Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak implied for about the millionth time on Wednesday that Israel may attack Iran if sanctions fail to fail to persuade Tehran to dismantle their civilian nuclear program.
Speaking during a lecture at the Israeli Defense Force’s National Security College, Barak said the consequences of attacking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons would be worse than living with a nuclear Iran.
“I am well aware of the difficulties involved in thwarting Iran’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Barak said. “However, it is clear to me that without a doubt, dealing with the threat itself will be far more complicated, far more dangerous and far more costly in resources and human life.”
Actually, it wouldn’t. A declassified war simulation run by the Pentagon forecasted such a “strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States” and would immediately get at least 200 Americans killed in Iran’s retaliation, not to mention heavy Iranian and Israeli casualties.
Furthermore, an attack on Iran for a nuclear weapons program it doesn’t have would probably result in exactly the outcome Tel Aviv and Washington claim they want to prevent: a nuclear Iran.
As Thomas Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and former U.S. Ambassador to the UN under George H.W. Bush has said, a military strike “has a very high propensity, in my view, of driving Iran in the direction of openly declaring and deciding, which it has not yet done according to our intelligence, to make a nuclear weapon to seemingly defend itself under what might look to them and others to be an unprovoked attack.”
“If Israel will attack,” former chief of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Meir Dagan has said, “there is no doubt in my mind that this will also provide them with the justification to go ahead and move quickly to nuclear weapons.”
Even if Iran did get the bomb – which is unlikely – it would clearly not be anywhere near as bad as a US or Israeli first strike, which would start a new and protracted war in the Middle East. In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Kenneth N. Waltz, a renowned international relations theorist, argued that a nuclear Iran would have a stabilizing effect, causing them to become less bellicose because of the deterrence it would afford them. “In fact, by reducing imbalances in military power, new nuclear states generally produce more regional and international stability, not less,” Waltz wrote.
Hello. World to Barak: (Nuclear armed) Israel worse than nuclear armed Iran.
Just look into the faces of these people! Without killing, destruction and wars and planed wars they cant smile…I love them so much, if I had domesticated animals for food, I let them do the slotering – just to please them….And they are so efficient in it peter czech
Israel does not want to attack Iran. They want some sucker to do it for them. Just where would they find such a sucker? Maybe, a country called the USA and its idiot congressmen? It just might work.
John Glaser needs an editor as the text says just the opposite of the title, that is, attacking Iran would be worse than living with a nuclear Iran
The title says what Barak said. The text says he is wrong.
So when you feel you've been "chosen" to unleash mass-murder on someone un-chosen then that's not genocide?
Ehud Barack is one sly rascal. This is his way to help boost the price of crude as his side job of a consultant to a hedge fund (from Haaretz). Throw out a couple inflamatory statements and the price jumps. Of course all the inside hedge funders have been alerted earlier and bought long in anticipation.
This article forgot to mention that Barak, Leiberman, and Netayahu (The warmongers) were outvoted by the intell and military side on a propsal to attack Iran only a few months ago. That's why the price of crude dropped from $110 per barrel down to $77 per barrel. Late last year, Tamir Pardo, head of Mossad, in an address to a group of Israeli Ambassadors, "Iran,even with nuclear weapons, is not an existential threat to Israel". Benny Ganz, head of the IDF, "Iran has rational leaders and we can talk to them". So when the world finally realizes all this huffing and saber rattling is just a charade to keep oil prices high, someone is going to be very PO'd.
All this posturing by Israel and the US is not about "Nuclear Weapons". It is about power and the ability to shape and to mould the Middle East. If Iran becomes a major player then obviously Israel cannot continue its bullying – having already been bloodied by Hizbollah (an Iranian Proxy) and the US ability to manipulate also dwindles markedly. Just as Iraq was weakened by years of sanctions followed by a devastating war and now the likelihood of the breakup of Iraq – and the elimination of a major perceived threat to Israel. So now Iran is also being weakened by sanctions and then….. (guess what). On the other hand if Iran becomes much stronger, the US loses its pre-eminence, Israel cannot continue its bullying ways, Palestine becomes a reality side by side with an Israel that can no longer wield Uncle Sam's big stick and we have more peace and stability in the Middle East. We have a stable and prosperous Middle East and a shift in the Balance of Power in the world. The US Dollar is no longer the pre-eminent currency, The US as the number one economic and military power loses its position to China and possibly Russia. Could this happen? Yes. Would it be better for mankind depends ……………….
I'd love to see these idiots go it alone against Iran.
But naturally they'll want the gullible Yanks in the front line ahead of them. And our traitors in government will do as they're told.