WarSclerotic

A late-night chat.

By Ari Shavit

Al Arabiya

Thursday, 22 March 2012

By the end of the year, the American guest will know. By the end of the year, we’ll all know.

A week ago, a senior Israeli official had an American guest over for a late-night chat. Because the guest is intelligent and influential, the official, after offering whiskey and serving coffee, cut straight to the chase.

There’s no time, the Israeli official said. By 2013, Iran will be deep inside the zone of immunity. Iran’s ongoing fortification and dispersal of its strategic facilities means that by then, even if Israel does strike, Tehran’s nuclear program will survive. Once that happens, all those in Israel who oppose a strike will go from arguing “not yet” to throwing up their hands and saying “it’s too late.” That’s why it’s totally clear that for Israel, 2012 is a critical year. It’s either now or never.

The senior Israeli official described relations between Israel and America as excellent. Unlike in the past, there are no intelligence disputes or rhetorical gaps. From both a diplomatic and a military perspective, the Obama administration has done much more to confront Iran that the Bush administration. And the president himself, the official said, is so impressive – level-headed, tough, and on the ball.

But a realistic view of the situation shows that there are understandable differences between Washington and Jerusalem on the Iranian issue. While for America, a Shi’ite bomb is a strategic problem, for Israel it’s an existential problem. While America could act against Iran next year, Israel can act only this year.

Anyone who doesn’t look at life through rose-colored glasses should understand that it’s unrealistic to expect the U.S. president to promise the Israeli prime minister that he will stop Iran via a military operation at some point in the future. Thus precisely because of the close relationship between the two allies, Israel must be prepared to accept the fact that on this fateful issue, it must act alone, without consulting anyone.

Israel, the official said, will respect the United States and take its interests into account, but it will not wait for the United States to give it a green light to act. Nor will Israel inform the Americans of such an operation in advance.

The Israeli official said he sees Iran as a paper tiger. Its ability to carry out a direct strike on Israel’s home front is limited. Its control over Hezbollah and Hamas is not total. If Lebanon allows the Shi’ite militia to attack Israel from its territory, it will end up with no power stations and no airports.

Gog and Magog? Those fears are quite exaggerated. The United States really has nothing to worry about. Since Iran’s supreme concern is to avoid drawing America into the war, it will have no interest in attacking American targets. The chances that Iran will do anything against America are small, and Iran’s ability to harm America is almost nil.

True, oil prices are likely to soar dramatically. But even that spike won’t last for very long, because Saudi Arabia will quickly increase its output. In a few weeks, the market will calm down and businesses will be back on track. Looking back, everyone will thank Israel and recognize that in its own way, it solved a problem that the world was unable to solve.

Quietly but firmly, the Israeli official repeated the mantra that there are three parameters for an Israeli operation: ability, legitimacy, and the feeling that the knife is almost at its throat. And right now, the knife is at its throat, the official said: As far as Israel is concerned, 2012 is the year of decision.

Israel isn’t bluffing, he added. Israel is telling the United States the truth.

We don’t have to talk in terms of Auschwitz, but everyone must understand that the Jewish state cannot leave its fate in the hands of others. That’s not why we came here. That’s not why we established this state. What’s at stake is a fundamental question of sovereignty. Only if we are independent and strong can we protect ourselves and be a worthy partner to our allies.

As the American guest went out into the stormy Tel Aviv night, he was agitated and upset. Had he really heard what he thought he heard? Had the senior Israeli official been telling him bald-faced lies, or had he been sharing the sensational truth?

By the end of the year, the American guest will know. By the end of the year, we’ll all know.

(Ari Shavit is a senior correspondent at Haaretz Newspaper, where this article first appeared March 22, 2012)

The day Europe died – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

(Very harsh, but needs underscoring. – JW)

Op-ed: Europe’s deeply flawed morality, dying soul, evident in Gaza-Toulouse comparison

Yigal Walt

Monday, March 19th will be remembered as a dark day for Europe. That day, it crossed the “point of no return,” as long years of political correctness and currying favor with the Arab world prompted the final burial of the continent’s liberal discourse, which has become a twisted, meaningless absurdity.

