Israel's Options for Dealing With a Nuclear Iran

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Why all the talk about defending against ballistic missiles? If Iran was smart and determined to attack Israel and wanted to avoid consequences there are others options besides missiles. For example, smuggling. Iran high jacks an private Israeli sailboat, loads up an atomic bomb and sails to Tel Aviv, or smuggles it on shore in a rubber landing boat. Gets the bomb into position and fire it off. No one can prove where the bomb came from. And instead of a missile which costs a lot of money and can be shot down, you have cheap and effective delivery. The point is that it is impossible for Israel to really defend against an Iranian bomb.
Of course Iran knows that Israel realizes this is the case. So they know that Israel will have to try to deter them. So far Israel has relied on assassinations targeted at Iranian scientists and on Stuxnet sabotage. But Iran must be counting on Israel eventually taking military action against their sites. Because in the end, the only possible use of an Iranian nuclear weapons program is to force war with Israel in such a way that Israel appears to be the aggressor.

Mark of ID 5:02PM July 08, 2011

Let 1,000's of unguided rocket be thrown into Iran. Let suicide bombers occur in Iran.
Of course, Iran has nothing to do with it. Iran says is wrong to do to Israel ? Israel is one who starts unprovolked wars. Iran doesn’t want complete destruction of Jewish State. Iran does not have underground bunkers for nuclear program. Iran is growing mushrooms there.

Bill Hedges of MO 8:34PM June 23, 2011

Quinterius - It is impossible to argue with victims of pernicious propaganda who presume to know what "you and your ilk" are about. You know nothing about me except that I propound arguments which are not akin to yours, so I shall save my
opinions for those with more open minds.

Leila 2:07PM June 20, 2011

To leila: Now that you have lost the argument, you bring up totally irrelevant issues. Iran arms the Hezbollah since it is the only entity that can defend Lebanon against barbaric attacks by Israel. In turn, Israel gets more than $2.5B worth of weapons per year from the US. So, you would like Lebanon to be just a sitting duck, right? Israel is the master of slaughtering defenseless people as in Gaza during Cast Lead. However, it had to run away with its tail between its legs when Hezbollah fought in valiantly in 2006. So, please stop this childish changing of the subject when you lose an argument. You and your ilk have no facts. All you have is pure speculation to back up your silly claims. Don't you get it, nobody in Iran even considers Israel as anything but a far-away dinky little country. Nobody cares about you. Israel is like a spoiled child that constantly demands attention.

Quinterius of CA 11:23AM June 20, 2011

While accurate, this piece examines the problem entirely from one side's point of view. For forty years, Iran and every other nation in the ME has had to live with the threat of Israeli nuclear attack from weapons America has sought to conceal and protect. The NPT and the international community have done nothing to alleviate this situation and how can any Israeli or American critic of Iran even mention the NPT with a straight face given that Israel has refused to sign this treaty? What country would tolerate such a situation if it had the ability to develop such weapons itself? I fear the mullahs but their policy on nukes looks fairly rational.

Bondar 11:14AM June 20, 2011

It is a surprise that most people just dont know anything about Iran and tend to believe anhythng they hear from these zionist media propagander.Even if Iran obtained the Nuke, it wilwould be a dtetrence and would never use it against any country,ofcourse except if it is attacked.Iran has never atacked any country in the last 2500 years, excpept when she had to defend itself from Sadan Hussein...REIN.ake up astop confusing people

Robito 5:11AM June 20, 2011

If Iran gets the Bomb, they would more than certainly use it. Israel and the World can not afford to allow Iran to go Nuclear. Besides Israel, it should be something very worrying for the West and also the Saudis and Gulf Nations. A conventional suicide bomber is bad enough but a nukicide bomber doesn't bear thinking about.

John 9:13PM June 19, 2011

Quinterius - you might ask yourself why Iran is arming Hezbollah and Hamas while supporting insurrection in Syria and heaven knows where else if it does not want hegemony. I find your arguments ignorant, less than convincing and totally one-sided.
It is a joy to me that those were your last words on the subject.

leila 6:29PM June 19, 2011

To Mladen Andrijasevic of NY: Reza Kahlili is an admitted liar and Iranium is a totally nonsensical propaganda film. Don't believe anything coming out of these sources.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is irrelevant with respect to Iran since there is ZERO evidence that Iran has nuclear weapons or is attempting to build any. Besides, do you think Iran would want to destroy holy Islamic sites in Jerusalem and kill hundreds of thousand of Palestinians in Israel?
As an aside, Professor Bernard Lewis that you quote has many outlandish beliefs. For example, he is known for his refusal to describe the Armenian Genocide as such, a stance many consider tantamount to Armenian Genocide denial. So, now you quote someone who denies the Armenian Genocide to complain about the Iranian president's purported denial of the Holocaust (he actually has not denied it). So, you don't have much credibility.
To Leila: Where did you get the idea that Iran wants hegemony in the Middle East? It is both the US and Israel that desire hegemony there. Besides, you seem to know absolutely nothing about the Iranian governmental structure. Ahmadinejad has NO power over the Iranian military. I don't understand when people like you will stop all these nonsensical claims that Iran is going to attack Israel for no good reason. Don't you have any common sense?! Israel is not worth anything (less than zero) to Iran. Why would Iran risk its well-being on nothing. The audacity of Israel die-hards is unbelievable. Get it through your head. Iran does not care about you.
This is my last word on this subject. Most people here are totally brainwashed by Israel propaganda and have absolutely no understanding of Iran. Yet, they continue to express ridiculous beliefs about Iran.

Quinterius of CA 4:31PM June 19, 2011

“Still, there is an urgent antecedent question. What if the Iranian leadership did not meet the criteria of rational behavior in world politics? What if this leadership did not necessarily value Iran's national survival as a state more highly than any other preference, or combination of preferences?
In this scenario, admittedly unlikely” ...
Why unlikely? For years the leading western scholar of Islam, Prof Bernard Lewis has been warning that the mutual assured destruction doctrine will not work with Iran. Just recently, in the documentary Iranium he said :
“What makes this particularly alarming is the whole question of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War both the United States and the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons. That they did not use them, and they knew they we not going to use them, because of what we used to call at that time MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction. Each side knew that if they used nuclear weapons the others would respond in kind and this would obliterate everybody.
With these people, with their apocalyptic mindset, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement “
Reza Kahlili, the CIA agent who for 10 years risked his life working under cover as a member of the Iranian Republican Guards, said:
“Once they get the nuclear bomb, and they have the nuclear capability, and anybody can determine this because they are running multiple convert operations, parallel projects of nuclear bomb and missile delivery systems. It is a parallel project for one purpose, and I can argue both sides of the coin, but my belief is that .this is a messianic regime, there should be no doubts, they will commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals and Persian Gulf region at the same time, then they will hide in a bunker waiting for Mahdi to get out of that well, ride the white horse, draw that sword and kill the rest of the nonbelievers.”
So we have two people of knowledge, integrity and authority warning that the MAD doctrine is inapplicable to Iran and that the scenario you describe as unlikely they characterize as an inducement and therefore not unlikely, yet there has been absolutely no public discussion on the subject. All the world media refuse to touch it!

Mladen Andrijasevic of NY 3:59PM June 19, 2011