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Attacking Iran will mean attacking Iran, Russia and China, if Putin gets his wish.Reader comment on item: Today's Iran Debate Misses the Point Submitted by Michael S (United States), Apr 10, 2015 at 18:58 Hi, Frankz. You said, The point of the agreement is not to stop Iran developing their Nuclear arsenal. It's to deligitimize any steps that might be taken against them. Including obviously any action Israel might take. I agree. I also agree with Daniel, that the Lausanne agreement is irrelevant. I might add to what you said, that the point of the whole G5+1 process, whether it leads to a sham agreement or no, is to delegitimatize any effective action Israel or anyonw makes against Iran. As long as Iran keeps seeming like it wants to keep talking, a diplomatic bubble envelops it, protecting it psychologically from all harm -- and the bubble generator is, of course, Barack Obama, who is intentionally using the talks as a means to hamstring Israel. The talks are irrelevant; because with or without the talks, Obama will make every effort to delegitimize Israel and make her vulnerable to annihilation. Israel has the choice of striking at a time convenient to it, or waiting for the inevitable closing in my the US-led world community. The situation is different only in scale, from the choice the inmates at Warsaw, Auschwitz and Sobibor had to make. In the case of the inmates, every day they waited meant thousands of Jews getting physically killed. Today, the stakes do not seem so high; but we should remember that in the death camps, the extermination of the Jewish people was a slow, continuous process. The "Final Solution" the world has today, is a nuclear strike, or causing Israel to pay the ransom to avoid a nuclear strike. Once Israel allows Iran the capacity to create a deliverable nuclear arsenal, she makes herself vulnerable to complete destruction on a few minutes' notice. That simply is not an option: Even the "Samson option" of guaranteed retaliation from, say, Dolphin submarine-launched cruise missiles, would have little effect on a fanatical, suicidal Islamist leadership in Iran. Once Iran has nukes, Israel is immediately doomed; and the Israeli people ought to know that. Putting out Iran's nukes will not end Israel's dilemna; but it is nonetheless necessary. After Israel has taken out vital links in the Iranian nuclear chain, making it prohibitively costly to rebuild, other regional players, particularly Turkey, may be tempted to pick up the nuclear banner. The example of Iran, though, would probably suffice to inform them that this is not a good idea. Their alternative would be an all-out conventional assault on Israel, which Israel ought to be prepared to deal with. I doubt that Saudi Arabia and Egypt would be eager to have the Turks win, creating a new Ottoman Empire with them as subjects, so they would probably sit out this one; but countries farther afield, such as Libya, Sudan and especially Iran (which by then will effectively include lower Iraq) will probably join in. The alternative to the above, should any Jews still think there really is an alternative, would be for Israel to hunker down into its bunks, Auschwitz-style, as the Iranians emplace missile after missile, Hizbullah-style. In fact, with the Hizzies unter their thumb, the Iranians don't even need to launch from Iran; they can do so from Lebanon or Syria; so it's just a matter of trucking the warheads over to emplace them in hidden entrenchments under communities near the Israeli border. It would be as simple as it was for the Germans to brick in the Warsaw Ghetto, or to string barbed wire and plant mines around Sobibor. So, the choice is Israel's: To attack Iran in a timely way, risking a Turkish counter-attack, or to wait until Iran gets nukes... then wait some more, while it encircles Israel with launching sites... then wait some more; because waiting becomes a habit; and if one won't act today because of fear of reprisal, that reprisal will be even bigger tomorrow. Israel has a great deal of control, over what happens in the Middle East. It cannot control what happens in Washington, Brussels, Moscow, China, New Dehli, Islamabad, etc. Those countries have their own interests, balanced against one another; and events in the Middle East are of tangential importance. The Suez Crisis of 1956, and the Beirut Intervention of 1982, as well as the Obama "Red Line" episode of 2013, show how ineffective these superpowers are in the area, as they elbow and trip up one another. Israel should not seriously be deterred by what they think or do, when its very survival is at stake. Vladimir Putin recently said that he is in favor of Iran becoming a permanent member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization -- something which, if started now, should become operational next year or so. That would be a complete game-changer: Once that is in place, an attack on Iran would effectively be an attack on Iran, Russia and China combined. I don't think it would be wise, for Israel to wait until that is the case. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". Reader comments (43) on this item
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