The events of the day did not come from nowhere. After all, this is the same Europe where a German opposition leader slams “Israeli apartheid,” where officials call for boosting Arab control in Jerusalem and blacklisting settlers, and where Europe’s foreign policy chief expresses concern for a hunger-striking Islamic Jihad man but ignores the same plight of a Saudi human rights activist.

At the heart of Europe, in Geneva, Hamasman Ismail al-Ashqar spoke before some members of the UN’s human rights commission. The mere mention of Hamas in the context of human rights is utterly ludicrous: After all, this is the group that took over Gaza violently while hurling foes from rooftops, and ever since has been most preoccupied with arms smuggling, imposing an “Islamic moral code,” and occasionally firing rockets at Israeli kindergartens.

The fact that a member of such group was invited to speak in Geneva, and moreover, that European capitals did not raise a hue and cry over such terrible distortion of the human rights discourse, blatantly attests to the moral abyss which Europeans have fallen into; a dark place where flattery for a murderous terrorist organization crushes any commitment to morality and truth.

Hamas praise for Ashton

Yet while still overcoming the initial shock, a more painful blow arrived when four innocents, including three children, were murdered in cold blood outside a Jewish school in France. One of the most dreadful moments on that sad day soon followed, when her majesty Catherine Ashton, The EU’s foreign policy chief, condemned the massacre while making note of children dying in Gaza.

Such disgraceful equation reflects an incredibly twisted value system coupled with total blindness in the face of global and Mideastern reality. A member of the French Jewish community expressed this well when he told Ynet: “Where did she draw this comparison? How can you compare the despicable murder of a man who confirmed the kill of an eight-year-old girl to children killed in Gaza? How low have we reached?”

It is no wonder that Hamas rushed to praise Ashton for her statements, thereby highlighting Europe’s moral confusion. At the same time, a citation from Hamas may serve as a badge of honor in contemporary Europe.

The European Union’s embarrassing “clarification,” which did not deny Ashton’s remarks but merely claimed she did not mean to compare Toulouseto Gaza, made no difference. If anything, it further demonstrated Europe’s spinelessness and the tendency to shift positions and appease different groups, without adhering to a credible, enduring moral compass.

All that remains now is to watch the deterioration of the “old continent” into a new, murky horizon. On the one hand, Islamization trends are expected to grow, while on the other hand, radical nationalistic parties will continue to gain strength. Europe of the late 20th Century, which vowed to uphold the banner of tolerance and liberalism, will slowly turn into a chaotic, angry region where various groups are fighting each other while shunning genuine moral values.

In any case, Ms. Ashton need not apologize for or clarify her remarks. After all, her words accurately reflected the mood of her decayed, dying continent.

Barak: Iran not completing nukes… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By Ariel Harmony / Defense Ministry

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that Iran is not completing its proliferation of nuclear weapons due to the threat of military action against it.

“Iran fears actions against it” by the United States or “another actor,” Barak told Israel Radio in a telephone interview from Germany, presumably referring to Israel.

The Islamic Republic, he said, has been working in recent years to reinforce and scatter its nuclear sites throughout the country in order to mitigate the damage of a possible military strike against them.

Saying that there is full intelligence cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem on the Iranian nuclear issue, the defense minister asserted that Israel cannot stand on the sidelines or allow itself to lose its freedom of action in the Iranian theater.

Speaking in another interview Thursday morning, Barak told Army Radio that 2012 will be a decisive year regarding the Iranian nuclear threat.

On Wednesday, Barak said in a meeting with his German counterpart that Israel will decide its own fate with regards to Iran.

Israel views the Iranian issue in “a way unique to us, and we are attentive to all our friends, but in the end, the Israeli government will be the one who will have to take the decisions on Israel’s security and future,” Barak said.

The international community has been pursuing a diplomatic approach to the Iranian nuclear program. Sanctions, led by the US and EU, have considerably damaged the Iranian economy. Israeli officials, however, have maintained the right to act independently if it assesses that Iran poses an immediate existential threat.

During the meeting, Barak also said that there was a “growing recognition in the international community that the Iranian military nuclear program is consistently approaching the zone of immunity, and that sanctions need to be stiffened, while talks need to be speeded up.”

