I’ve suggested before that Iran’s nuclear plans do not necessarily include the use of such weapons directly against Israel.
Indeed, that would be stupid, given the well-known fact that Israel has a powerful second-strike capability that could cause tens of millions of casualties in Iran.
Rather, atomic weapons will serve Iran just as they served the US and the Soviet Union, as a deterrent and a threat. Their mere existence will further Iran’s goal of regional domination and weakening the US.
On the other hand, Iran remains committed to Israel’s destruction, which it wishes to accomplish by means of proxies:
TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the Zionist regime suffered a very big blow to its very existence by the resistance of Lebanese and Palestinian nations.
He made the remark in separate meetings with Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], and Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, Secretary General of Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ].
During the meetings, the Iranian minister stressed the need for all-out support for resistance of Palestinian and Lebanese groups [Hezbollah] against the Zionist threats, the Islamic republic news agency reported.
He believed developments in the past decades proved that the spirit of resistance has not only failed to fade in the Palestinian nation but also reached a point where it has already weakened the Zionist regime, thanks to the strength, vigilance and bravery of both the Palestinian people and its leaders…
The Iranian defense minister also underscored Tehran’s support for the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon and said Iranians will stand by the Palestinian nation till the victory of oppressed Palestinians and liberation of the holy Qods [Jerusalem].
The PFLP and PIJ are smaller groups than Hamas, but equally nasty. PFLP is a secular Marxist group and PIJ grew out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, like Hamas, but disagrees with Hamas to some extent on tactics. Iran is now the primary benefactor of these groups, and of course Hezbollah has been called “the Foreign Legion of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps“.
But Hamas, too, which has rebuilt its military capabilities since last year’s war, is an Iranian proxy:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday reiterated his support for Hamas, during a visit by the Palestinian group’s Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal, according to Iran’s official news agency.
“The government and the people of Iran will always stand by the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian people,” Ahmadinejad said during the meeting with Mashaal. “Today Palestine is symbol of the global front of freedom-seekers and militants.”
Mashaal was leading a Hamas delegation to Teheran, and was also set to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. — Jerusalem Post
The above are non-state proxies, highly dangerous — especially Hezbollah, which is said to have as many as 40,000 rockets of all types. But there is also another powerful Iranian ally to worry about, and this one is an actual state:
Iran and Syria signed a defense agreement on Friday, according to an Iranian Press TV report.
The document, signed by Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi and his Syrian counterpart Ali Mohammad Habib Mahmoud, aimed to face “common enemies and challenges,” the report said.
Vahidi praised Syria’s great potential in the defense and military fields and said that “it is natural for a country like Syria – which has an inhumane and menacing predator like Israel in its neighborhood – to be always prepared [against possible foreign aggression].” — Jerusalem Post
Syria’s “great potential” is a large number of missiles of all kinds, some with chemical or biological warheads.
So that’s it — the lineup for the next major Mideast war. The question is not ‘if’, but rather ‘when, and exactly how’ it will start — unless of course there is an unexpected regime change in Iran. We can hope.
My advice to Israel (as a former reserve Corporal, I’m sure I will be listened to), is this:
If war is inevitable, then fight it on your terms. Preemptively.
The Iranian leadership seems to think it can sit back and ring down the curtain on Israel in perfect safety. I don’t think so.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Iran, Mideast war
we should try to destroy the Iranian leaders after which the Iranian ppl. will be able to conduct a regime change
I have the sense that both Hizbollah and Hamas may be more cautious than their braggadocio suggests. Hamas which bragged it would cause thousands of Israeli casualties if Israel dared moved into Gaza proved itself to not have a real fighting force. Hizbollah is another story. They have rockets and they have irregular units. They can unfortunately cause us casualties. But can they really do much should Israel make a major determined ground assault into their territory?
Iran on the other hand worries very much. Their regime is shaky. They may already have a nuclear option. They have the missiles to reach our territory. Would they try what would be a suicide – attack , that is firing of weapons of mass- destruction at Israel? This is the possibility which troubles greatly.l.
I take little consolation or hope in our nuclear retaliatory capacity. A massive Israel attack on Iran will not help us very much , but rather accelerate the effort to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state.
I suspect our options are far greater than the stark one I relate.
Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah – particularly Hezbollah – are there to provoke Israel into invading, and thus provide Iran with an “excuse” to nuke Israel. They will probably try to do this when they have an arsenal deployed of about 30 or so warheads. If the mullahs stay in power, and if they are not stopped, I expect this to play out within a few years. But once Iran has even one usable nuke, it is probably too late, as the perceived costs of stopping them then will be seen as too high, even for Israel. That is why decisive action must be taken VERY SOON.
Israel would not survive an Iranian attack, but her retaliation would likely ensure that most of Moslem SW Asia wouldn’t survive, either. Just as the US, during the Cold War, would not have limited nuclear retaliation to the USSR in the event of an attack, instead targeting pretty much every communist regime to make sure not a one would take advantage of the demise of the U.S., so too would Israel ensure that all of her neighbors who have been baying for her destruction all these years would not survive to similarly gloat over her destruction. What we are talking about here is a regional nuclear cataclysm that would leave 100 million dead in the space of month, and would set the region back 2000 years. But that the nutcase mullahs in Iran think they can get away with this is not so remarkable; remember, a lot of “responsible” military planners on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War thought in terms of “winnable” nuclear wars, too. At any rate, I think most informed military planners among the major military powers around the world are aware of the stakes involved here, and that is why there is genuine urgency on the part of many outside of Israel to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Beyond the nuclear issue, Hamas and Hezbollah are also there to provoke Israel into simply defending herself, so she the petrodollar bought-and-paid-for media can continue to slam the Big Bad Bully Israel and continue to turn her into a pariah state. Of course, they can’t “invade” Israel, or seriuosly damage her military or economy directly, besides tourism. That is not the point. They are part of an overall “delegitimization machine”, the other parts of which are their allies in the academic and journalistic circles of the West and elsewhere. As I’ve said many times elsewhere, if we don’t turn this petrodollar infested media/academic axis around, defending Israel in the political realm is going to be more and more difficult. It is bad enough already.
what we have seen til now is that the Iranians fight til the last Lebanese and the last Palestinian, direct confrontation with Israel will be avoided at all costs. This moments they occupy oil fiends in Iraq.