Op-Ed: US refused Israeli request to attack Iranian nuclear facilities

Evidence has emerged that Israel wanted to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities last year. The Bush administration refused to sanction the attack, which would have had to cross Iraq.

The Israelis also wanted US bunker busting bombs for the mission. That didn’t happen either, after US Defence Secretary Gates defused the idea. The Bush administration is said to be working on another, covert, approach to the problem. The New York Times had to put in a lot of effort to get this story:

This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.

Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations.

There’s some real problems with this situation, because the Iran nukes issues aren’t going to go away. The sledgehammer-like line about “continuing operations” is a nice touch. Nor is Israel’s policy about people with nuclear weapons in the neighborhood likely to change. It’s a matter of when, not if, this turns into a major confrontation. Information is pretty basic, understandably enough, but there’s a few obviously working parts in this news: The bunker-busters sound plausible enough. To knock out reactors, it means dealing with the heavy duty construction required for them. Israel has said, and obviously means, that it will attack nuclear facilities operated by its hostile neighbors. It’s done so before, first in Iraq and recently in Syria. Iran has publicly stated that it doesn’t believe Israeli air power has the range to hit their facilities, and threats to Israel aren’t in short supply, including a new longer range missile. There's some reason to think that Iran isn't really too displeased with the clash between the Americans and Israelis. Nobody’s too clear on what the Israelis will do, or when, if they decide to attack. The Israelis do have the capacity to hit Iran. The upgraded Israeli fighters do definitely have the range, and they can get refueling capacity from elsewhere, (as in practically anywhere). It’s unlikely the Iranians could stop a determined attack. The incoming administration, rightly, has clammed up on what it will do about the problem. The Israel/US alliance has never been as simple or as straightforward as most people think. In practice, the arguments are as common as the public agreements. There have been a lot of clashes about a lot of things across many administrations, from Palestinian issues to actual wars. If the US is no keener on Iran’s possible weapons capabilities than Israel, it’s unlikely any US administration is going to blithely accept an Israeli attack across Iraq. For one thing, US intelligence believes Iran has actually ceased weapons development, which is information Israel doesn’t buy, at all. Quite a lot is on the line here. If Israel attacks the Iranians, all previous bets are off regarding any sort of peace in the Middle East. It doesn’t necessarily follow that a war will start, but some form of retaliation is probable. Iran has been the cheerleader of the anti-Israeli elements in the Middle East for years, and it would be a serious loss of prestige for Iran if they were attacked and did nothing about it. On the other hand, the rest of the region may not be quite so distressed about Iran getting taken down a few notches. Not many of the neighboring countries appreciate Iran’s interest in their business, or the overbearing role in religious demagoguery of the last few decades. Whatever the case, this is yet another transition point in a movie storyline that doesn’t seem to know when to start a sequel.