Earlier Wednesday, Barak signed a contract for the purchase of a sixth submarine for Israel’s navy in Berlin. Wolf Rudiger, state secretary of the ministry of defense, signed for Germany.

During the signing ceremony, Barak said that the new submarine would act as a “force multiplier” for the IDF, and assist it in dealing with growing security challenges.

‘I was in the shower and thought missiles were falling on Israel’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Civil defense drill sparks panic in downtown Tel Aviv, as sirens wail Wednesday morning.

By Ilan Lior

The wail of sirens in downtown Tel Aviv sparked a brief moment of panic on Wednesday morning, as most people were unaware of the civil defense drill the Home Front Command was conducting.

Residents, business owners and visitors said that for a few moments, they thought the 90-second siren − the rising-and-falling type used during real emergencies − was announcing that war had broken out.

	Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar overseeing a civil defense drill.
	Photo by: Alon Ron

The Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command had announced in media outlets that the sirens would be tested, but the announcements were apparently not prominent enough.

Some people immediately responded on Facebook and Twitter. “Was that a siren just now, or did I imagine it?” one person posted on the IDF Tweeter feed. “A siren test by the Home Front Command is underway at the moment − not a real emergency,” the IDF responded.

“I didn’t hear a thing about it,” Erez Bernholtz, 30, of Tel Aviv, told Haaretz. “I was in the shower and I thought missiles were falling on Israel.

“I got out of the shower and went to my iPhone and started looking at the news sites to see if a war had started,” continued Erez, who was in his third-floor apartment when he heard the siren. “I had two terrified minutes when I suddenly realized how real it is. We hear about it all the time and supposedly know about the situation, but you don’t really stop to think about it, because you have to go on with your life. But it seemed logical enough that I thought it was real.”

Terrorism expert to Congress: Iran willing to approve attacks against U.S. – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Counterterrorism expert Dr. Matthew Levitt tells congressional committee that it is no longer clear that Iran sees an attack on U.S. as ‘crossing some sort of red line.’

By Natasha Mozgovaya

Iran and the United States are engaged in a shadow war, Dr. Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute, told the Congress Committee of Homeland Security on Wednesday.

According to Levitt, who had been deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at U.S. Department of the Treasury in the past, Iranian leaders appear to be more willing to approve attacks in the U.S.

	Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (L) talking with Iran’s naval chief, after a military exercise in the Persian Gulf in February 2010.
	Photo by: AP

“It is no longer clear that Iran sees carrying out an attack in the United States as crossing some sort of red line,” he said.

On the other hand, Hezbollah, which was long thought of as taking orders from the Iranian regime, makes decisions of its own and may not automatically jump to carry out an attack against the U.S. even if Iran asks it to do so.

Recently, several intelligence officials have said that there has been little cooperation between Iranian and Hezbollah cells in carrying out attacks abroad. Surprisingly, there has even been some element of competition between the two. However, there is reason to be concerned that Hezbollah may decide to carry out attacks against U.S. interests, as a result of its own decision making calculus.

Hezbollah has long leveraged its worldwide network of members, supporters, and sympathizers to provide the group financial, logistical, military, and other types of support. Though the worldwide network includes operational agents, it is mainly concerned with gathering resources and fundraising.

Hezbollah has long been seen by the United States as a cash cow, running charities and engaging in a vast array of criminal activities to raise money and procure material.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 19, 2012, 10:53 PM (GMT+02:00)

Talking about war

The Middle East has unknowingly been living for ten days under threat of a regional war, which debkafile’s military sources disclose was delivered by Syrian president Bashar Assad to UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan when they first met Saturday, March 10. Assad warned him in no uncertain terms that Syria was ready to unleash its missiles against any country preparing for military intervention in Syria before they moved.
While not mentioning them by name, the Syrian ruler was referring to Britain, France, Norway, Holland and Italy whose navies and air forces were last week drawn up ready for action in positions in the eastern Mediterranean and bases in the Middle East, including the Royal Air Force Akrotiri facility in Cyprus.
A Western military source reported to debkafile Monday night, March 19 that those European forces were standing ready to cordon off certain Syrian regions and cities as “security zones” off limits to Syrian units including its air force.

