Is Israel ready to attack Iran with or without American approval or help? It seems so since news broke today that they were preparing to do just that. What is more telling is that one Israeli official said that if Israel attacked Iran, they would ask America for the codes that would enable their planes to fly over Iraq, but if the US refused to give those codes, the IAF (Israeli Air Force) would be able to make the strikes anyway, they would just be harder to carry off.
Iran must be worried because they just launched a huge (for them) naval exercise in the Persian Gulf that had the aim to close off the Gulf so no oil gets out and to practice attacks against large naval targets, an obvious reference to American warships. Add to this the several new naval bases Iran has recently built near the entrance to the Gulf that would facilitate closing it off and the so-called successful test launches (that have not been independently verified) of a new series of land-sea missiles and you have an Iran that understands the danger it faces and it is taking measures to try and protect itself.
Will Israel actually do it? That is the million dollar question. The US is trying to keep Israel reined in and has offered it help against future potential Iranian attacks by setting up an X-Band radar station within its territory (see X-Band Radar Operational in Israel in December), but it has also recently sold Israel advanced bunker-busting bombs. The US is giving mixed signals like this but that may be intentional to keep Tehran off-balance and guessing.
Will Bush give Israel the green light or even team up with it to attack Iran? That is another question that would take the likes of Nostradamus to answer accurately. Bush has little time left in office and there is a great fear in some circles that Obama will not be able to effectively deal with Tehran. Huge American air and naval forces are now positioned around Iran, though many of them can be explained away by the current tension between India and Pakistan. However, what cannot be explained away is the recent crash program in bunker-busting technology and the production of those new munitions. Again, Iran is left guessing about US intentions.
The final pieces on this massive chessboard are the Israeli submarines positioned near Iran. They are armed with cruise missiles that can potentially carry nuclear warheads. While it is almost certain to the rest of the world that Israel will not use nukes to hit Iran in a first strike, the leadership in Tehran may not be so confident. They have spoken so many times about destroying Israel that now they must be nervous that they are in the Jewish State’s sights. As much as Iran hates Israel, at least for the moment they have to fear it and wonder if or when Jewish anger will rain down upon their installations.
