Thursday, February 09, 2012

Suppose Israel moves on Iran the day the US and NATO decide Assad must go?


If I am Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, I am thinking what better STRATEGIC military, political, and ethical moment to remove an existential threat to Israel than to strike at the instant NATO takes out Assad.
Hezbollah cut off. Iran unable to reach Israel by land.
NATO unable to ethically complain.
Just sayin’.

International ‘militarisation’ in Syria growing closer, warns US official

The international community may be forced to ‘militarise’ the crisis in Syria unless president Bashar al-Assad stops the onsalught on his people, a senior US official warned on Wednesday.

The official from the State Department told The Daily Telegraph that while the White House wants to exhaust all its diplomatic options, the debate in Washington has shifted away from diplomacy and towards more robust action since Russia and China blocked a United Nations resolution condemning Syria.
The Pentagon’s Central Command has begun a preliminary internal review of US military capabilities in the region, which one senior official called a “scoping exercise” that would provide options for the president if and when they were requested.
The White House said it was talking to allies about holding a “Friends of Syria” meeting in the near future and was considering delivering humanitarian aid to affected areas in the country.

U.S. and Israel Split on Speed of Iran Threat

Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable.Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, coined the phrase “zone of immunity” to define the circumstances under which Israel would judge it could no longer hold off from an attack because Iran’s effort to produce a bomb would be invulnerable to any strike. But judging when that moment will arrive has set off an intense debate with the Obama administration, whose officials counter that there are other ways to make Iran vulnerable.
Senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister and leader of the Mossad, have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to make the case that this point is fast approaching.