Cruising opposite the Syrian coast are the USS Enterprise and the French Charles de Gaulle, both aircraft carriers. They are part of the combat disposition the West has arrayed against Iran and from their Mediterranean posts would take part in a military confrontation erupting in the Persian Gulf.
In his conversation with Annan,Turkey was the only foe Assad named specifically as his first target for a pre-emptive missile assault. He stressed he would have no qualms about attacking Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan is due to set out next week on a visit to Seoul where he will rendezvous with US President Barack Obama, possibly on March 28,  for policy alignment on the Iranian nuclear threat and the year-old Syrian crisis. Our Washington sources report that Obama has set aside six hours for his conversation with Erdogan.

From the South Korean capital, the Turkish leader is scheduled to fly straight to Tehran. The primary Middle East issues, a nuclear Iran and the Syrian impasse. are therefore destined to reach a critical point in the coming days.
This may partly explain the announcement from, Russian Black Sea headquarters at Sevastopol Monday that two Russian naval vessels had put into the Syrian port of Tartus. The vessels’ mission and names were not disclosed, excepting that one carried a unit of “anti-terrorist marines” and the other was a military tanker which joined a Russian naval reconnaissance and surveillance ship already tied up in Tartus.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report March 22, 2012, 7:33 AM (GMT+02:00)

Al Qaeda killer Mohammed Merah

Heavily armed Al Qaeda gunman Mohammad Merah held off night-long police and commando assault to extract him from his Toulouse apartment. The siege began its second day Thursday, March 22 after an exchange of gunfire and explosions. The police tried using stun grenades, cut off water and electricity but – under orders to capture him alive – failed to draw the killer of a Jewish teacher and three children and three French soldiers out of the apartment.

Boasting he had acted for al Qaeda to “bring France to its knees,”  he said his only regret was that he had not killed more people. Residents of the house and vicinity were evacuated ready for a raid.

debkafile: His capture alive is vital in order to extract from him all possible information about al Qaeda and its operations in France and Europe.
Merah and his brother and brother’s girlfriend, who were arrested earlier in the day, will have been questioned about their ties with al Qaeda cells in Europe and other continents.
Questions are already being asked about how French intelligence and counter-terror agencies, which had held  him and family members under surveillance for some time, failed to discover the deadly plans they were hatching against Jewish and Moslem targets.
Mohammed Merah said he had trained in Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which countries he visited in 2010 and 2011. A Kandahar prison official identified him as an al Qaeda bomber who was imprisoned for three years and escaped in a mass Taliban jailbreak in 2008.
The detained terrorist and his accomplices will be asked whether the attacks were part of a French Islamic or external politically-motivated master plan to cause President Nicolas Sarkozy to lose the coming presidential election. Islamists have longed pegged him as anti-Muslim, especially after he had the veil for Muslim women banned in public places. They also made a note of his Jewish background.
The expeditious and successful hunt for the motorcyclist in black who murdered a teacher and three children at the Jewish Ozar Hatora school in Toulouse on Monday and two French paratroops in Montauban last Thursday, energized Sarkozy’s sliding campaign for reelection. He showed himself to be capable of handling crises with the right measures of operational competence and sensitivity.

However the dragging-out of the Toulouse house siege by the terrorist’s wiles undercut this gain. Uncomfortable questions about his security service’s handling of a deadly terrorist conspiracy came to the fore and could hurt his prospects.
debkafile reported earlier Wednesday.
The killer, aged 24, of Algerian descent, injured three policemen in a shootout shortly after they surrounded the house before dawn Wednesday, March 21. His four Jewish victims were laid to rest in Jerusalem.

Toulouse police hunted him down to an address 2 kilometers from the Ozar Hatorah school where he committed his murders after identifying him as the motorcyclist in black who also killed two French paratroopers and wounded a third in neighboring Montauban last Thursday.
Merah fell under police suspicion after that attack but was not arrested. He was active in the extremist Islamic organization called Forsane Alizze which was only outlawed in February although it was long identified with al Qaeda.
The terrorist called French TV stations after the attacks and said he had avenged French participation in the Afghan war, the suffering of Gaza Palestinians and the Sarkozy government’s ban on the veil in public places for Muslim women. He had videotaped his murders to further propagate their impact.
The Jewish teacher, Yonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Arieh, 3 and Gavriel, 6 and the Ozar Hatorah principal’s daughter, Miriam Monstango, aged 8, whom he shot dead Monday at the Jewish school, were laid to rest at the Har Menuhot cemetery in Jerusalem Wednesday attended by masses of people and notables.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe flew to Israel with the victims and attended the funerals as a mark of French-Israeli solidarity in the face of he terrible murders. “Never doubt our determination to fight anti-Semitism in France which violates all our values and will not be tolerated,” he declared.

