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Slideshow: Iran Nuclear Issues Israel would much prefer a diplomatic agreement to shut down Iran's urani um enrichment program, but if it concluded that Tehran was approaching a "point of no return," it would not be deterred by the difficulty of a m ilitary operation, the prospect of retaliation or the international reac tion, officials and analysts said.
web sites) and his top aides have been asserting for months that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a cl ear threat to Israel's existence. They have repeatedly threatened, in el liptical but unmistakable terms, to use force if diplomacy and the threa t of sanctions fail. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Yediot Aharonot newspaper last mont h that "all options" were being weighed to prevent Iran from achieving n uclear weapons capability. The army chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, declar ed: "We will not rely on others." Iran presents "a combination of factors that rise to the highest level of Israeli threat perception," said analyst Gerald Steinberg of the Begin- Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. "Nuclear weapons in a country with a fundamentalist regime, a government with which we have no diplomatic contact, a known sponsor of terrorist g roups like Hezbollah and which wants to wipe Israel off the map that m akes stable deterrence extremely difficult, if not impossible," Steinber g said. Israel's concerns are magnified by the fact that Iran already possesses t he medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which is capable of reaching Israel wi th either a conventional or non-conventional warhead. Iran said this wee k that it had test-fired an upgraded, more accurate version of the missi le. Preemptive strikes have always been an essential element of Israel's mili tary doctrine.
Experts are divided, however, on whether that precedent should be viewed as a window into Israel's thinking on Iran. "The comparison to 1981 is of the utmost relevance because the decision-m aking is based on the same factors," said army reserve Col. Danny Shoham , a former military intelligence officer who is now a researcher at Bar- Ilan University. "Those are: What is the reliability of the intelligence picture? What is the point of no return in terms of nuclear development, and what would be the inte rnational response?" But he and others also noted key differences that could weigh against a m ilitary strike. Iran's nuclear development sites are widely scattered, i n many cases hidden underground and heavily fortified, so Israel would h ave far less opportunity to deal the Iranian program a single devastatin g blow. In order to undermine or disrupt th e Iranian nuclear program, you would have to strike at least three or fo ur sites," said Ephraim Kam, the deputy head of the Jaffee Center for St rategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "Otherwise the damage would be too limited, and it would not postpone the program by more than a year or two, and this could in the end be worse than doing nothing." Few believe, however, that logistical challenges alone would hold back th e Jewish state if it determined that a strike was necessary. To reach Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes were over h ostile territory for most of their 90-minute, 680-mile flight. All the w hile, they held to a tightly clustered formation that resembled the rada r signature of a commercial jet. When the Israelis reached their target, they destroyed the Iraqi reactor in less than a minute and a half. The raid, which was preceded by months of rehearsals using mock-ups of th e targeted reactor, is still regarded in military and aviation circles a s a model of planning, operational discipline and innovation qualities that analysts familiar with Israel's military capabilities say could be drawn upon again. "I wouldn't want to speculate about exactly how the present-day objective might be achieved, but I will say this: The Israeli air force is extrem ely, extremely creative in its problem-solving approach," said Dan Schue ftan, a senior fellow at the National Security Studies Center at Haifa U niversity and the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center. In its arsenal, Israel has the first of more than 100 sophisticated, Amer ican-built F-16I warplanes, which come with extra fuel tanks to increase their range. It also has signed a deal with Washington to acquire 500 " bunker buster" bombs that can blast through more than six feet of concre te the kind of fortification that might be associated with Iranian nuc lear sites. In 1981, Sharon was a Cabinet minister and among the circle of confidants around then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin who took part in deliberation s over the Osirak attack. Sharon later called it "perhaps the most diffi cult decision" ever faced by an Israeli government. Some of the language being used by Israeli officials now is reminiscent o f statements leading up to the strike on the Iraqi reactor. Military his torians recount that Rafael Eitan, then army chief of staff, dispatched the corps of elite fighter pilots on its mission with the grim words, "T he alternative is our destruction." At the time, Begin feared for the stability of his government and thought that if he did not act swiftly, he might lose the opportunity to act at all.
web sites), also faces the almost daily risk that his minority coalition will collapse. Still, any action against Iran seems unlikely to take place before the en d of the year. Israeli analysts differ somewhat in their assessment of when Iran would b e seen as irrevocably on the road to developing nuclear weapons. Steinberg said the probable "red line" would be the ability to produce ki logram-level quantities of highly enriched, bomb-grade uranium. He and o thers said that could be anywhere from six months to three years away.
"We don't want to give the impression that this entire burden rests on Is rael's shoulders," said lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, the head of Israel's pa rliamentary foreign affairs and defense committee. But Israeli officials are also telegraphing that they do not consider the diplomatic process open-ended. "There may be a few months when the international community can still act and place upon Iran the kind of pressure that would compel it to stop i ts program," said Avi Pazner, a veteran diplomat who serves as an adviso r to Sharon. Opinion polls suggest that although there is little appetite in Israel fo r a confrontation with Iran, a substantial minority of citizens thinks o ne could be on the horizon. In a recent poll commissioned by the Maariv newspaper, 54% said diplomatic efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program should continue, with 38% saying their country should consider a preemp tive attack. The idea of responding militarily to any perceived external threat tends to unite Israelis across the political spectrum. For example, Labor Part y leader Shimon Peres has long been an advocate of a negotiated settleme nt with the Palestinians but is also among those who strongly believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable peril to Israel. A complicating factor in the debate over Iran is Israel's own status as a n undeclared nuclear power. Israeli officials insist that their country' s presumed nuclear status enhances regional stability by serving as a de terrent but say Iran's possession of atomic weapons would almost certain ly trigger an arms race with rival Muslim states. "It would break the dam, so to speak, and spill over into the whole Middl e East," said Uzi Arad, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy at Herzliya's Interdisciplinary Center. Arad and others said that if Iran became a nuclear power, it would spur e ven relatively moderate countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to achi eve similar status and embolden more radical regimes for example, push ing Moammar Kadafi's Libya to abandon its recent conciliatory stance tow ard international regulators. A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel was w ell aware that even if it acted alone against Iran, the United States, a s its closest ally, would inevitably be seen as complicit.
Still, George Perkovich, who studies nuclear proliferation issues at the Carnegie Endowment ...
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