats seriously. They don’t buy the proposition advanced by various American pundits and analysts that Iran would never close the Strait of Hormuz, though which one third of the world’s oil passes, because it would then bottle up its own energy exports. Those officials, according to our sources, believe that Tehran hopes the mines in the waterway will blow up passing oil tankers and other shipping. It doesn’t have to be sealed hermetically to endanger international shipping; just a few mines here and there and an explosion would be enough to deter shippers and crews from risking their vessels.

As Adm. Habibollah Sayari commander of the Iranian Navy put it Wednesday, Dec. 28: “Shutting the strait for Iran’s armed forces is really easy – or as we say in Iran, easier than drinking a glass of water.” He went on to say: “But today, we don’t need [to shut] the strait because we have the Sea of Oman under control and can control transit.”

debkafile‘s Middle East marine sources said the Iranian admiral’s boast about the Sea of Oman was just hot air.  For the big Iranian Velayati 90 sea exercise which began Saturday, America has deployed in that sea two large air and sea strike groups led by the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and the USS Bataan aircraft amphibious ship.

And they are highly visible: Thursday morning, Dec. 29, Iranian Navy’s Deputy Commander Rear Adm. Mahmoud Mousavi reported an Iranian Navy aircraft had shot footage and images of a US carrier spotted in an area where the Velayat 90 war games were being conducted – most probably the Stennis. Its presence, he said, demonstrated that Iran’s naval forces were “precisely monitoring all moves by extra-regional powers” in the region.

Clearly, the US navy is very much on the spot in the Sea of Oman and other areas of the Iranian war game.

Middle East sources warn however that the repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz coming from Tehran this week and the framework of its naval exercise clearly point to the manner in which Iran intends to hit back for the tough new sanctions which the West plans to approve next month. The new round is expected to shear off 80 percent of the Islamic Republic’s revenues.
The European Union’s 27 member-states meet in January to approve an embargo on Iranian oil, with effect on 25 percent of Iran’s energy exports. Next month, too, President Barack Obama plans to sign into law an amendment authorizing severe penalties for foreign banks trading with Iran’s central bank, CBI, including the loss of links with American banks and financial institutions.

Tehran is expected to strike back hard by sowing mines in Hormuz and in the waters opposite the oil fields and terminals of fellow Persian Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia.

It would not be the first time. In 1987 and 1988, sea mines were sown in the Persian Gulf for which Iran never took responsibility. It was generally seen as Tehran’s payback for US and Gulf Emirates’ backing for Iraq in its long war with the Islamic Republic. A number of oil tankers and American warships were struck by mines, including the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Such disasters can be averted today by means of the sophisticated countermeasures now in US hands.

‘Stuxnet weapon has at least 4 c… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Iran official: U.S. cannot stop us from cutting off world oil supply – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

U.S. military indicates it will not allow Tehran to close off Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran threatens to do so in case of western sanctions on its oil sector.

By Haaretz

The United States is in no position to advise Iran against cutting global oil supply in case of sanctions against its petroleum industry, a top Iranian commander said on Thursday.

The comment by deputy chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami came after the U.S. Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday it will not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway in the distribution of worldwide oil supply.

	A military personnel participating in the Velayat-90 war game on Sea of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran December 28, 2011.
	Photo by: Reuters

“The free flow of goods and services through the Strait of Hormuz is vital to regional and global prosperity,” said in a written response to queries from Reuters about the possibility of Iran trying to close the Strait.

Responding to the remark by U.S. forces on Thursday, Salami told Iranian state television Press TV that the “Islamic Republic of Iran asks for no other country’s permission for the implementation of its defense strategies.”

According to the Press TV report, the senior Iranian military official indicated that the U.S. was not in a position to give Iran permission to close the strategic waterway, adding that U.S. pressure had failed to prevent Iranian action on other issues in the past.

The U.S. navy’s comments on Wednesday came a day after Iran’s first vice-president warned on Tuesday that the flow of crude will be stopped from the crucial Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if foreign sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, the country’s official news agency reported.

“If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz,” IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

About a third of all sea-borne oil was shipped through the Strait in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program have increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Nov. 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has warned it will respond to any attack by hitting Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf, and analysts say one way to retaliate would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.
Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq – together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar – must slip through a 4-mile (6.4 km) wide shipping channel between Oman and Iran.

Clock Ticking for West to Act on Iranian Nuclear Program – NYTimes.com.

