Thanks to Iran recently blanketing Israel with missiles, Israel is very much justified in retaliating now. That is to say that Israel cannot be blamed for "starting it". As Naftali Bennett suggests, now is the time to attack anything nuclear in Iran -- anything possible -- there will not be another chance.
Some in our government are calling for a "proportional response" to the 180 missiles launched by Iran against Israel last week. OK, let's go with that. There are approximately 9 million jews and 90 million Iranians. So a proportional response for a 10x population should be a 10x missile launch of 1,800 missiles. How's that for "proportional"? (I am a Christian whose blood boils for what has been done by Iran and its vassals.) The 7th century mindset of the Iranian regime must be destroyed!
The Israelis should do whatever, whenever, however and wherever is neccessary to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities and or any other Iranian asset that supports the Iranian nuclear program
I've been doing a judgmental scroll through my replies. My personal fave: Sarah, who said the firebombing of Dresden during WW2 shows the effectiveness of IDF's scorched earth policy in Gaza and Lebanon.
This was a very depressing and sad read. If this somehow makes it to our country, we are doomed. With an obese, unpatriotic and unruly population, there will not be a big enough military should Russia, North Korea, and China decide to join forces with Iran and take us out. We only have nuclear bombs left in our arsenal to put a stop to it. Everyone will pay a high cost for war.
Thank Jimmy Carter for the mullahs, he alone brought down the great Shah. Iranians despise Carter the Destroyer and his foreign minister Vance. And then again, behind a bad American president, always the French intellectuals, with Foucault demanding the return of Ruhollah Khomeini. Remember: after the peace accords were signed, the Islamists killed El Sadat. Get Carter!
I do not disagree with your assessment of those facts, in that timeline expect that the Shah was also a repressive dictator to the Irranian people with his own secret police, etc. it is just that with 20:20 hindsight that they can now see that they backed a new government that is even worse. (Anwar Sadat deserved that Nobel Prize in 1978- smart, gutsy move to seek peace with Israel. But it took Egypt until 2013 to expell the Muslim Brotherhood).
Thank you for your input. But, I’m afraid that you are repeating the content of discredited propaganda. The Shah, like Batista before him or Pinochet in the time of the bloody guerrillas, or Israel today, had to defend his country at any price. They called him dictator, he was a Prince, and his father the liberator of Iranian women from Islamic obscurantism. Remember, a dictator cannot be a modernizer and a proponent of liberalization. Now, even if you think he was a dictator, our rulers knew better, they knew that Khomeini was a bad ayatollah and a bloody fanatic. Geopolitically, the US imperative as Empire was to save the Shah at any cost. Instead, we persecuted him and banned him from entering the US!! But talk about hindsight! Look around you now. Since Obama we want to destroy Netanyahu and condemn Israel, the only democracy in the region. It’s the same situation, and the commies in our midst are patient and relentless.
Diana, the propaganda is the most powerful weapon. Shah had a situation that required force, violence. It was imposed from without. Extrapolate his accomplishments 45 years into our times and you’ll see his importance. Iran would’ve been a force for good in the world.
There is nothing wrong in saying that the Shah did terrible things but was still a mover, an innovator, and trying to bring his country into the 20th century. I concur that he was a much better choice and leader for Iran. We do not disagree there. And I am in complete agreement about how the West and the US want to condemn Israel. Joe Biden made it very plain in 1982 with Begin that he is not a true supporter of Israel, so why should we believe him now that he believes "Israel has the right to defend itself. Full stop". Rather like when he said to Iran "Don't". It a sin what is happening today to Israel at the hands of her "allies".
Hit Kharg Island and drive the price of oil up a month before the presidential election. Israel badly needs Trump to win, they will be in deep trouble if Harris wins the election
The Obama/Biden regimes have actually strengthened Iran by appeasement, weakness and actual COLD HARD CASH through the removal of sanctions. The administration has failed Israel, the USA and the world with their lack of support of Israel, the delay of military materiel and the overt public criticism of Israel. This Chamberlain doctrine has failed miserably and has further destabilized the region.
