Haaretz
Cheshvan 26, 5767
In his address to the
General Assembly of the Jewish Communities of North America in Los Angeles
earlier this week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made it clear that Israel
and Iran were headed down a road of confrontation. It is hard to interpret
his message any differently: "We have reached the pivotal moment of truth
regarding Iran... Our integrity will remain intact only if we prevent
Iran's devious goals, not if we try our best but fail."
Speaking to
reporters on his flight back to Israel, Olmert tried to soften his
statements, saying that he intended "to rouse public opinion and
governments around the world," but that the world was asleep.
U.S.
President George Bush agreed with Olmert that Iran's nuclear program must
be stopped "but America needs the support of the international community
in order for us to successfully thwart this deadly threat," the prime
minister said.
The problem is that the international community
hears the threats of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to destroy
Israel, and his declarations that Iran will soon celebrate "the
manifestation of its nuclear right," and is not really
bothered.
Members of the UN Security Council are still talking
about imposing ridiculous sanctions that will have little effect on Iran,
and an international military operation against the Iranian nuclear
installations is highly unrealistic. The Democrat's victory in midterm
elections in the United States also lessened the likelihood that Bush will
bomb Iran. Israel, it seems, is facing Ahmadinejad alone.
Olmert
stepped up his attacks on Iran's nuclear program without consulting any
professionals. His declarations last month have broken his "low profile"
policy on Iran that Israel adopted in its effort to present Tehran's bomb
as an international problem. As late as last month, Olmert held talks in
Israel on the Iranian nuclear program, and decided to stick with the
low-profile approach.
So what happened to change his
position?
"A weak prime minister who is dropping in the opinion
polls suddenly found himself faced with Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor
Lieberman and Effi Eitam, who are politicizing the issue, and with a
public that does not have faith in the prime minister due to his lack of
security experience," senior officials in Jerusalem
explained.
"Olmert is under attack for not being able to deal with
the Qassam rockets, so he is under pressure and is moving away from the
low-profile approach," they added.
These officials also said that
the Iranian issue had been taken out of their hands and had been placed on
podiums and television shows.
Therein lies Olmert's problem: After
he made his bold statements, Netanyahu's warnings that Israel is faced
with a situation similar to that faced by European Jewry when threatened
by Hitler in 1938, and Shimon Peres' description of Ahmadinejad as "a
Farsi-speaking Hitler," the moment of truth for Israel's political
leadership is nearing.
The public will justifiably want to know
what has been done to prevent the threat to its existence posed by Iran,
and to stop the possible mass exodus of Jews from Israel, as described by
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh. Domestic pressure calling for
military action will intensify.
However, experts on strategy have
voiced doubts regarding Israel's ability to carry out an effective aerial
attack on Iran's nuclear installations, similar to the raid that destroyed
Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981. The experts say there are three
prerequisites for such an operation:
· Accurate and updated
intelligence on the locations of the targets, some of which are hidden
underground and are well defended
· The right kinds of munitions
capable of destroying their targets with a high chance of success
·
Diplomatic coordination with the Americans. The U.S. forces in the region
could become targets of Iranian retaliation, just like Israel, and
therefore there is no way that an independent Israeli action can take
place without authorization from Bush. Did Olmert get such a go-ahead and
is this why he was pleased with his visit to the White
House?
Because of the complexity of an air attack and the
uncertainty of its effectiveness, the Israeli experts believe that it is
best to take action that would slow down Iran's bid for
nuclear arms,
instead of aiming for a decapitating strike.
International pressure
and sanctions were supposed to delay the Iranians, at least until the
regime there fell, or some miracle happened. However, it is not working
out.
The challenge Olmert has set for himself is not a simple one.
But the more his warnings intensify, the more difficult he will find it to
back down and convince the public that we can live with an Iranian bomb.
Therefore, we can assume that the confrontation is moving
closer.