Obama warns Netanyahu: Don't surprise me with Iran strike

Source: Haaretz

<snip>

"U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding that Israel not surprise the U.S. with an Israeli military operation against Iran. The message was conveyed by a senior American official who met in Israel with Netanyahu, ministers and other senior officials. Earlier, Netanyahu's envoy visited Washington and met with National Security Adviser James Jones and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and discussed the dialogue Obama has initiated with Tehran.

The message from the American envoy to the prime minister reveals U.S. concern that Israel could lose patience and act against Iran. It is important to the Americans that they not be caught off guard and find themselves facing facts on the ground at the last minute.

Obama did not wait for his White House meeting with Netanyahu, scheduled for next Monday, to deliver his message, but rather sent it ahead of time with his envoy."



Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085466.html

bow....so to speak. Attacking Iran would be a complete disaster.

But then...I guess WE trounced all over Iraq without due cause..eh?

I would love to attend one.

and destroyed by the Israeli military, it turned off a few people off in the World Community.

as I think it has little faith in the "World Community" standing up with them against a nuclear pogrom based on prior experiences over the millenia and as most recently around 60 years ago..

has nukes. Are they special?

But the fact they have nukes has probably kept the country intact.
If you are asking if Isreal has nukes why cant everyone else then I guess I dont subscribe to that
moral equivalency. Woe to me to make a judgement but some countries can be trusted with Nukes, others cannot. I would rather see Isreal with Nukes rather than say North Korea or Iran.

Israeli albatross around our collective necks.

On this subject they are all show, no go.

Even a cursory review of Israeli long-range military capabilities leads to the conclusion that this is either a) a bluff or b) a kamikazee attack designed solely to get the US involved in a shooting war against Iran on Israel's behalf. They don't have enough planes, the right kind of planes, enough munitions, or the right kind of training/experience to pull this off.

Besides the Israelis, who actually thinks Iran has a nuclear weapons program anyway? US intelligence and the IAEA don't. And even Mossad believes a nuclear-armed Iran can be moderated and accommodated.

Even Bush and Gates said "hell no" to an Israeli attack on Iran:

"The president (Bush) was briefed extensively on a covert attack plan but was convinced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that it would "probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran's nuclear effort further out of view." Israel's request in early 2008 for bombs and for permission to fly over Iraq grew out of a dispute over a controversial National Intelligence Estimate that suggested Iran had suspended its nuclear program. When Israel asked for permission to take matters into its own hands, Bush still said, "Hell, no," and Israel apparently decided its plans wouldn't be effective without American assistance."

http://www.slate.com/id/2208415/

Source: The Times (UK)

James Hider in Jerusalem

America’s spy chief was sent on a secret mission to Israel to warn its leaders not to launch a surprise attack on Iran without notifying the US Administration.

As Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, prepares to visit Washington, it emerged yesterday that Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, went to Israel two weeks ago. He sought assurances from Mr Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, that their hawkish new Government would not attack Iran without alerting Washington

Concerns have been rising that Mr Netanyahu could launch a strike on Tehran’s atomic programme, in the same way that Israel hit Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in 1981. Israel has been preparing for such an eventuality. It has carried out long-distance manoeuvres and is due to hold its largest civil defence drills this summer. The country’s leaders reportedly told Mr Panetta that they did not “intend to surprise the US on Iran”.

=snip=

The Israeli leader is expected to insist that the US stays focused on Iran, rather than tackling stalled talks with the Palestinians.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6289593.ece

:wow:

how about getting a private assurance they won't attack, not just that they'll warn us first!

... if everyone knew that Israel had promised Panetta it wouldn't attack Iran, would it?

as to how Israel thinks it can pull off anything more than a symbolic attack intended to generate an Iranian retaliation and thus get us sucked into it.

An air campaign on this scale over this distance across such a wide variety of hardened and dispersed targets is quite simply beyond the technical and operational capabilities of most air forces in the world, the IAF included. They might be the mostest bestest pilots in the world (which they're not) but bravery doesn't make a plane fly further than the fuel it carries, or carry more ordnance than it was designed to, or cause you to suddenly have more planes than you really do, or alter the geography that will dictate the routes you can take to the target.

Reality is the IAF can't even come close to what is being threatened. There are two air forces in the world that could do this - the Russian Federation Air Force and the U.S. Air Force. That's it. Therefore an attack would be because a) they've bought into their own myth of invincibility, or b) because it's only intended to get us involved.

Also, wouldn't they be just going for the nuclear power plant rather than a wide variety of targets?

I'm only asking because I'm not really up on their long range military capability and not sure about the possible targets you're referring to...


(Edited to fix typo)

The Jericho II ballistic missile can reach the western parts of the Iran, and the brand-new Jericho III can cover the whole country, but:

- there aren't many of these missiles relative to the number of critical targets that would need to be hit, since unless they're willing to toss a nuke, one missile will not do the job in most cases (and might not even with a nuke)

- every Jericho that is fired is one less nuclear delivery platform Israel now has for strategic deterrence, their main purpose

- the accuracy of the Jerichos may not be up to the task of precisely hitting specific parts of a single target with a conventional warhead - they were designed to deliver nukes to cities, where accuracy isn't nearly as critical

- I seriously doubt the Jericho has a ground-penetrating conventional warhead; some of the Iranian facilities are deep under solid rock, and most of the rest are at least buried and concrete-reinforced - the Iranians learned from the Osirik Raid - they know what they're up against, so they've spread their infrastructure all over the place and made it hardened.

The problem is there isn't a single 'nuclear power plant' to hit like with the Iraqi Osirik reactor in the 1980s. In fact, the IAEA inspections have proven that the Iranian nuclear power plants are not involved in whatever may or may not be going on behind the scenes - everything is accounted for at the power plants. In reality there are postulated to be a variety of development and production facilities all over the country; at least scores, of which figure a dozen would be 'must kill' targets in order for the attack to even matter. Even then the Israeli intelligence services have conceded that at most this would set back a hypothetical Iranian nuclear program by 3 to 5 years. But utterly piss off the Iranians in the process.

For the Israeli Air Force it's just as bad - not nearly enough airplanes for the sustained campaign they would have to wage over (for them) extremely long distances, hard as hell to fly there without violating lots of airspace that won't be friendly to them, don't have the numbers of support aircraft (mainly tankers) they would need, and they have zero experience with strategic air operations. Plus their style is surprise attack; they don't have a lot of experience slogging it out against alerted and ready air defenses, which is what every wave after wave one would encounter.

And keep in mind there is zero proof the Iranians even have a nuclear weapons program. US intelligence and the IAEA say they don't, or at least don't anymore.

$3,000,000,000 a year or so