Israeli Attack on Iran Could Inconvenience US Attack on Iran, Military Warns

Strike Will Only Make Iran Angrier, Officials Say

US officials have been warning Israel off of planned attacks on Iran for months now, and having dissuaded them from attacking before the US presidential election, the US military is now cautioning that an Israeli attack would be really inconvenient to America’s own plans for attack.

That’s because the US forces in the region are reliant on a number of small Persian Gulf states and would need to use bases in those states to launch a possible US attack on Iran. But if Israel strikes first, those nations are liable to withdraw their support.

“They might support a massive war against Iran, but they know they are not going to get that,” one official noted. “They know a limited strike is not worth it, as it will not destroy the program and only make Iran angrier.”

This is in stark contrast to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims yesterday that he reckons an attack on Iran is something all the Arab nations would feel really good about. Israel and the US have been threatening to attack Iran off and on for about 30 years, but the far-right government in Israel seems really keen to actually do so at some point soon, and is expected to talk up a war even more with elections on the horizon.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.