The dawn raid in Toulouse was accompanied by security police swoops on extremist Muslim hideouts across France.

Israel Hayom | ‘When Ahmadinejad wants a nuclear bomb, he will build one’.

If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to build a nuclear bomb, “he will build one,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to himself in the third person, during an interview Tuesday with German public television station ZDF.

Commenting on accusations by the West that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear weapon, Ahmadinejad said, according to a Bloomberg translation of comments posted on Tuesday on ZDF’s website, “If Ahmadinejad were to build a bomb, he would announce it — and he would not be afraid of anybody.”

Asked whether Iran intends to build a bomb, the Iranian president was quoted as saying that atomic weapons were immoral and “belong to the last century,” and that, “We would never build an atomic bomb — but if we did build one, we wouldn’t be afraid to …”

“What does a country do if it’s attacked? What would the Americans do?” Ahmadinejad added, according to Bloomberg. “They would defend themselves, clearly. That’s what we would do.”

The Iranian president also said Israel’s establishment was “a colonialist plan that was born out of a lie. [The Jews] never controlled this land, they invented a blood-libel story called the Holocaust and the Palestinians are the ones who have to pay the price.”

On the occasion of the Persian New Year, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also delivered a speech to the country in which he addressed the nuclear issue. “We said that we do not have nuclear weapons in our possession and we will not build a bomb, but if there is any attack on us from our enemies, the U.S. or the Zionist regime, we will attack them with the same force with which they have attacked us.”

Khamenei added, “In time, when countries in the West are not able to get any more oil and gas, they will be forced to make concessions and this will be catastrophic for them.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s ally Russia is trying to persuade Israel and the U.S. to take the military option off the table on Iran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Tuesday about concerns that Iran might attack Israel, saying, “I am absolutely convinced that Iran will never decide to do this, if only because the threat to destroy Israel will also destroy ‘Palestine.’”

Despite Russia’s calls to abandon military options against Iran, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was expected on Wednesday to sign an agreement in Berlin according to which Germany will provide Israel with a sixth Dolphin submarine. According to foreign reports, the submarine can carry weapons, including nuclear warheads, and also enables Israel to launch a “second strike” on Iran in the event of a nuclear attack. The submarine fleet also enables Israel to conduct intelligence-gathering missions in areas far from its borders and to defend its waters. The estimated cost of the submarine is about 400 million euros (about $530 million).

Germany said on Tuesday that it would sell Israel the sixth military submarine and shoulder part of the cost, although it warned its ally that any military escalation with Iran could bring incalculable risks.

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he shared Israel’s fear of a nuclear-armed Iran, and he was convinced Tehran aimed to make nuclear weapons, but he called for caution.

“I recommend all sides show urgent restraint, both in their rhetoric and their action. A military escalation would bring incalculable risks for Israel and the region, to the detriment of Israel,” he told reporters at a press conference in Berlin with Barak.

Barak, in contrast, said all options regarding Iran should remain on the table, apart from containment. “To accept a nuclear Iran would be inconceivable and unacceptable to the whole world,” he said.

Israel is threatening to take military action, with or without U.S. support, if Iran is deemed to be continuing to defy pressure to curb its nuclear projects. Iran insists its nuclear energy program is purely non-military.

Dialogue between Israeli and U.S. officials, meanwhile, continues over the Iranian nuclear threat. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, who is visiting the U.S. and Canada, met Tuesday with his U.S. counterpart, Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey. After their meeting, Dempsey wrote on his Facebook page, “Regular and candid dialogue is critical as we face common threats and challenges.”