No one cares what we say. It’s about what we are doing which is not enough. What are we doing about the American hostages being held in Gaza? Have we forgotten about them?
Based on recent intelligence successes by Israel we can assume that any destruction of any Iranian nuclear facility will be assisted by agents already infiltrated in Iran. It is not necessary to use weapons to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon capability. Cyber warfare has been used to disrupt centrifuges in the past. Israel will not allow Iran to attain a nuclear weapon.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot folks, change some labels and see how it fits. If the US were under direct attack by misslles, bombs, terrorists, and impending nuclear threat would we not expect our "allies, who have our back" to do everytihing they could to support out fighitng back for our survival, no craven behind the back withholding of needed support? Wasn't that 9/11? The Western world rallied behind the US then. So why is this any different? Oh! Because its about Jews.
Can someone explain to me, why we (US and Biden) are against Isreal attacking the Iraninan necular facility sites ?
I can understand why we would not want them to hit the oil facilities which would drive up the cost of oil gloabally and certainly be a short term issue, but what the issue with the nuclear sites ?
As Douglas Murray so eloquently states, our society (and much of the developed, consumer-driven world) is drunk on peace. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the status quo. Keep the economy humming.
Yep, there is the constant fear of "escalation" and negative world opinion. The Biden administration doesn't want to be put in the position of defending Israel's actions.
I see many comments here that really show a total lack of understanding of the devastation that would occur if nuclear weapons are triggered. Even destruction of the nuclear sites would need to occur carefully to prevent contamination of not only the Iranian people but people that live in the entire region. The effects of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left a nuclear waste that affected the population for generations. Even the Chernobyl near melt down would have had repercussions for the region for centuries. Nuclear waste degrades over centuries.
I am certain the intelligence services in Israel are on top of this.
IMO Israel must:
1. Eliminate as many underground nuclear sites as possible in such a way that nuclear waste is not released into the atmosphere. Should be done in such a way as countries performed underground testing. This can be tricky. I doubt they would get them all, but it would probably slow them down.
2. Longer term - steps must be taken to bleed their economy. Enforce the sanctions that are already in place (not enforced by Biden) and force unrest in the country to try and force regime change.
Exploding nuclear bombs in the region should never occur and shows a lack of understanding of the true nature of the immediate and long term effects.
We can assume Israel understands Iran’s nuclear program more clearly than the Ayatollah himself. Israel has for decades maintained it would if necessary strike preemptively to prevent Iran from gaining deliverable nuclear capability (while begging the West to do so by other means). Israel does not “need” to respond directly to the Iranian missile attack is it likely to do so based on any “opportunity” created by atmospherics. Israel will strike Iran if and when doing so serves its strategic aims.
More plausibly, while the West focuses on this issue, Israel will continue to pursue its actual announced military aims; elimination of Hamas as a threat to its citizens in the south (which it has largely done), and dismantling of Hezbollah infrastructure in South Lebanon so that its 70,000 displaced citizens in the north can return home. Note the difference in wording. Israel has not said it aims to eliminate Hezbollah entirely, which it probably cannot do. Rather, Israel has seemingly decapitated Hezbollah command, control, and communications to reduce the cost of dismabtling Hezbollah infrastructure in South Lebanon to prevent both Oct 7th style incursions and the kind of low effort, short range attacks against which its missile defenses are less effective. How a strike on Iran would significantly further these aims is not obvious.
Of course, recent events may have changed the calculus in Teheran. Depending on how serious they are about this whole genocide thing, the mullahs may see the abject failure of their “ring of fire” strategy as requiring a pivot to an offensive nuclear strategy. Alternatively they may see a nuclear deterrent as essential in light of how much Iran is now exposed to conventional attacks. Much likely depends on how confident the Iranians are in their SAM anti-aircraft defenses. Israel sees these as formidable and nothing in the past few weeks has disproved this. Who knows, the Russians may be desperate enough vis a vis Ukraine to give Iran the needed capabilities? In any case, if Teheran appears to be truly close to deliverable nuclear capability, see my first paragraph.
Absent that, though, a significant attack on Iran does not seem on-strategy for Israel.
