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Jamie
Weinstein
Read Jamie's bio and previous columns
June 30, 2008
We Must Stop Iran Now
Twenty-seven years ago this month, the Israeli Air Force launched a
surprise attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor. The mission was complex.
Israel had to fly over hostile territory, Jordan and Saudi Arabia,
undetected in order to reach the Iraqi reactor. Once there, they had to
destroy Osirak and get out. There was good reason to believe that not
all of the pilots that left Israel that day would return home.
But they did return home after destroying Saddam Hussein's nuclear
program. The chance of a "second holocaust" was averted. While the
Jewish state was initially universally condemned for their provocative
military assault, the world community was much more thankful for their
action less than a decade later when the world united to confront Saddam
Hussein's aggression in the Gulf. Had Israel not acted that June day in
1981, history would have been far different. Let's just say that, at the
very minimum, Kuwait would likely now be the 19th province of Iraq and
Saddam Hussein a regional hegemon.
After Operation Desert Storm ended in 1991, then-Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney sent David Ivry, then Israels ambassador to the United
States, a present. The present was a satellite picture of the ruins of
Osirak 10 years after Israel's daring operation. The photograph had a
hand-written inscription that read: "For General David Ivry, with thanks
and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi nuclear
program in 1981 which made our job much easier in Desert Storm." You
see, Ivry was head of the Israeli Air Force in 1981. Over a decade after
the U.S. and the world condemned Israel for their operation against
Iraq, the U.S. Secretary of Defense thanked Israel for its mission.
Today, there are reports that the Israeli Air Force is again intensely
training for another daring military assault, this time against Iran's
nuclear weapons program. The Iranian regime has said repeatedly that it
seeks to destroy Israel. At least one Iranian leader has openly called
for "a world without the United States." Israel is a small country. A
nuclear attack against it would be the end of it as a nation. How can
anyone expect Israel to tolerate a nuclear-armed state that has openly
called for its destruction? And how can the United States and the West,
in a post-9/11 world, tolerate a terrorist-sponsoring Islamist state
with nuclear capabilities?
An
operation against Iranian nuclear facilities would be much more
difficult than the Osirak operation was in 1981. Iranians have
reportedly hidden their key nuclear installations deep underground,
making them tough to hit. Furthermore, the consequences of such an
attack, whether by America or Israel, could potentially be severe.
American troops in Iraq could find themselves the targets of Iranian
missiles. Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah could launch devastating terrorist
operations throughout the world. The Straits of Hormuz where a
significant portion of the world's oil travels through on its way to
market could be mined, causing oil prices to skyrocket far higher than
they already are. A worldwide economic depression has to be considered a
possibility.
But an Iranian regime with nuclear capability would be terribly
frightening. Iran could use its nuclear weapons capability to "wipe
Israel off the map" as its president has promised, to attack America
through its Hezbollah proxies or to dominate the Middle East through
nuclear blackmail. Proliferation of nuclear weapons programs throughout
the Arab world to counter Iran would be another likely consequence.
America, Israel and the world would surely be in peril if a religiously
minded Iranian state, which seemingly seeks to bring about messianic
apocalypse, becomes a nuclear power.
Unfortunately, conventional notions of deterrence don't work against an
enemy that doesn't care about its own survival. According to former
Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani a man many in the West
consider a moderate the "application of an atomic bomb would not leave
anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce minor damages
in the Muslim world." Got that? The Iranian "moderate" is saying that
Iran would be willing to take the consequences of a nuclear counter
attack.
President Bush must use all the tools in his arsenal short of war now to
bring the world together in order to put maximum pressure on the Iranian
state. He must inform the world in an Oval Office speech that the
consequences of failing to stopping Iranian development of nuclear
weapons will ultimately be war whether that war is the West launching
an attack to destroy the Iranian nuclear program or Iran obtaining a
nuclear weapon and launching a nuclear attack some day against the West.
The time for action is now. If we can stop Iran through stiffer
sanctions, an oil embargo or covert sabotage, then we must employ these
options. All the tricks that we in the West have up our sleeve (let us
hope there are a few) must be employed. Otherwise, the world will be
thrust into a terrible catastrophe.
© 2008
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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