Israel planlægger enegang mod Iran

Det israelske militær er ved at gøre klar til at udslette Irans a-våben program, alene om nødvendigt, skriver Daily Telegraph i en længere artikel:

[T]he country's political, military and intelligence-gathering infrastructure has thrown all the resources it can muster at the challenge of neutralising Iran's nuclear capability.

"The amount of effort we are putting into this single issue is unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel," said a senior Israeli security official who works on the strategic committee that has been set up to deal with the Iran threat, which is personally chaired by Olmert. (...)

As part of the defensive preparations for a missile attack, the Israelis recently conducted a successful test-firing of the new Arrow anti-missile defence system, a development that has mainly been funded by the Pentagon. (...)

[E]nsuring Israel has an effective defence against an Iranian missile attack is crucial. Iran has made it clear it will respond to any attack against its nuclear facilities, and its Shahab-3 ballistic missiles have the range to strike throughout Israel.

As for Israel's offensive plans against Iran, the Iran Command team's task is to demonstrate that Israel has the capability to act unilaterally.

"No one is going to take this threat seriously until the State of Israel can demonstrate to the outside world that we have the ability to deal with this menace on our own," said a senior security official who serves on Iran Command.

Tilsyneladende er man langt fremme i planlægningen. Så langt, at Israel er begyndt at tale med amerikanerne om fri gennemgang gennem Irak og amerikansk kontroleret luftrum.

But that the Israeli Air Force, as The Daily Telegraph exclusively discloses today, is negotiating with US coalition commanders in Iraq for permission to fly through US-controlled air space suggests Israeli military planners have overcome most of the key technical hurdles, such as in-flight refuelling and target selection.

"One of the last issues we have to sort out is how we actually get to targets in Iran," an Israeli officer involved in the military planning told me. "The only way to do this is to fly through US-controlled air space in Iraq. If we don't sort these issues out now we could have a situation where American and Israeli war planes are shooting at each other."

Men er der da ikke andre muligheder? FN f.eks, som jo skal stå som garant for verdensfreden. Desværre, FN har vist svigtet Israel lidt for ofte:

For the moment, the Olmert government seems prepared to let the United Nations process play out, even though Israeli officials make no secret of their disdain for the way ElBaradei (Lederen af FN's Atomenergi agentur)is handling the crisis. "He doesn't seem to care one way or another whether the Iranians get a bomb. All he wants is a quiet life," said one senior government adviser.

Lidt ligesom Hans Blix, der måtte slå knuder på sig selv i sine rapporter om Saddams våben af skræk for at blive taget til indtægt for en krig mod Irak.

And there is no doubt that the Israelis would prefer their superpower protector, the United States, to do their dirty work for them if the UN-sponsored diplomacy fails to bring Teheran to its senses. But the bottom line is that if, within the next two years, the Iranians are still maintaining their rate of progress on the nuclear front, the Israelis are ready and able to act on their own if need be.

"After the September 11 attacks, we now live in an age of pre-emption," said a senior Olmert adviser. "The Jewish people have not forgotten the last time the world watched and did nothing. We are determined that shall never happen again."

Go Israel, go!

Ceterum censeo Persiam esse delendam !