Israel will do whatever it takes

03 January 2007

Douglas Davis says that the Israelis are considering the nuclear option in response to President Ahmadinejad’s threat to ‘wipe Israel off the map’. An attack could be launched early this year

It will be another two years, according to intelligence estimates, before Iran is able to accumulate sufficient weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Meanwhile, smaller amounts could be doled out to a multiplicity of Iranian-supported terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, to make ‘dirty’ bombs which combine a conventional explosive with radioactive material, such as small amounts of enriched uranium. Just last week the Home Office confirmed that there was to be an increase in the number of police officers trained to deal with ‘dirty’ bombs.

Only the Americans and the Israelis are willing and able to stop the Iranians before they pass the critical enrichment threshold. The United States is this month reported to be deploying an additional aircraft carrier and accompanying strike group to join its existing fleet of cruisers, destroyers and submarines in the Gulf. While senior American officials caution that increased naval power in the region should not be interpreted as preparations for an attack, they acknowledge that their ability to strike at Iran will be enhanced.

But Washington may be too bruised and traumatised by its Iraqi imbroglio to open a fresh front in the Middle East. That leaves Israel. And, after President Ahmadinejad’s repeated calls to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and his Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran last month, Israel’s motivation is sky-high.

‘We are talking here about a threat to the survival of the state of Israel, and on that issue there can be no compromise,’ a senior Israeli source told me. ‘We are the product of the Holocaust in Europe and we will do everything — I mean everything — to prevent another holocaust occurring in Israel. If the Americans do not act, then we will act. And that moment,’ the source added, ‘might be closer than people dare to imagine.’

Last month, Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, underscored the point when the German news weekly Der Spiegel invited him to rule out the possibility of a military strike against Iran. His response was curt: ‘I rule nothing out.’ The Israelis will not, of course, describe the nature of possible military action, but there is a broad consensus that there is not a golden bullet: it is now impossible to prevent Iran from ultimately acquiring nuclear weapons if that remains their determined objective. Whatever havoc may be caused to their facilities, Iran has the scientists, engineers, know-how and funds to start again.

The best-case scenario is that Iran’s nuclear progress can be degraded until an effective anti-missile umbrella is developed or, perhaps, until a new Iranian leadership emerges that is less susceptible to notions of Islamic conquest. The aim of military strikes will therefore be to disrupt and delay Iran’s activities by destroying key links in its nuclear chain.