So far it is not more than talkin g and sabre-rattling, as far as we can tell. Even the Israeli government is split.

This thread, post #1. :D

And: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomac...story-1.393878


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Israeli websites of Shin Bet, IDF, Mossad, government are down. Hacker attacks are claimed by Anonymous who has threatened such attacks as revenge for stopping the two boats to Gaza recently. Israeli government denies, saying it is just a web malfunction.

The israel and the Knesset is divoted, not if Iran is a threat to Israel, but in how to handle it.

Thank you-I knew I had red it somewhere.

I'm also thinking what the response would be, among the common people on the street in middle east , if USA is the one of the attackers.

USA is one of the most hatred country in that area(that what I have been told)

Can Israel pull all this by itself? I doubt. It's not just a singel factory or a nuclear facility.

Markus

S A is into one thing and one thing only: MONEY.

Superb:

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition...-iran-1.394117

Good to get reminded of these essential thoughts. :)

IAEA says Iran is on the treshold of nuclear weapons capability. Also, they had massive foreign assistance, from Russia. Iran is said to gain nuclear weapon capability "within months". Some German media wonder meanwhile if Gaddafi's centrifuges have gone directly to Iran.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z1

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-e...-says-1.394162

Don't you mean Iran?

Israel does not need to destroy Iran's nuclear program - they simply have to do what they have done in the past - knock it back a ways.

Destroy enrichment/storage facilities and the trigger research location. You take out the eggheads with the knowhow to build a nuke, you cause a lot of delay.

Enrichment has been under attack for a good long while - remember stuxnet?

Iran wants to brag about how its facilities are underground and safe.
Israel has had access to Durandals for decades, and there are plenty of other and better groundbreakers now if it needs them.

A few hour operation targeting maybe 3-5 sites would set the Iranians back 5-10 years.

Israel will let the US know once the first pickle is squeezed. The Iranians will know first - the US second - and the rest of the world shortly after on the news channels.

Oh, eh - yes.

Corrected.

[QUOTE=CaptainHaplo;1782515]Israel does not need to destroy Iran's nuclear program - they simply have to do what they have done in the past - knock it back a ways.

Destroy enrichment/storage facilities and the trigger research location. You take out the eggheads with the knowhow to build a nuke, you cause a lot of delay. [/quoite]

War after war after war? No thanks, not with me. Over the distance this causes more death (and probbaly also financial costs to Israel, the US, the UK!!!) than one detemrtioned effort. Strike and break them, or stay at home.

Stuxnet'S delay was shorter than expected, and just two weeks or so ago it was reported that they are surprised how fast the Iranians recovered, that nbow they enrich faster than ever bewfore, and have gained more material than was thought possible.

Durandals are runway, not bunker busters. Iranian bunkers' precise locations (entries, ventilator openings) often are unknown to allow preicse targetting of vulnerable spots, which leads to the problem I repeatedly have pointed at: if you have a perimeter of lets say 10x15 km and know there is somehwere a hidden factory 20 m eters below the ground, protected by hardened steelconcrete, and potentially vulnerable points loike entries are unknown for porecise warhead coordinate programming, then you have a problem and would need to cluster-bomb that whole oplerimeter to maintain at least the chance to do at least some damage to the ceiling of said instakllation - and we do not tall about destroying it. When they manage to move just small but sufficient ammounts of matwerial into mountain bunkers where intel knowsd even less about - then you as the attacker attacking blindly effectivly can fold, for then it is game over for you.

The program's installations must be destroyed in all it'S ~300 installations and places. Not just delayed, and in three years or so we again are were we are today. Stuxnet has not worked as intended. The targetted assassination of key personnel of the developement has not worked. Doing limited damage and leave it to that, will not work.

If you go there, go all the way. Do not take a florett or a skeleton key with you, but use a two-handed sledgehammer and a truckload of dynamite - and make sure you have plenty more in supply and on its way to the head of your column.

Do not try to repeat the botch of 2002, '03 and '06.

Go big or go home.

ja ja :rock:

In reading the news over the past few months/years, I am seeing more threats from Israel attacking Iran than threats from Iran attacking Israel.

Yeah.....
That's good one.
Has Israel ideological reason to do so?
(hmmm....maybe its the god people thing)

I reckon the threat from Iran may be sufficient to make Israel become a pre-emptive reality.

I think this is closest to the truth. After two wars being caught by surprise I think that Israel is going to overreact to any perceived threat mainly to get the other side to stop immediately for fear of a pre-emptive strike. And if that fear doesn't stop them, then they can be almost sure a pre-emptive strike will come.

