No military option against the Iranian nuclear program

Count Iblis

It won't work and Obama won't allow it anyway

drankin

The stakes are too high not consider a military option.

ExactlySolved

The stakes might be high for israel, but we have given them more than enough support for them to defend themselves. Free Palestine!

russ_watters

From the article: I'm comfortable with an endless string of temporary setbacks. As if he actually has that power?

russ_watters

How, precisely, do you propose they defend themselves from a nuclear bomb?

skeptic2

A preemptory strike? But then who is the aggressor?

turbo

A military strike on Iran would be a wonderful way to drum up support for radical Muslim groups and de-stabilize the theocratic government there. Unrest would certainly spread to bordering states, most likely along ethnic lines, causing no end of trouble for all the governments in the region.

If Israel wants a region-wide conflagration, they should be forced to go it alone and take the consequences. The US should immediately withdraw from the region in that case - there is no need for us to sacrifice our brave service-members to the political/military adventurism of a state that has been sucking up our taxpayer dollars for many decades. BTW, why is Israel not threatened by Pakistan, which does have nuclear weapons? You don't need to have long-range missiles to be a nuclear threat. A foreign-flagged cargo ship could dock in an Israeli port with some pretty potent nuclear weapons that don't have to be compact enough to fit on a missile. The Israeli government always needs to have a proximate threat, so they can create a sense of urgency in dealing with it and keep Israeli citizens fearful and obedient.

tiny-tim

Because Pakistan, unlike Iran, does not hate Israel, does not want to eliminate Israel from the map, and does not give military and financial support to Hamas or Hizbollah.

mheslep

Surely Israel would say they are threatened by Pakistani nuclear weapons, as is everyone else, but not to the immediate degree that a nuclear Iran would pose. Why the difference? That would be because Pakistan does not a) sponsor and control large scale guerilla military organizations like Hezbollah that openly state they want to destroy Israel, and b) Pakistan's president does not make statements that "denies the Holocaust and threatens to wipe Israel off the map" - our President about Iran's president.

mheslep

Scooped me!! Pakistan no doubt has made plenty of critical, even hateful(?), statements about Israeli policy.

turbo

I think you guys are missing "the big picture". An Israeli strike on Iran will empower radical Muslim factions all over the region. Pakistan's government is already in trouble, and could easily be de-stabilized by a resurgent Taliban. The army and security forces in that country are already co-operating with rebels in rural areas. Want the Taliban and their associates to gain control of Pakistan's nukes?

Gokul43201

Israel and Pakistan have had a much less adversarial relationship since the '70s and '80s, when Israel supplied and ran guns to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq is noted for having famously accepted Israel's help so long as the crates didn't have a "<bleeping> Star of David" on them ("quoting" from Charlie Wilson's War). The ISI and Mossad have reportedly been sharing intelligence since at least that time. And in recent years, Musharraf has significantly dialed down the rhetoric against Israel and neither Gilani nor Zardari seem likely to ramp it up again.

Here's an article on Israel-Pakistan relations written by Mossad veteran and professor, Shmuel Bar:
http://www.bitterlemons-internationa...t=1&id=103#418

As for the Taliban gaining power in Pakistan ... if that happens Israel is hardly the only or even first place that needs to start worrying.

mheslep

I reject the notion that the West/Israel should affect some kind of neutrality between it and the islamo-fascists, because if someone chooses to fight against them the fascists will have grievances and be empowered. They already have grievances. They're aggrieved when they see an unveiled woman, they're aggrieved when homosexuals and Jews are tolerated. I am not signing on to any big picture that claims the moral high ground lies in neutrality with all of that.

ExactlySolved

Diplomatic concessions, mutual self-assured destruction proclamations, and various other techniques that are modernized versions of what the USA used to defend itself against the nuclear bombs in the USSR. Really it should not be a concern for the US, anymore than 'how will Iran protect itself from Israel's nuclear bombs?'

The Iranians are not anti-semetic: they don't hate jews; they are anti-zionist: they don't believe that the modern state of Israel should exist.

I look at the modern history of the state of Israel, and I am in agreement with the Iranians on this issue: the modern state of israel should not exist, I believe its existence is blatantly anti-moral.

I really like both Judaism and Islam, and I think that after WW2 the world had something of a moral obligation to help jewish people, but displacing the Palestinians to create a militant state which recieves an inordinate amount of aid from the US was a bad idea, in moral and practical terms. News flash: radical islamist are mostly furious over US support for Israel, not over our decadent lifestyles as the media often claims.

Ironically, I think it would be worth incurring the wrath of terrorist to help the palestinians, and so I consider a double-mistake to support Israel the way we do. Going to war on their behalf would be horrible, the most morally despicable US war of all time (at least in Vietnam and Iraq we were trying to help the right side, even if we did more harm than good as usually happens in war).

Also, I'm very open to moral arguments in favor of Israel's existence, in fact looking at the posts in this thread I can't help but feel I am missing some information. Please teach me why it is a good idea to support Israel.

russ_watters

What is your point?

russ_watters

The quote I responded to implied you were talking about military support.

ExactlySolved

I meant that Israel could do the diplomatic thing and agree to disolve their state.