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NUKES FOR ALLAH - by Ralph Peters
THIS week the president of Iran told a student rally that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Always a crowd pleaser in Tehran, Mr. Ahmadinejad's call to exterminate Jews rang freshly ominous in view of his government's nuclear ambitions. Meeting with a lively group of American businessmen on Tuesday, I was asked how we'd know when Tehran was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability. "You'll see Israeli planes in the sky over Iran," I said with a smile masking my seriousness. But it won't be as easy as Israel's 1981 destruction of Iraq's French-built Osirak reactor. This time, Israel will need more than attack aircraft (and better refueling means). It may take a combination of aircraft, missiles, special-ops teams and clandestine resources to interrupt Iran's nuclear program if the world fails to act. The effort would look more like the opening of the 1967 war than a pin-point strike. But Iranian nuclear weapons constitute a literal life-or-death issue for Israel. Tel Aviv would be better off facing the world's (disingenuous) outrage than nuclear destruction. Even for the military power of the United States, shattering Iran's nuclear-weapons program would be complicated. Iran's facilities are dispersed, hidden, buried and hardened. Attacks would kill foreign technicians wisely hired by Iran â de facto hostages. Yet, for all of the concern that Israel, the United States and blithely irresponsible Europe should feel about Tehran's quest for nuclear weapons, the Sunni Muslims of the Middle East and Pakistan should be more worried still. The likeliest future nuclear exchange in the Middle East may not be between Israel and Iran, after all, but between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. Posted by: Captain America 2005-10-28 |
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