Point of No Return (link)

New York Sun Staff Editorial
October 6, 2004

The warning issued by Prime Minister Sharon on Monday - that Israel is taking measures to protect itself from Iran - is the best news to come over the wires in weeks. This followed a statement, quoted last month in Maariv, from the prime minister's national security adviser, Giora Eiland, who said that Iran will reach the "point of no return" in its nuclear program by November. Zev Chafets, a former aide to another prime minister, Menachem Begin, noted in a recent column that "point of no return" was the same phrase that Begin used when he decided to launch, in 1981, a pre-emptive strike that destroyed the reactor at the center of Saddam's a-bomb program, Osirak. Begin's daring defense minister then was the same Ariel Sharon who is premier today.

This all comes in the context of an American presidential election in which neither the incumbent nor the challenger is offering a practical strategy for confronting Iran's ambitions to own an Abomb. It is true that both President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed at last week's presidential debate that the biggest threat America faces is the potential of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Neither dealt in any convincing way with the fact that the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, is bent on building nuclear weapons. While both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry say they oppose allowing Iran to get nuclear weapons, neither has been exactly forthright about their plan to prevent it.

Mr. Kerry's plan, such as he was able to articulate it, involves relying on the French and Germans, of all people, and then giving the Iranians some nuclear fuel. He takes Americans for fools. It's a wonder the senator didn't simply offer to make the mullahs a bomb. The mullahs themselves promptly reacted by mocking the senator, saying they don't want to have to rely on foreigners for their nuclear fuel. Mr. Bush's plan, as he was able to articulate it in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, involves saying, "All options are on the table, of course, in any situation. But diplomacy is the first option." The best that can be said about Mr. Bush is that he hasn't bought into the formal advice of appeasement being promulgated by the Council on Foreign Relations.

The fact that Mr. Bush is being pressured so publicly by the foreign policy establishment to warn Israel off its own defense may be why Mr. Sharon has begun to send the signals he's sending. He knows that the people will understand. The New York Times may have, back in 1981, reacted to Begin's heroism by issuing an editorial that began, "Israel's sneak attack on a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad was an act of inexcusable and shortsighted aggression." But Mr. Sharon knows that the Times's own editor, Max Frankel, eventually admitted that the editorial was a mistake. American public opinion, across a wide spectrum, always understood Begin's wisdom.

Today Senator Biden's rival for the job of secretary of state in the Kerry administration, Richard Holbrooke, is quoted by Mr. Chafets as saying, "In 1981, the Israelis attacked the Iraqi nuclear plant at Osirak. President Reagan personally criticized Israel. Today, we all recognize that Israel was 100% right to do it." Vice President Cheney famously sent a handwritten thank-you note to the Israeli commander of the raid, noting that the Israeli action had made the job easier for America in the 1991 Gulf War, during which Mr. Cheney served as secretary of defense.

These columns have long argued that the best outcome in Iran - and the one American policy would most wisely bend every effort to promote - would be a democratic revolution that would bring a government in Tehran that is free, peaceful, and friendly. Israel's warning time is running out. It would not be surprising to see, between now and November 2, Mr. Bush come under growing pressure to warn Israel against taking action. Whoever ends up as president, the question to consider is which is worse politically, that tumult might erupt after an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites - or Iran getting the nuclear bomb on your watch?

GET SOME!  

(Sing to Beach Boys "Barbara Anne")
Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran
Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran
Oh bomb Iran, Israel really can
Bomb Iran......

Quoted: GET SOME!

+1

Quoted: (Sing to Beach Boys "Barbara Anne") Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran Oh bomb Iran, Israel really can Bomb Iran......

LOL

That is outstanding news! Isreal has a right and a responsability to ensure their survival and security. An Iran with Nuclear weapons would instantly become the single greatest threat to peace in the world, and Iran must never be allowed to produce nuclear weapons. I fully support any Isreali operations to prevent the Islamic terrorists running Iran from producing nuclear weapons.

Quoted: (Sing to Beach Boys "Barbara Anne") Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran Bomb, bomb, bomb....bomb, bomb Iran Oh bomb Iran, Israel really can Bomb Iran......

Weird Al song. Had the 45 as a kid.

Quoted: Can we possibly rent or lease Israel an aircraft carrier attack group? I mean, like, soon? Maybe a few planes, a few bombs, a few goys to fly the planes with the bombs? I mean, how hard can it be to put an extra point on that star on the fuselage? Eric The(Jes'Joshing)Hun

Don't need to....that's why they revamped the F-16 into the "I" model...now no need to worry about refueling....

But I too would like to see the U.S. strike those bastards too...

Israel has never been a country to mess with. While some US politicians might thump their chests and rattle their sabres Israel has already pushed the button and put on their helmets.

I wonder if Bush is going to let Israel handle this situation instead of the US? I guess whatever it takes to get the job done...

Good for them, I hope they go through with it.

Personally, when Skerry mentioned Iran during the debates, I'd have laughed my ass of if President Bush would have said, "Well, John, we're kinda busy right know and I think I'll let the United Nations show how effective they are by dealing with this threat".

'Put a hollah in the Ayatollah?'

Since Iran can't possibly have worse relations with Israel, and since the IAF is the best local air force in the region bar-none, we should help Israel with any specialized munitions they may need (guided penatrator bombs, etc), and let 'em do it again...

