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World Agenda: Nuclear-Armed Iran Is Fear As Netanyahu Visits Obama

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  • World Agenda: Nuclear-Armed Iran Is Fear As Netanyahu Visits Obama

    WORLD AGENDA: NUCLEAR-ARMED IRAN IS FEAR AS NETANYAHU VISITS OBAMA
    James Hider

    Times Online
    April 1, 2009

    Israel's outgoing leader Ehud Olmert speaks to Mr Netanyahu before
    the start of the swearing-in of the new coalition government

    It was the first issue he mentioned after being elected, and was
    uppermost on his mind again this week when he swore in his government:
    it is safe to say that a nuclear-armed Iran will also be top of the
    agenda when Israel's new Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, meets
    Barack Obama in Washington next month.

    Mr Netanyahu's constant reminders of the existential threat facing
    his country - he has compared it to the Nazi Holocaust - leave him
    little room to back down, as military intelligence increasingly points
    to the fact that Iran is about to acquire a nuclear weapon.

    The question on everyone's lips is, behind the rhetoric, will -
    and can - Israel go it alone? If so, how?

    The bombing of an Iranian arms convoy being smuggled through Sudan
    to Gaza in January proved that range is no problem. And Israel's
    daring bombing of Syria's suspected nuclear reactor, which was being
    developed with Iranian backing, in 2007 showed that the Israeli air
    force - which swung through Turkish air space to avoid sophisticated
    Syrian missile defences - does not lack ingenious methods of attack.

    In the Sudanese bombing, the Israeli military used F-16 fighter-bombers
    escorted by F-15 fighters to ward off any possible counter-strike by
    Sudanese jets while they destroyed their target. Then unmanned drones
    surveyed the wrecked convoy, showing it was only partially damaged,
    upon which the high command ordered the bombers in for a second strike.

    The use of drones has revolutionised warfare in recent years. They can
    circle at high altitude for far longer than manned fighters, gathering
    intelligence or delivering a small but often deadly payload. In the
    recent Gaza war, they were what Hamas fighters feared most - an unseen
    enemy tracking them, capable of striking or calling in the big guns
    at a minute's notice. They can also be shot down without the risk
    of losing an airman's life, or the high cost of mounting a rescue or
    facing a hostage situation.

    They may already have been deployed in Israel's efforts to counter
    Iran's dash to nuclear capacity. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian
    President, said last month that unidentified drones - widely assumed
    to be Israeli--disrupted the launch of a rocket carrying Iran's
    first satellite into space. Hovering at great height, the intruder
    jammed electronic communications, causing a delay of several hours
    and necessitating the use of back-up systems to complete the launch.

    The belligerent President was also reported to have decided to use
    fighter planes to shoot the drone down - as US forces did to an Iranian
    drone in Iraqi air space recently -- but for unexplained reasons the
    order was not carried through.

    The message of the intrusion was clear, however: Israel can penetrate
    Iranian airspace with impunity, and in Syria and Sudan it has shown
    that it retains the capacity to launch long range attacks such as
    the 1981 destruction of Iraq's nuclear reactor, which permanently
    derailed Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme.

    Logistically, Israel has a number of ways of approaching Iran. There
    was speculation last year that Israel's close military ties to Georgia,
    which came to light during the Russian invasion of South Ossetia,
    extended to using it as a launch pad to attack Iran, heading south
    through Armenian airspace before anyone had time to react.

    The key question is what Iran's response would be, and on that will
    hang US backing. Aside from its long-range missiles, quite capable of
    reaching Israel, Iran has powerful proxies spread across the region
    and poised to strike at Israel or the over-extended US military.

    The Sudanese convoy reportedly contained rockets for Hamas that could
    reach Tel Aviv from Gaza. Combined with the Katyusha rockets that
    Iran's allies Hezbollah could fire from the north, Iran's tentacles
    would have been able to reach deep into the heart of Israel's coastal
    population20centres.

    Iran could also stir up serious trouble militarily for the US in
    Afghanistan and Iraq, supplying training, weaponry and financing to
    the various militias there, as it gave deadly and almost unstoppable
    EFPs -- explosively formed penetrators -- to the Shia Mahdi Army in
    Iraq, and, allegedly, to al-Qaeda affiliates.

    So when Mr Netanyahu visits Washington, he will be drawing on all
    his credentials as a security expert and articulate advocate of the
    use of force to persuade Mr Obama that all options should, indeed,
    be on the table, as he has so often told his domestic audience.
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