By JOHN VINOCUR

The Iranian nuclear clock ticks faster and louder in 2012.

Ehud Barak, the defense minister of Israel, said in late November that it was probably a question of nine months before Iran’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons moved into a “zone of immunity” where it could no longer be stopped.

Two weeks ago, his counterpart in Washington, Leon E. Panetta, the secretary of defense, estimated that it was likely to be “about a year, perhaps a little less” until Iran could have a nuclear weapon. Carefully imprecise, Mr. Panetta has said, “If we have to do it, we will deal with it” — without specifically explaining what “it” is.

That’s Pentagon fog. But the context for 2012 is clear. Here’s what makes it particular: With Mr. Barak’s reference to nine months, the Israelis are apparently talking about how much time they think remains for a successful raid on the Iranian nuclear project’s sites.

Running parallel to the U.S. presidential campaign, this takes in a period when Israel would judge the effectiveness (or failure) of American and European plans to make Iran bend through sanctions severely limiting its oil revenues.

The circumstances provide a largely visible series of gauges throughout the year indicating whether the likelihood of military action against Iran is growing or receding.

Above all, the U.S. presidential election in November affords the Israelis an opportunity to exert pressure on Barack Obama to act decisively on Iran.

George Perkovich, who deals with the Iranian issue as vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, describes the situation this way: “In a suboptimal world, the preference in Washington and almost everywhere else would be, ‘Let’s keep muddling along, playing this along, till after the election.”’

On the other hand, Mr. Obama must face: Israeli notions of a rough nine-month limit to stop Iran via sanctions; Republicans accusing him repeatedly of “throwing Israel under the bus”; and the inside-the-Beltway dictum that a presidential candidate can’t win if he is on bad terms with the majority in Congress that backs Israel, the millions of fundamentalist Christians who are its supporters, and a great part of the Jewish voting public.

Add this, too: poll results from the German Marshall Fund showing that of the 76 percent of Americans concerned about Iran acquiring nukes, only 8 percent could just shrug the problem off, and 54 percent would understand the use of military force against Iran if other options were exhausted.

For the time being, Israel is not needling Mr. Obama. Rather the opposite.

“We are asked, sometimes,” Mr. Barak has said, “whether Obama is really a soft appeaser.” His answer: “You discern a man who is capable and ready to take on the fiercest of political risks in order to make good what he believes in.” He added, “Go ask Osama bin Laden.”

That’s not as unsubtle flattery as it might seem.

The remarks are aimed at voters to raise the bar of expectations for Mr. Obama’s support of Israel on Iran. The dynamics of the campaign mean he will most likely have to provide Americans with an unequivocal orientation well before November — the same likelihood and time frame Mr. Perkovich sees for Iran “to take steps, albeit insufficient ones, to indicate there’s some traction in the diplomatic approach.”

In my reading, the Israelis, or at least Mr. Barak, who recently visited with the president in Washington, have probably offered more clarity about Israel’s red lines in exchange for the expectation for something similar from the administration.

This involves Mr. Barak’s response on U.S. television concerning a probable nine-month period after which “no one can do anything practically about” Iran’s nuclear goals.

He said it is “because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity by widening the redundancy of their plan” — replicating equipment on all levels — and “making it spread out over many more sites.”

Mr. Barak was asked if he foresaw a point when it would be impossible to block the Iranian program. His answer was, “Yes.”

A bluff?

Mark Fitzpatrick, director for anti-proliferation at the International Institute for Security Studies in London, said, “It’s a real possibility in the next nine months.”

The Israeli red lines, which if violated presumably mean an Israeli attack on Iranian sites, have been variously and unofficially described as Iran’s moving material into a virtually impenetrable mountain site at Fordow, near Qom; expanding the program’s number of advanced centrifuges; or expanding its stock of 20 percent enriched uranium.

None of this may jibe with what the Americans consider irreversible steps by the mullahs.

And none of what the administration and the European Union do to cut Iranian oil revenue (now in the face of Tehran’s threat to close oil tanker traffic in the Gulf at the Straits of Hormuz) may be sufficient to lead the Israelis to choose restraint.

The gauges indicating the likelihood of military action begin to function very soon.

By late January, it will be clear if the Europeans are willing to act on oil with a severity sufficient to make a major dent in Iran’s economy.

