BRIEFING: "Israel and Iran: The gathering storm; As Israel pushes for sanctions against Iran, it also mulls options for war," The Economist, 9 January 2010.
Starts with the usual Osiraq imagery, or when Israel took out Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. As noted here many times, Iran does not present that simple and easy-to-access target profile, having distributed and buried its assets underground and deep below mountains.
But Israel publicly reckons that Iran is about a year away from weaponizing, so the temptation for signaling, no matter how ineffective the outcome may be, is substantial and understandable.
Most estimates are that a lengthy bombing course would definitely set Iran back 1-2 years.
A good description of Israel's unease:
Israel thus finds itself in a paradoxical state: more secure for now, but acutely anxious about the future; closer than ever to some Arab regimes because of a perceived common threat from Iran and its radical allies, yet more demonized by its Western friends. Israelis see a global campaign of "delegitimization" akin to efforts to isolate white-ruled South Africa.
Will bombing make this situation any better? Hard to see, especially when you know Iran will simply re-double its efforts, ramp up its threatening rhetoric and publicize every tiny advance as it moves again toward weaponization, which, this time, Tehran will be highly incentivized to put out in the open for all to see.
Of course, all this focus provides the excuse for Israel to resist any efforts at progressing with the Palestinians, another dynamic that feeds its global demonization.
Hard to see anything to be optimistic about here in the short run. Nonetheless, I still foresee Iran's acquisition of nukes, along with similar subsequent efforts by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as the next logical negotiating point that will most definitely draw in all the relevant outside great powers in a concerted effort to stabilize the situation. I honestly think everything that comes before that inflection point will be meaningless--if tumultuous and dangerous and deadly. I just don't see any big opening possibility for Obama to step through. This die seems decidedly cast, unless the Green Movement succeeds in some dramatic way inside Iran, something I don't see happening in time even as I harbor some significant hopes in that direction.
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