Obama assails Iran’s ‘electronic curtain’ in video message

Speaking on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, U.S. President Barack Obama accused Iran on Tuesday of imposing an “electronic curtain” on its citizens and promised new U.S. steps aimed at helping to ease the Iranian people’s access to the Internet and social media.

Speaking directly to ordinary Iranians in a video message marking the celebration, Obama acknowledged “continued tensions between our two countries,” which stem mostly from Iran’s defiance over its nuclear program.

But he insisted that the U.S. wanted a dialogue with Iran. “There is no reason for the United States and Iran to be divided from one another,” he said.

Obama’s overture to the Iranian people was the latest step in Washington’s push to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. He has urged Israel to hold off on any attack on Iran’s nuclear sites to allow more time for sanctions and diplomacy to work.

Renewing accusations of Iran’s suppression of its people, Obama said Iranians were “denied the basic freedom to access the information that they want.” He cited blocking of television and radio signals, monitoring of computers and cell phones and censoring of the Internet.

“Because of the actions of the Iranian regime, an electronic curtain has fallen around Iran,” Obama said in the video address, which was transmitted in Farsi as well as English. “Today, my administration is issuing new guidelines to make it easier for American businesses to provide software and services into Iran that will make it easier for the Iranian people to use the Internet.”

The steps appeared relatively modest, and it was unclear how much could be done without Iran’s cooperation.

The U.S. Treasury said its Office of Foreign Assets Control had spelled out a range of Internet services and software that could be exported to Iran, including online personal messenger services and supporting software, as well as browsers, document readers, personal data storage and mobile applications.

In his video message, Obama alluded to the Arab uprisings that have swept the Middle East over the past year, sometimes fueled by communication on social networking sites.

“We have learned once more that suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away,” he said.

Mass protests erupted in Iran in 2009 against the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But the demonstrations were crushed by Iranian security forces, who jailed scores of activists.

Obama urged Iran to respect its people’s rights “just as it has a responsibility to meet its obligations with regard to its nuclear program.” He said Iran would be “welcomed once more among the community of nations” if it met those commitments.

The Bomb and the Bomber – NYTimes.com.

By ARI SHAVIT

If Iran goes nuclear it will change our world.

An Iranian atom bomb will force Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt to acquire their own atom bombs. Thus a multipolar nuclear arena will be established in the most volatile region on earth. Sooner or later, this unprecedented development will produce a nuclear event. The world we know will cease to be the world we know after Tehran, Riyadh, Cairo or Tel Aviv become the 21st century’s Hiroshima.

An Iranian bomb will bring about universal nuclear proliferation. Humanity’s greatest achievement since 1945 was controlling nuclear armament by limiting the number of members in the exclusive nuclear club. This unfair arrangement created a world order that guaranteed relative world peace.

But if Iran goes nuclear and the Middle East goes nuclear so will the Third World. If the ayatollahs are allowed to have Robert Oppenheimer’s deadly toy, every emerging power in Asia and Africa will be entitled to have it. The 60-year-old world order that guaranteed world peace will collapse.

An Iranian atom bomb will give radical Islam overwhelming influence. Once nuclear, the rising Shiite power will dominate Iraq, the Gulf and international oil prices. It will spread terror, provoke conventional wars and destabilize moderate Arab nations.

As Iranian nuclear warheads will jeopardize Israel, they will imperil Europe. For the first time, hundreds of millions of citizens of free societies will live under the shadow of the nuclear might of religious fanatics. The union of ultimate fundamentalism with the ultimate weapon will imbue the world we live in with a hellish undertone.

If Israel strikes Iran it will change our world.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will create the most dramatic international crisis of the post-cold war era. As the Jewish state and the Shiite republic exchange blows, the Middle East will be rattled. Tensions will rise between pro-Iranian Russia, China and India and anti-Iranian United States, Britain, France and Germany. As oil prices soar higher (to $250-$300 a barrel), financial markets will panic and the world economy will experience a real setback.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will unleash a regional war whose consequences might be catastrophic. Iran will strike back with all it has: Hezbollah, Hamas, Shahab missiles, strategic surprises. Iran will block the Strait of Hormuz and call upon all Muslims to come to its rescue. Although most Arab regimes will be secretly supportive of the Israeli operation, the Arab masses might rise.