At the end of February, after the scheduled enactment of new American sanctions, the Department of Energy will issue a report on which countries remain Iran’s oil clients. They may include India, Japan and South Korea, according to Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which tracks Iranian oil sales.

At that point, Mr. Obama would have to decide whether to level sanctions against them.

By some time next June, said Mr. Dubowitz, “If there’s no impact on Iranian oil revenue, then you’re at the end of the sanctions road.”

That’s 2012 ticking. The volume changes over the weekend.

With the end of 2011, the United States no longer holds responsibility for policing Iraqi airspace. Iraq has no replacement aircraft for now, and the shortest route for long-range Israeli F15Is to attack Iran’s nuclear sites will be wide open to them beginning Sunday.

Israel Brings Iranian Soil Samples to US – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Qoms Nuclear Site

NASA

Israeli officials are again warning Washington that time is almost up, and that the Iranian nuclear threat is growing stronger — this time based on soil samples collected near suspected sites.

Investigative reporter Eli Lake writes this week in an exclusive report published in The Daily Beast that a delegation of Israeli diplomats, IDF officers and intelligence officials raised the issue at a meeting in the U.S. capital during the annual “strategic dialogue” conference earlier this month.

Israel’s presentation on the Iranian nuclear program included intelligence based on soil samples that indicated the Islamic Republic is building secret reactors to produce nuclear fuel.

Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon confirmed in a December 24 speech in Jerusalem that although Iran probably did indeed suspend their nuclear technology activity in 2003, they resumed the drive to produce an atomic weapon by 2005.

U.S. national intelligence estimates still claim that Iran has not resumed its weaponization work — with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta claiming an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret.”

In response, Israel cites the document recently uncovered by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showing detailed plans for construction of a “neutron initiator” as evidence that time is rapidly running out.

As Lake explains, the neutron initiator is a pellet that sits at the middle of the nuclear core and is crushed by high explosives in a nuclear explosion. The existence of such a document is concrete proof that Iran is continuing its weaponization activity.

The November 2011 IAEA report stated plainly that intelligence shared by member states appears to show that Iran has conducted explosive tests linked to nuclear weapons research.

The stakes are high, and not all Israeli politicians believe it is clear that Israel can trust the United States when the chips are down.

As Ya’alon put it, “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.'”

The Arms Race-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

It is obvious that recent Obama administration rhetoric is not intended only to win re-election. It is also intended to signal to Iran that the United States stands by its word.

By Yossi Melman

The questions surrounding Iran and the decision of whether or not to attack its nuclear facilities reminds me of Israel and Egypt from1970 until the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. After Anwar Sadat gained power in the wake of Gamel Abdul Nasser’s death, he would, from time to time, declare that if Israel would not return the territories it conquered in 1967, Egypt would return them by force. At the time, Israelis laughed at Sadat’s statements. Even flyers advertising Israeli New Years Eve parties called on people to “celebrate the year of reckoning,” directly referencing Sadat’s oft-used expression. 1971 passed without any reckoning, as did 1972. With the passing years, Israel’s self-confidence skyrocketed, along with its complacence and euphoria. And then it happened. 1973 was the “year of reckoning.” Anwar Sadat stood by his promise, and retrieved what we took from him by force –Sinai.

Since the 1990’s, Israeli intelligence services have been publishing evaluations estimating that it would only be a matter of years before Iran builds a nuclear weapon. An early evaluation describes 1997 as a turning point. After that, another turning point at the start of the 21stcentury – “the point of no return.” That time has passed, and with it a new kind of terminology was used: “technological threshold”, around 2004. This happened again in 2007, as well during the years 2010 and 2011.

All of these evaluations proved false. Perhaps they were erroneous. Maybe they were correct at the time, and only secret operations attributed to the Mossad, with cooperation from the CIA and the British MI6 – a dangerous computer virus, damage to centrifuges, explosions in missile bases and areas with nuclear stockpiles – are preventing Iran from fulfilling its goal.

	An aerial photograph showing Iran’s uranium conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, March 30, 2005.
	Photo by: AP

Most of Meir Dagan’s term as the head of the Mossad (2002-2010) was blessed with significant intelligence achievements and successful special operations of highly strategic importance. The Mossad is credited with obtaining information that allowed the IDF to destroy long-range missiles in the Second Lebanon War. According to several publications, the Mossad was responsible for obtaining information regarding Syria’s building of a plutonium reactor intended for the production of a nuclear weapon. The intelligence allowed the Israeli government to destroy the reactor.

