Israel has never been a democracy. Do you think that when Ben-Gurion invited thousands of Moroccan and Lybian Jews to come to Israel only to place them in empty barracks and use them for cheap labor that was democracy? Do you think that when Itzhak Shamir banned Kach from the political spectrum that was democratic? Do you think transferring Jews from Gush Katif was democratic? Have you heard how religious Zionist Jews in Israel are perceived by the Supreme Court or by the Interior Police? Is that democracy?

So if I need to pick two of the three, I would pick only one: Greater Israel. I don’t think a Halachic State would be good for Israel and realistically speaking it’s impossible to achieve. Besides, no one is gunning for one. Not me, that’s for certain.

It is virtually certain that Israel will not conduct a strike if the U.S. says no. Partially because Israel would require at least some U.S. help to accomplish the task. It is remotely conceivable though that it would be determined a strike by Israel would be in our best interests, but a strike by the U.S. might not be. This is especially true if one takes certain internal political factors into account.

However, I think that a very far fetched scenario. I do not believe that a single strike mission would have a very good chance at achieving signifigant damage against the Iranian program. Only a sustained campaign with a political objective of Iranian capitulation has a chance.

That said, I believe that Iranian ‘retaliation’ is somewhat of a myth. As mentioned above, conventional forces would be sitting ducks. I think they are already employing what unconventional forces they can against us in Iraq, so that is an empty threat. The most likely deterent response they have is an attempt to close the straight of Hormuz to shipping, cutting off the world from all the gulf oil, but I am doubtful that they could achieve that and not sure they would actually make the attempt anyway.

Greg,

Israel has been thought of as favorably when they have been perceived as being the object of aggression, when they appear to be the aggressor, they are less favorably thought of.

Democracy - Greater Israel - Jewish state

Pick any two.

Again, I was replying to the idea that this problem will be settled by Israel and not the United States.

As to the Iranian response, I suppose the outcome will result into a situation where we conduct air strikes to neutralize Iran’s conventional forces. In essence it will be similar to Iraq in the 90’s, which if I recall correctly, was deemed as an unacceptable threat to the US which required an invasion.

This is what Olmert and Perez cannot and will not comprehend: that it’s in Israel’s favor to annex Aza, Judea and Samaria aka the West Bank and Gaza and in its favor to strike Iran whether by convensional means or otherwise.

Iran is currently reaping great benefits by using asymmetric warfare against the U.S. and Iraqi forces. They are likely to be crushed in any conventional clash of aircraft, tanks, etc. involving the U.S., and that would destabilize the mullarchy. They are more likely to retaliate via their Shiite proxy Hezbollah and their somewhat weaker allies, the Assad regime.

This is, at least, what the Israeli government anticipates, if you evaluate the recently concluded “Turning Point” exercises. These were the largest civil defense exercises in Israel’s history, and involved the mobilization of IDF reserves (i.e., it was an enormously expensive exercise).

While we are speculating, it might be worthwhile to imagine what the U.S. response might be to mobilization of significant Iranian forces towards its borders, considering we are in a state of undeclared war with them. Would Iran risk a “misunderstanding” with the U.S. ground and naval forces, while it is reaping a serious worldwide public relations bounty? The Israelis are likely to outrage a lot of European elites with a audacious strike, with lots of subsequent sympathy for Iran. And they are likely to get away with it. We’ll see.

An Israeli strike will pretty much mean retaliation against US forces in Iraq.

Either we struck or nobody does.

As for the U.S. unwillingness, that is certainly true. As I mentioned in the post, it is a undesirable situation and no one with any intelligence would WANT to have to attack Iran. If any possibility for an alternate solution exists, it is worth pursueing. I can’t say whether in the end the U.S. will act in a military fashion to prevent Iran nukes or not, I can though argue that a military attack on Iran (should it be able to stop or signifigantly delay weaponization) is preferable to the alternative. Obviously a military strike that wouldn’t accomplish one of those two objectives is not a good idea.

And that brings me to Israel. I do not believe that Israel has the military capability to stop or signifigantly slow Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Whether or not they want to do it, they cannot do it.

If it were otherwise, letting Israel handle the problem might arguably be in the best interests of the U.S. in this case. Since that isn’t an option though, we should move on past it.

But Israel will strike in order to prevent being hit with a nuke and because the U.S. seems absolutely unwilling (they already would have done something had they wanted to) to do anything about Iran while focusing all of its attention on Iraq (so much for foreign policy), Israel will be forced to strike in order to avoid another Holocaust.

The current gov’t is inable to muster up the courage to act but when the Likud comes to power things will be slightly different.

However, If I was confident that Israel could and would end this threat it would be less of a worry for me. I don’t believe that Israel has the capability, short of nuclear strikes, to stop the Iranian nuclear program. I am not sure if they could muster the will to launch such strikes even if they had a good chance of success, but with the low probability of success that I see (and I believe the Israeli military sees as well) I am fairly sure that Israel will not strike at Iran. Of course their is a nuclear option, but I don’t see Israel nuking Iran absent an immediate threat of being attacked in a similar way itself.