Defense intellectual and former Strategic Defense Initiative planner John Bosma argues in the American Thinker that for Israel the options are closing rapidly, and the least bad option may be to make a nuclear preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, aiming to disrupt development but also to kill the maximum number of scientists and technicians, and to leave any surviving facilities fatally irradiated.
Far from producing peace, Bosma claims, the deal negotiated between two preferentially antisemitic teams could be extremely destabilizing; it…
…also augurs the possibility of a nuclear war coming far sooner than one could have imagined under conventional wisdom worst-case scenarios. Following the US’s betrayal of Israel and its de facto detente with Iran, we cannot expect Israel to copy longstanding US doctrines of no-first-nuclear-use and preferences for conventional-weapons-only war plans. After all, both were premised (especially after the USSR’s 1991 collapse) on decades of US nuclear and conventional supremacy. If there ever were an unassailable case for a small, frighteningly vulnerable nation to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons to shock, economically paralyze, and decapitate am enemy sworn to its destruction, Israel has arrived at that circumstance.
Why? Because Israel has no choice, given the radical new alignment against it that now includes the US, given reported Obama threats in 2014 to shoot down Israeli attack planes, his disclosure of Israel’s nuclear secrets and its Central Asian strike-force recovery bases, and above all his agreement to help Iran protect its enrichment facilities from terrorists and cyberwarfare – i.e., from the very special-operations and cyber forces that Israel would use in desperate attempts to halt Iran’s bomb. Thus Israel is being forced, more rapidly and irreversibly than we appreciate, into a bet-the-nation decision where it has only one forceful, game-changing choice — early nuclear pre-emption – to wrest back control of its survival and to dictate the aftermath of such a survival strike.
via Articles: Thinking About the Unthinkable: An Israel-Iran Nuclear War.
A limited Israeli strike could produce the nuclear disarmament of Iran that Obama and Kerry had claimed, before some of the terms of the deal put the lie to their statements, that they sought. Nuclear weapons are one effective solution to the underground bunkers used by Iran to shelter its systems.
Israel cannot service this target set with conventional weapons — its stocks are not deep enough, and it’s clear that they can’t rely on the United States, at least under this Administration, for resupply.
The deliberate American silence over Iran’s genocidal intentionality sends an unmistakable signal to Israel that the US no longer recognizes a primordial, civilizational moral obligation to protect it from the most explicit threats imaginable. It is truly on its own, with the US in an all-but-overt alliance with its worst enemy. The shock to Israel’s leaders of this abrupt American lurch into tacitly accepting this Iranian intentionality cannot be understated. Iran is violating the core tenets of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, a US initiative after the Tokyo and Nuremberg war-crimes trials to codify genocide as a crime against humanity. Now the US is silent.
But this shift is also recent. Every US government prior to President Obama would have foresworn nuclear talks with such a psychopathic regime or would have walked out in a rage upon such utterances. Yet Iran’s genocidal threats have had no discernible effect on Obama’s canine eagerness for a deal.
The two main factors Bosma sees making the nuclear option “almost mandatory” for Israel are the Iranian government’s continued propaganda and doctrine calling for nuclear weapons explicitly for the extermination of Jews, and, as recounted above, the US’s sudden tilt to the Iranian position. But he also lists a number of other reasons, which we’ll paraphrase:
- Iranian nuclear progress is self-sustaining and can’t be stopped with conventional weapons or sanctions. For Israel, it is a matter of nuke, or be nuked.
- Iranian progress is concrete hardening has essentially neutralized such weapons as the 30kp Massive Ordnance Penetrator, meaning it’s nukes or nothing.
- The presence in the agreement of a new US-Iranian limited military alliance targeted against Israel.
