cooler heads in israel

Barak Wants to Bomb Iran but Other Israelis Seriously Disagree


Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak brought his campaign to bomb Iran to the Davos World Economic Forum, while other Israelis expressed strong disagreement with the policy of a military strike.


"We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear," declared Barak. "It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them."



On returning Monday to Israel, Barak added according to YNET: "We must not waste time on this matter; the Iranians continue to advance [toward nuclear weapons], identifying every crack and squeezing through. Time is urgently running out."


Speaking at a conference last week, Yiftah Shapir of The Institute for National Security Studies said that there is no such thing as a surgical strike, but that it would take months of continuous bombing to destroy Iran's nuclear installations. 



"What will tip the scales in favor of or against an attack is whether we will really be able to inflict serious damage," Yiftah Shapir said. "That will be more important than whether we are ready to absorb [the casualties] of an attack."


"It's a very advanced program with many facilities, some very large and some very fortified. To destroy them you need a series of massive assaults for two to three weeks, a month, something like that," Shapir said. 



A one-time surgical strike, the most likely attack by Israel, "can't do more than politically declare that we aren't willing to tolerate" a nuclear Iran, he said. (and when the surgical strike fails, one must come up with something intelligent to mumble about.)



In another recent interview with Jewish News One, Shapir said he was "extremely" concerned over the fact that both Barak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu want to strike Iran. 



He made clear that such an attack would not only be a political disaster and militarily dangerous, but would fail. 


A bombing campaign, he said, would have to hit "hundreds" of targets over a "long period of time." Living with a nuclear Iran would be better then the fall-out and failure of a military campaign. He proposed a classic deterrent strategy instead.


He believes the U.S. military does not want another war, especially after the Iraq War, which he himself thought was a very bad idea.