Throughout the world, millions of Muslims will see the attack on Iran as an attack on their own dignity and pride. The religious struggle provoked by the Israeli action might go on for decades.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities might drag the United States into war. Israel has limited air power. Israeli cities are threatened by 200,000 rockets. If an Iranian-led counteroffensive sets Tel Aviv ablaze and kills thousands of Israeli civilians, the U.S. will feel obliged to intervene. Rather than initiate a well-planned and internationally backed American surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear project, America will become captive of an Israeli-Iranian war spiraling out of control. After getting out of the Iraqi mud and while trying to pull out of the Afghan desert, America will be bogged down by a highly charged and highly priced conflict with the Islamic Republic.

The pivotal international issue the West has faced in the first 12 years of the 21st century has been Iran. The cardinal strategic challenge of the last decade has been how to prevent two threats: (an Iranian) bomb and (an Israeli) bombing. Yet the West failed to rise to the challenge in time.

For years it made every possible mistake. First President George W. Bush focused on Iraq rather than Iran. Then President Barack Obama wasted precious time on idle diplomacy. Britain and France tried their best but the European Union dragged its feet before taking decisive action. The economic sanctions that should have been activated 10 years ago were activated only last year.

The crippling sanctions that should have been imposed back in 2005 are yet to be imposed. The assertive-diplomacy track was not seriously pursued when it could have been effective. The creative-political-solution track was never really explored. Western leadership did not endorse a comprehensive, resourceful, consistent and tough third-way-strategy that could prevent Bomb and Bombing.

Now we are witnessing a shift. Terrified by the prospect of an imminent Israeli strike, decision makers and opinion leaders in the United States and Europe have Iran on their mind. Last week Tehran was cut off from the SWIFT bank-transfer network. By July, all E.U. nations will stop purchasing Iranian oil.

Yet all this is too little too late. Within nine months the Iranians will be immune to an Israeli air strike. By Christmas, Israel will lose the military capability to stop the Shiite bomb. As it will be existentially threatened, the Jewish State will feel obliged to take action.

So the summer of 2012 now seems to be the summer of last opportunity. If in the coming months crippling sanctions are not imposed on Iran and Israel doesn’t get substantial guarantees that will ensure its future, anything might happen. All hell might break loose.

If the West doesn’t get its act together at this very last moment, it might soon face the dire consequences of its own impotence.

Ari Shavit, a senior correspondent for Haaretz and a member of its editorial board, is completing a book about Israel.

New York Times Fronts Anti-War Reporting Against Action in Iran: ‘Could Leave Hundreds of Americans Dead’ | NewsBusters.org.

By Clay Waters

The New York Times, laboring under the false impression it participated in George W. Bush’s “rush to war” in Iraq, is pushing back hard against the prospect of preemptive action against Iran’s nuclear threat, raising the specter of another Middle East quagmire for the United States.

Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker reported Tuesday’s lead story, “U.S. Simulation Forecasts Perils Of Strike At Iran.”

A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

Omri Ceren responded at Commentary Thursday morning with “NY Times Simulates Journalism on Iran,” calling the article part of “the paper’s unsubtle front page campaign to brush back Israeli action against Iran.”

The paper’s war against action against Iran has been running for weeks. Times reporter Scott Shane’s February 22 front-page “news analysis,” “In Din Over Iran, Rattling Sabers Echo,” was written in the style of an anti-war activist, complete with questioning the “new whiff of gunpowder in the air.” Shane quoted four scholars, all of whom were dismissive of the Iranian nuclear threat and against intervention, and even noted criticism of his own paper for overstating Iran’s threat.

Downplaying the Iran threat was also the focus of Monday’s front-page story, “Hawks Steering Debate on How To Take On Iran.” The text box read: “Differences among pro-Israel groups on Iranian policy.” Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin responded with “Jews Divided on Iran? Not Really.” Tobin pointed out: “The only organizations that the Times could find to back up that headline were J Street and Tikkun. While the former claims to be ‘pro-Israel’ even the latter’s adherents do not attempt to play that game. But however you wish to label them, the idea that disagreement from these two left-wing outliers constitutes any sort of a Jewish debate is comical.”