- The Russian agreement to deliver to Iran S-300 anti-ballistic and anti-aircraft weapons. This dual-purpose weapon is in the improved Patriot class and complicates strike planning (to put it mildly). The weapons are enroute to Iran already. (Russia is also delivering nuclear weapons delivery technology, including ICBMs). Some of these Russian missiles come with Russian mercenary crews. In addition, with Russian and Iranian assistance, the terrorist group Hezbollah has been converting its ineffective rockets into precision guided munitions with defense-evading technology.
While Bosma’s grim predictions may never come to pass, his position has a certain logic. (We believe it won’t come to pass because the Israeli government will shrink from following that logic to its inevitable end). In any event you should Read The Whole Thing™. It’s a brief but very information-dense piece.
If the Israelis did take this approach to survival, how would they do it? Given that the US Government is likely to share any intelligence indicators of a strike with Iran, Israel will have to proceed under an unprecedented cloak of secrecy. But at this point, their very least worst option for the long term survival of Israel and its people may well be to nuke Iran.
This is one consequence of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for lofty intentions, standing alone.
Kevin was a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S). His focus was on weapons: their history, effects and employment. He started WeaponsMan.com in 2011 and operated it until he passed away in 2017. His work is being preserved here at the request of his family.
20 thoughts on “Will Israel Nuke Iran First?”
Putting on my political science major hat here (Hey, Infantry guys can read!)
From a purely military standpoint, if/when the Iranians get S-300s operational, the ability for the IAF to mount a conventional strike on Iranian nuclear assests will be severaly curtailed, however dubious effect a strike with conventional ordance may or may not have.
That being said, launching a first strike with nuclear weapon would render Israel an international pariah of the first order. I can’t fathom anyone, least of all us, still standing by Israel.
I hope so.
After the Iran deal was announced someone printed up a flyer and distributed it in downtown Minneapolis.
A Request
The very first act that every individual performs upon enlisting in the Armed Forces of the United States is promise to uphold and defend The Constitution.
For the Army the oath of enlistment was this:
I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.” (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).
All of us who served in the Armed Forces made this promise to the nation.
The time has come for us who served to keep the promise.
In 2008 it was clear to every rational observer that Barrack Obama was absolutely unfit to hold any public office. It was clear that he possessed no valid understanding of human life and of the government that protects it. It was very clear that he had been indoctrinated in the falsehoods of Marxism and was an adherent of the anti-human doctrine of Environmentalism. And finally in office he has opened the way to the nuclear arming of the Islamic dictatorship in Iran.
As President Barack Obama has acted as an adversary to the nation and a friend to our enemies and to Humanity as a whole. There is no question that he is absolutely unfit to occupy the office of President and must be removed.
Although Congress has the authority to remove a President through the process of impeachment it will not happen. The Republican Party, which actually represents the People of The United States, lacks the votes and the fortitude to carry out this task. And the other party is simply too depraved to do it.
There is no question at this point that the Armed Forces must step up and remove Obama from office. We need a military coup–right now.
Please copy and pass along.
The republican party is the same party as the democrats.
It’s all one party and on our dime.
The only difference between them is whether there is an (R) or (D) after their name.
But, they are one and the same nonetheless.
Don’t count on the republican party they are ineffective and impotent straw men used simply as targets of ridicule by the democrats and willingly by the looks of it.
No one actually represents the American people.
They can get some used F117s that aren’t doing anything but collecting dust.
But, part if me wonders if this wasn’t the plan all along. The US could never initiate such an attack, but Israel, seen as defending its existence, could.
I think that, very privately, the Saudis will provide as much (plausibly deniable) assistance as possible to decapitate Iran.
I worry that Israel will realize that this is the road they need to take only after it’s far too late.
But then, I’d rather be a pariah then dead, and hopefully Israeli leadership comes to that all to obvious conclusion, if they haven’t already.
Not gonna happen. As the first poster noted, the consequences from a first-use nuclear strike are so dire that they pose more of an existential threat than the Iranian nukes.
Yes the world desire to eradicate the Israeli’s would hit fever pitch.