'We had nothing to do with this - it was Israel... You allready hate them, don't blame us'

Importent considering the problems any direct US action short of a full-on invasion/coup would cause for the 'developing' situation over there...

Quoted: ' we should help Israel with any specialized munitions they may need (guided penatrator bombs, etc), and let 'em do it again... .

The US is delivering 500 laser guided bunker busters to Israel… in November… coincidence? I think not!

Andy

Anybody read "The Jericho Sanction" by Ollie North....talked anbout Israel's right to protect itself from the area at all cost (mutual assured destruction included)?  Just wondering how much of there internal structure is as stated in the book..

Dan

Quoted: GET SOME!

+1

the jews are soon to give the iranians a bunker buster enema

For those of you unfamiliar with the F-16I...

www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/aircraft/f-16i/F-16I.html

Quoted: Anybody read "The Jericho Sanction" by Ollie North....talked anbout Israel's right to protect itself from the area at all cost (mutual assured destruction included)?  Just wondering how much of there internal structure is as stated in the book.. Dan

Isaeli policy is that if they feel are going to be wiped out they intend to have plenty of company… Israel will use all means at her disposal to survive…they threatened to use nukes during the Yom Kippur War if the Arabs did not knock it off… recon imagery of Nukes being loaded onto IDF Phantoms was shown by US to the Russians who promptly told it's Arab proxies to accept a cease fire.

ANdy

Now...imagine this scenario played out in six months should Monsieur Kerry become president:

The Iranians are within a few weeks of completing their bombs.  They successfuly test their missile delivery system with a simulated unitary nuclear weapon payload.  This weapon flies successfully with a reach to the Med, covering all of Israel.  From several sources, Israel learns of the Iranian succeses.  Israel initiates their pre-emptive strike plans.

The United States gets wind of the looming attack on the Iranian sites.  The Kerry White House and State Dept. go into high gear to try and stop the Israelis from carrying out their attack.  The Jews attack anyway and successfully kill the Iranian bomb program.

The world learns of Monsieur Kerry's weak assed attempt to stop the Israelis.  There goes our rep down the toilet again...as usual under a Democrat.

Besides being a socialist pussy, Monseiur Kerry is a total anti-war pacifist.  That is becoming more clear with each passing day.  This apparently has its roots in his Vietnam experience.  Shooting that "VC" kid in the back just might have fucked up Kerry a bit.  Having him as pres scares the hell out of me, bacause every so often, one must pick up a gun to defend something worth dieing for.

My concern for Israel regarding another Osirak-style raid on Iran's nuke facilities is two-fold - the tactical and the political.

Tactically, Israel would be required to fly their aircraft through Iraq and/or Saudi airspace in order to reach Iranian nuclear targets.  The airspace over Iraq & Saudi is controlled (practically, if unofficially in Saudi's case) by the US.  Of course, the IAF could take a roundabout route to Iranian targets over the Black Sea to the north or over the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to the south (akin the route taken by Lakenheath F-111s to Libya during Eldorado Canyon), however I don't believe the IAF possesses the aerial tanking resources to carry out such an attack in sufficient numbers given the number of targets within Iran contributing to their nuclear weapons programs.

Politically, the risks would be huge for the US.  US surveilance assets would surely detect Israeli aicraft  flying through Iraqi airspace.  We would then be confronted with the choice of knowingly allowing the IAF to attack a "muslim nation" through "sovereign" Iraqi airspace or actually intercepting IAF aircraft.  We do the former, and there will be a huge domestic problem in Iraq regarding the US allowing the "Zionists" to violate Iraqi sovereignty while claiming that we are defending the nation.  The latter option is unimaginable.  A third way would be for Israeli to actually seek permission from Allawi et al to transit Iraqi airspace en route to Iran (doubtful).  Flying through Saudi might be the lesser of the two evils since they have given the US the cold shoulder (at least politically) when it comes to US military operations in the Kingdom - this still would cause the Saudis to raise a stink and potentially impact oil prices even further as they throw a tantrum, at least for domestic/regional political consumption.

This leads me to the single most viable solution for taking out Iran's nuclear program (outside of an overthrow of the mullahs) and that is for the United States to carry out a comprehensive aerial campaign (at least 1 to 2 months long) against Iranian nuclear targets as well as against leadership targets (the Mullahs and the IRGC.)  Such a campaign might be enough to embolden the regular Iranian military and the population at large to finally remove the mullahs and their IRGC thugs from power, still this would be a huge roll of the dice.  

I apologize for the long post, but within the next 6 months US and/or Israel will have taken decisive action against Iran's nuke program or (under "President" Kerry) we will be faced with a a nuclear Iran blackmailing the US and others in the region with nuclear weapons.  The time for action is near.

Quoted: Can we possibly rent or lease Israel an aircraft carrier attack group? I mean, like, soon? Maybe a few planes, a few bombs, a few goys to fly the planes with the bombs? I mean, how hard can it be to put an extra point on that star on the fuselage? Eric The(Jes'Joshing)Hun

Not hard at all. We did it already during the '73 war. Do you remember when the USS Kennedy couldn't be found during the Yom Kippur War? My high school friend who was on board her at the time said that he repainted the planes with Israeli markings and that they flew missions against the Egyptians.

wganz
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