The two most asked questions: Will Obama attack Israel, will Israel attack Iran?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
28 December 09

Of all the questions readers ask, there’s no question about which are the two most frequent. First, is Israel about to attack Iran or when will this happen? Second, do President Barack Obama and his entourage hate Israel and will there be a major confrontation or some kind of sell-out.

The first two questions are pretty easy to answer, the third less so.

Israel and an attack on Iran: Israeli policy is quite clear. Its current emphasis is on supporting strong sanctions. There is, of course, skepticism as to whether strong sanctions will be applied and whether such a step would work, but that’s not the determining factor. It is recognized that the West must thoroughly try diplomatic means to satisfy itself that everything short of an armed attack has failed.

Only when the sanctions have been seen to be ineffective at stopping Iran’s march to nuclear weapons would Israel even begin to go into an attack phase but even then there are two major considerations.

One is that Israel will only attack when Iran is on the verge of getting weapons. Not only would that situation make the decision about responding an immediate task but also because that would be when Tehran has the maximum equipment installed and the most damage can be done. There is no sense bombing half-empty buildings.

The disadvantage is that this would give the regime more time to disperse the facilities. And that introduces the other problem. An Israeli cabinet meeting would be held to determine whether an attack could be carried out, whether the political and security costs would be acceptable, and whether an attack would succeed in setting back the Iranian program by a big margin.

Is Israel capable of launching an effective attack? Without going into all the complex details, the basic answer is “yes.”

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