Only after the Nation of Israel is destroyed by Iranian nukes would such a riposte be acceptable to the world, Europe at least, I doubt the Chinese will care who nukes who there as long as they can move in, mop up and take over the oil fields.
I read this article a few days ago and it’s very persuasive.
Two things really hit home for me:
The combination of the S-300 issue and the back-channel talks between the Saudis and Israel (not noted in the article but widely reported) lead me to believe (at least to hope, if for no other reason than to lay bare his anti-semitism for all the world to see) the strike will happen before Black Jesus leaves office.
The old saying “It is better to die standing than live on your knees” I think applies here. Israel is already a pariah in the world’s eyes and knows she cannot win no matter what she decides to do. At this point the Israelis have nothing to lose and their country to preserve. That’s a pretty strong argument in-and-of itself.
It’s not exactly a new problem. The Jews have been in spots like this before, they’ll have planned for this eventuality too. They may do you the favour of a false-flag incident postmarked Iran. Just another Haman, to be hung on his own gallows. That includes the DC set. I just wonder how far the lapdogs remaining in your military commands would go if ordered to make open war on Israel. The domestic reaction in and out of uniform would be spectacular. Interesting times.
I wonder if a small(ish) backpack nuke could be set of in or near an Iranian facility? “Well Jim, it seems the Iranians were building a nuke, and doggone if they didn’t accidentally set it off a little prematurely”
The physicists of every nuclear power in the world would be able to advise their nation who produced the nuke really rapidly. There’s no clandestine in stuff that’s this low-production and varied from country to country.
If you like your Christian Judean infidel civilization you can keep your Christian Judean infidel civilization.
Lot of people have underestimated the Israeli’s much to their great misfortune. A people such as the Israeli’s who live under the constant sword of existential threat possess an indomitable will. They must have foreseen these circumstances far in advance. They haven’t survived surrounded by enemies by luck. If they are half the spirited and courageous people they seem, they have to see the won and the ketchup trust fund brat for the psychopathic mandarins they are and what their ideology foretold.
Let alone Jarret as the court dimmitude witch. And all the other radical jew hating Islamist adoring diaper babies infesting that regime got it in for Israel and their decades long power brokering.
You got to wonder who the proxies are in all this, and the proxies within proxies.
And if Daesh is making a beeline for Palestine. Its just too juicy a target ripe for the plucking for the likes of them. True virgin territory what with the animosities and entrenched corruption that has set in with the various tribes and those billions in bleeding heart UN entitlements.
Nukes change the dynamics like nothing else could.
This situation didn’t develop out of fate or incompetence or random unrelated events.
Its something not unlike the long march, or related to it.
I mean, it isn’t rocket science figuring out total liquidation of Christian Judean civilization is the main entre on this menu the leader of the human extinction movement and the cabal of scum floating in that cesspool on the Potomac are serving up.
Summed up as “death to everyone” for Allah.
Kinda gotta wonder what the end-result would be of a (small) backpack device going off in DC during a state of the union message by the white house nog. One built say with the hallmarks of a third-world effort and a little glass made from mid east sand…
I did not understand one word of that post
My bet is on the Saudi’s nuking Iran before Israel does.
It would be world class suicide if the Israeli’s nuked any Islamic Preemptively it would mean war at the very least and the U. N. would no doubt get the U. S. launch a preemptive strike on Israel.
Israel will not attack first, not with nukes.
The Saudi’s will though, make it worth their while religiously you bet.
Israel nuking Washington would get more positive results at this point.
Interesting angle on the subject:
http://www.wnd.com/2015/08/military-experts-iran-already-has-nuclear-weapons/
The problem for Israel is that any such use of nukes would get them a cutoff of trade form most nations, maybe even from the US and it would shake the Us-Israel alliance to its core.
I don’t think an Israeli government that fired a nuke preemptively could survive either. The sheer shock plus the footage of dead and dying civilians would likely be enough to break the coalition in power at the time.