Understanding This Veiled Strategy Explains So Much About Israel’s Plans Against Iran
WASHINGTON – Comments made by Israeli military Chief of Staff Binyamin “Benny” Gantz in recent days that he doubts Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb on the surface may appear to be at serious odds with the thinking of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which case the Israeli military chief would be expected to resign within a week.
Unless Gantz planned for an early retirement, his comments had to be approved by political authorities, which suggests his public statement may be part of an Israeli strategy to keep Iran off guard on exact Israeli intentions of whether to attack its nuclear facilities – or not.
The public disagreement on its face may appear to show a serious difference between the military and political leaders, but sources believe it may be a calculated effort to keep Iran guessing what Israel will do. Gantz suggested that as long as Israel threatens to attack Iran will decide not to develop nuclear weapons.
In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Gantz said that he did not believe that Iran had made a decision to build nuclear weapons, despite having a nuclear development program.
Iran is going “step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb,” Gantz said. “It hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile.”
Gantz added that Iran would build a nuclear bomb if it thought there would not be a military consequence but had not made that final decision because of the prospect of a military attack on its facilities.
Gantz tempered that assessment by saying that the further Iran progresses with its nuclear program, the “worse the situation is. This is a critical year, but not necessarily ‘go, no-go,'” Gantz said. “The problem doesn’t necessarily stop on December 21, 2012.
“We’re in a period when something must happen – either Iran takes its nuclear program to a civilian footing only or the world, perhaps we too, will have to do something,” Gantz added. “We’re closer to the end of the discussions than the middle.”
The Israeli military chief’s comments mirror those of U.S. military officials who similarly have determined that Iran hasn’t decided yet to develop a nuclear weapon as part of its nuclear development efforts.
In the view of some regional observers, Gantz appears to be distancing himself from Netanyahu, who, sources say, gets his perspective from the ideology of the Islamic republic, “arguing that its religious foundations trump rational calculation,” according to the open intelligence company Stratfor.
In public statements, Netanyahu is of the belief that Iran is on a path to make nuclear weapons, using its nuclear development program as a cover for such an undertaking. He further believes that unless those nuclear facilities are destroyed, and soon, Iran will have reached the point of enriching weapons-grade uranium to construct a nuclear bomb.
For Israel, sources point out, any attack on Iran would be a major military undertaking. In addition, the element of surprise most likely would be gone, since the intelligence services of Iran and such friends as Russia and China are watching developments very closely and would provide militarily useful information.
As G2Bulletin recently reported, the Russian military command already expects an Israeli attack by summer and has begun preparations to move additional military assets into the Middle East region, including a critical base in Armenia which is next door to Iran.
While there was an earlier indication that Israel had been talking to authorities in Azerbaijan, which also borders Iran, to use a base from which to launch an attack, sources say that the Russians have gotten to the Azerbaijanis to halt that approach. Like Armenia, Azerbaijan was part of the former Soviet Union and the influence of Russia remains considerable.
There also are the international repercussions from such an attack. Iran could retaliate, block the Strait of Hormuz, which the U.S. Navy assesses Iran has a capability of doing, and seriously affect the flow of oil.
Some 40 percent of the world’s oil is transported through the Strait. The concern is that any retaliation in blocking the Strait would seriously hurt an already struggling global economic recovery.
Yet, if the Israelis are continuing to talk about the prospect of halting Iran’s nuclear program, that may mean that the Israelis will have an effective military option, giving Netanyahu’s continued public threats a matter of importance.
Analysts believe, however, that Israel would not be in a position to carry out such a strike alone and, at the same time, head off any Iranian retaliatory strike, either in closing the Strait of Hormuz, or launching missiles against Israeli targets. Separately, the Israelis, in recent military maneuvers of their own, have indicated a strategy of using a “swarm” approach of launching multiple missiles at once from mobile platforms located throughout the country.
For its part, the United States has sought to cool the rhetoric of Israel’s political leadership while seeking to pursue ongoing discussions with Iran on the disposition of its nuclear program, with another scheduled meeting set for May 23 in Baghdad.
Iran also is under pressure from the Russians to make this round of discussions, unlike previous meetings, work, since Israel has suggested these talks may be the end of the line, and it could launch an attack.
Like Gantz, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Michael Dempsey, has referred to Iran’s leadership as “rational,” and said that they will not precipitously decide to make nuclear weapons without realizing the consequences.
However, Iran also has made it clear that it intends to pursue a nuclear development program to enrich fuel to the point of running its reactors and for medical purposes, a process which it has a right to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Ongoing discussions with the West suggest that Iran may brush off a previous proposal to import enriched uranium and send it back out for reprocessing, while halting its own enrichment efforts. That appears to be what the issue of discussion will be in Baghdad.
“Israel’s position is that it will attack Iran if it builds a weapon, but there is no need to attack now because Iran isn’t irrational enough to try it,” the Stratfor report said. “The threat to Iran is still there, the United States is placated and actual Israeli thinking remains a secret.”
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