After some time, and with the help of precise intelligence, Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniya was assassinated in Damascus, as was Syrian General Muhammad Suleiman, who acted as intermediary for special operations to Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad, coordinated his own country’s nuclear program and was responsible for supplying Hezbollah with missiles. But the crown jewel of Israel’s achievements during Dagan’s tenure was the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program.

A man trusts his own intuitions. Thus, it is no surprise that Dagan is a great believer in the effectiveness of clandestine operations. And this is often the problem with special operations: The belief, till the point of infatuation on the part of the planners – and this includes the Americans and the British, in addition to the Israelis – that they can achieve great things in both the tactical and the strategic realms. It is comfortable for the decision-makers in Jerusalem, Washington, London or Paris to believe in these operations, to truly believe that they will provide a solution to the problem.

But, with all due respect to the success of clandestine operations, most Israeli, American, and European experts agree that secret operations will not be enough to halt Iran’s rush toward a nuclear arsenal. Iran is, in all honesty, fairly close to its own “year of reckoning.” It has already passed the “technological threshold.” It knows how to enrich uranium, and has carried out experiments where uranium was enriched to 90%, as well as experiments with explosives to generate chain explosions. It carried out computer simulations of nuclear explosions. There is a general consensus that by the year 2012, and 2013 at the latest, Iran will be able to put together a nuclear weapon. True, if is able to do so, it will be a large bomb – a clumsy structure – one that won’t be able to be assembled as a nuclear warhead. This will require several more years. Thus, Meir Dagan was right when he said Iran would be able to acquire a nuclear weapon by 2014-2015. But the fact that Iran may have a nuclear weapon (which will, in all likelihood, be only one of several to be produced) in the next year to year and a half will allow it to change the rules of the game.

Thus, it seems the hour approaches when decision-makers will have to decide whether or not to attack. Three years ago, only a short time after Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister, and even before he gave his famous Bar Ilan speech, this writer suggested that it would be in Israel’s interest to act decisively in helping establish a Palestinian state. Such a step would have received the support of the Arab world, the Muslim world, Europe and the United States. It would have bolstered Israel’s political position and security situation, and Iran’s general influence over the Middle East as well as over smaller radical organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas would have waned. In such a situation, Israel would have allowed itself to present a convincing case for an attack on Iran. Each bloc – the Arab and Muslim world, Europe and the United States – would have either openly supported the operation, or refrain from openly opposing it. But Netanyahu and his government have no intention of allowing for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, Israelis left severely isolated in its ability to confront Iran. Not to mention that Israel’s ability to conduct an effective strike against Iranian nuclear sites in order to neutralize them for a reasonable period of time is limited, especially when compared to that of the United States. The aforementioned puts Israel’s ability to allow it to attack Iran, even if it really wants to, in serious doubt. Thus, the only country with the ability to truly halt Iran from reaching its target is the United States. The past weeks has seen a severe change in tone emanating from Washington D.C. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey have openly spoken about the possibility that the United States will be forced to attack Tehran, and emphasized America’s determination to prevent the Ayatollahs from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Israeli and American analysts tend to classify this resolute language as a change in U.S. policy. They attribute the change to the president and the defense secretary who have happily appropriated it for themselves. I am of the opinion that this is an exaggeration. Neither Ehud Barak nor Netanyahu’s tacit threats of an Israeli attack over the past weeks convinced the Americans. Everyone knows that those hints were nothing more than disingenuous. I do not believe that there has been a change in the U.S. government’s policy. The determination to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon has always been apriority for Barack Obama. It is possible that he suppressed this determination. Now that he finds himself approaching an election year, and especially while he is under attack by Republican candidates for having a weak foreign policy, Obama is interested in emphasizing his obligation to his belief that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons.

It is obvious that this message is not intended only to win re-election. It is also intended to signal to Iran that the United States stands by its word, and that the Iranian leaders ought to cease developing nuclear weapons, or risk feeling the wrath of the American war machine. The message is directed toward Russia (whose leadership was severely weakened over the past weeks due to protests against alleged fraudulent elections) and China who would do well to put pressure on Iran, lest they seek a military standoff.

Thus, I believe that the chance that President Obama will call for a military strike on Iran, if he reaches the conclusion that there is no other way of stopping its nuclear program, is increasing. This may happen in 2012, before the U.S. elections, or not long after. Indeed, the year of reckoning is approaching.