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Tuesday 11 September 2012

Iran: Scenarios of striking Israel

The question of using force to halt the progress of the Iranian nuclear bomb has not yet been decided by the Israeli leaders. If the head of the government, Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, are for many voices - generals, former intelligence chiefs, intellectuals, President Shimon Peres - warned against the consequences of intervention. "It is impossible to consider that managers can take such a decision without a minimum consensus among the political class and the security cabinet," says Bruno Tertrais, expert from the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS).
Every day that passes brings us closer to this possibility, however. The diplomatic process is almost at an end: the negotiations were "killed" by the unwillingness Iranian sanctions were almost to maximum.Mixture of computer viruses and targeted assassinations of scientists, covert action program has slowed, but not enough. The latest report from the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, released in late August, has determined that Iran had doubled the number of centrifuges at Fordow , a site buried under a mountain near Qom, the shelter, therefore, possible air raids. "The Iranians have made ​​no effort, no concession. They give ammunition to those who want to move up a gear, "says a source close to the matter.

Soon, the Iranians will be able to transform their uranium to 20% highly enriched uranium to 90% and make several nuclear warheads. The "zone of immunity" beyond which facilities and activities will be critical strikes more vulnerable to Western, especially because they have been buried, is approaching. "If the Israelis allow this limit to be exceeded, it depends entirely on the United States for their security. What they can afford, "said a European diplomat. Hence the temptation to hit, damage to which can be and still get a reprieve that could go up to two years. A break long enough to look for new solutions, hoping that in the meantime the Iranian regime, which sees the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumor" to eradicate, have changed.


The scenario most commonly studied in Israel, where the army, the IDF has been training for several years, is that of a single raid, "invisible" and dazzling to minimize reaction of the Arab street. As one who had destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 or the al-Kibar site in Syria in 2007. To accomplish this mission, Israel has antibunkers fragmentation bombs, which were delivered by the United States. IDF is also negotiating with U.S. officials providing tanker aircraft that would allow her to be independent hunters.

The operation, however, may be more hazardous than Osirak or al-Kibar, where Israeli bombers had destroyed a reactor. In Iran, the intelligence services have listed twenty sites, 5 or 6 very important. "With the prospect of military intervention, the Israelis must at least reach the Fordow site before it is operational and complicate the activities of Natanz," said Camille Grand, Director of the FRS.

On the merits, the Americans, the main allies of Israel, are also committed to do everything to prevent the emergence of a nuclear Iran. But the clocks do not show the same time on the shores of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic shores. Acting alone, the Israelis - who can not afford, for technical and political reasons, too long to keep their fighters in the sky of the Middle East - must do so quickly.

"One bomb" against the Jewish state ...

In Washington, the sense of urgency is not the same. In the election campaign, weakened by the economic crisis, caught in matters of domestic policy, Obama wants to avoid having to manage a new international crisis before the election on November 6. He also knows that if the U.S. military is in charge of the Iranian problem, it can save time, maybe six months, the Israeli calendar - with its bombs hyperpuissantes and its ability to conduct a real campaign air.

But Netanyahu does he trust Barack Obama? The two men did not like much. "And the Israelis remember that the Americans had also said they would not let Pakistan and North Korea have a nuclear weapon. We know what it is today ... "says a close case. However, the Iranian nuclear issue is considered an existential threat to Israel, "one bomb country" sometimes say the Iranians, that is to say, incapable by themselves to survive, despite its nuclear status, a bomb Iran, because of its small size and its lack of strategic depth.

For several weeks, senior American officers march in Tel Aviv, probably written the local press, local officials to call for restraint vis-à-vis Iran. The United States has suddenly decided to downsize they had assigned to joint exercises in Israel, due to disagreements over how to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat.Some experts now believe that the debate on U.S. intervention could be a compromise between Washington and Tel Aviv: a "yellow light" Americans. Mitt Romney is a supporter of the firm vis-à-vis Iran.As for Barack Obama, he can afford to lose the support of the American Jewish lobby?

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