Being a nation being almost completely bordered by hostile nations would make me have a national defence policy of similar style.

While I am don't believe in the concept of a "warm" conflict - the reality is that a massive scale attack that would in essence destroy the entire program is not feasible. Unless you want to skip air power and just nuke Iran now.... That MIGHT do it.

To totally destroy its nuclear program means to defeat it in total. That isn't something that Israel will pursue - nor would the Arab states allow it.

I'm curious...which Arab state has the power to stop it...presuming they had advance knowledge of it happening? :hmmm:

The surrounding states would not sit idly by while Israel destroyed Iran. Think Pakistan will sit idly by as nukes fly? India?
The nuclear genie is just one you don't pull out of the bottle.

So that leaves a massive, sustained air attack - and while the arab states would sit idly by for a single, short operation due to "blind eyes" - they are not going to sit around while Israel performs a modern day version of the air war in Europe, 1945. They couldn't pretend to be blind to it - so no overflights, contested airspace - leading to ground skirmishes, etc. And if you think the extremist elements wouldn't jump in - they would love it. You would have Israel facing another Yom Kippur war - that they would have started....

I wonder how that is possible - to "overreact" to a nuclear armed Iran. What should such "overreaction" be?

If a nuclear armed Iran does not worry you, than nothing in life ever will, and all failures of appeasement policies in history that hoped for peace and led to war have never really taken place.

People want to see it nicely and minimise Iran'S threat because they shy away from the alternative. They ignore that Iran already wages war against Israel. That Korea, Russia and China already have dleivered knowhow and tehcxnology for nuclear wepaon production into the region. That Iran already arms up Hezbollah, and confronts Saudi arabia in a proxy war. That Israelis already get killed by all that. That the current president of Iran is said to be one of the fighters hwo seitzed the US embassy back then. That there is a deep-rooting hate against Jews playing a role on Iran'S side, and a wide-spread attitude of not caring for threatened Jews on Western and European side.

The best joke ever told in British history, was told by Neville Chamberlain, and that was long before Monthy ython. Millions laughed themselves to death over it. Must we really laugh about the same joke for a second time? Some of you guys have to face it: with emotioinal hysterics teaching hate all day long, religious fanatics and nutheads, you cannot argue reasonably, and some people there are that do not care for long life or bounty or saving the innocent: they just take delight from seeing the world burning, and do not care for turning even their own people into martyrs. You better bring them down before they can light a match.

Certainly an option of retaliation of Irans is increased funding of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Scud launches, however Israel has faced both threats before and come through them intact.
However I do think that the total destruction of Irans nuclear ability in one fell swoop is beyond Israels capabilities at this time without using a combination of air attacks and missile launches...and to be fair, when you see a missile go up, you don't know what kind of warhead it has until it hits the target, that could rattle a lot of cages that shouldn't be rattled...although I doubt Pakistan would launch any kind of nuclear strike on Israel because that would weaken it against India. Israel, in turn, will most certainly not use nuclear weapons against Iran, it would be suicide, however I could see them undertaking a three or four day intensive operations period over Iranian airspace. They have the nod from the Saudis who want to see Irans nuclear program stopped as much as the US does, and Egypt would most likely look the other way too.
In terms of retaliation, well Syria can't really do anything because it's too busy shooting its own populace, and any military forces taken away from the cities will just give the protestors more room to grow. Jordan...well, no-one has really heard from Jordan since the last smackdown they got from Israel, it's possible they might do something...but not entirely likely.
Lebanon is usually mostly on fire, I'd expect to see a few Katayusha rockets come over the border, but as I've already said, that's not exactly something that Israel is unfamiliar with...and Egypt is too busy dealing with internal problems to risk a war with Israel...although a war with Israel might distract the public from the continued military dominance of the leadership of Egypt...but at the same time it might also cause the destruction of said leadership, so I think they'd play it safe and keep quiet.
Russia would use every diplomatic trick it has in the book to try to get sanctions on Israel, as will the PRC...and the EU will probably either abstain or vote for it, but the US will veto so Israel has no problems there.
The only main problem is keeping the transitioning airspace open long enough for Israel to finish the job. Irans program is very widespread, well hidden and great in number, you can set it back a few years...but unless you kill every single Iranian scientist and ban them from reading books and the internet...you're not going to stop the program completely...but I think Israel knows that, and they'll just settle for destroying the current progress of the program.