Here is some foundation for the points I'm about to make:
Israel is widely believed to have developed its first deliverable nuclear weapon in late 1966 or early 1967. That is 57 years ago. If Israel then produced only ONE additional nuclear bomb PER YEAR, they would now have 57 nuclear bombs. It is reasonable to assume that they produced AT LEAST 2 per year, hence the current estimates that Israel now has "well over" 100 nuclear weapons. Given Israel's technological sophistication, it is reasonable to assume that at least a few of those 100+ nuclear weapons are of the man-portable "suitcase size".
1. Regarding deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities, an "Entebbe-style" commando-raid to gain access and then leave behind a "Suitcase-Nuke" to destroy the facility(s) is certainly a possibility.
2. Iran's "capital ship size" surface fleet, at last count, consists of just 6 Frigates and 5 Corvettes. All 11 could be sunk in a single strike.
3. If Iran retaliates to items 1 & 2, Israel should respond with a large scale nuclear strike against not only Tehran but against all major cities in Iran using long range missiles of their own. The Israeli "Jericho-III" missile - which has been operational since 2011), has a range well in excess of 2,700 miles (some estimates put it at >6,000 miles), and can deliver a 400 kiloton nuclear warhead (20X the size of the Nagasaki bomb).
4. Under NO circumstances should Iran be allowed to complete a functional nuclear weapon.
Israel’s ability to decapitate Irans nuclear program is paramount. Another opportunity where Irans proxies are reeling may not happen again soon. Poison all the nuclear sites with radiation - dozens of small underground Chernobyl’s that will put the evil regime back decades while giving the Persian people the opportunity to take down the ayotollah.
It is not trivial to make a nuclear warhead that be deployed by a ballistic missile. Israel reportedly has that capability, of course they do not talk about it. Possibly Iran would have help from North Korea or Russia.
There are things that I won't even say because they could be misinterpreted. I suppose your comment is "tongue in cheek", however, comma! Nukes must not be trifled with. The US, along with Israel should use the MOP to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. We should have done this long ago but the Dems and the European statists are cowards. No surprise there. Then we should disable Iran and install a government so a vacuum doesn't develop. Next move on to N. Korea. Do it all conventionally with the goal of eliminating the ability of unstable players to possess nukes.
If it can, Israel should eliminate/degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities. For quite a while it has been deterred from doing so by the tremendous damage that Hezbollah could inflict conventionally. That is not an issue any more.
However, with respect to N. Korea, conventional deterrence remains strong. Seoul is within artillery range of numerous N. Korea batteries. The devastation that N Korea could inflict is tremendous.
Why couldn't a tactical nuclear bomb be delivered by air? But what would be the conceptual fallout of Israel using nuclear weapons? I'm not sure Netanyahu is bold enough to try it.
It could and Israel wouldn't have to risk any aircrew lives:
Israel's "Jericho-III" missile - which has been operational since 2011 - has a range well in excess of 2,700 miles and can deliver a 400 kiloton bomb (for context that's 26X larger than the Hiroshima bomb and 20X larger than the Nagasaki bomb and the Trinity-test bomb).
To big for your sensibilities? Well an alternative is a series of "Entebbe-style" commando-raids to gain access to the underground facilities and then leaveing behind "Suitcase-Nukes" to destroy the facilities.
Anniversary of Oct 7 is coming. Right after Roshashana. Every war that looks easy and quick is tough and long. Netanyahu is no fool. He will do what he has to do in order to protect his country. We need to act as his ally and help. So do the other allies, the Iranians in the diaspora and the Iranians in Iran.
Militarily, the smart move would be to initiate to the retaliatory strike at sundown on October 11 - the very start of Yom Kippur - just as he conspicuously heads to Temple in front of the world's media cameras. That maximizes the element of surprise.
Thanks to Iran recently blanketing Israel with missiles, Israel is very much justified in retaliating now. That is to say that Israel cannot be blamed for "starting it". As Naftali Bennett suggests, now is the time to attack anything nuclear in Iran -- anything possible -- there will not be another chance.
Some in our government are calling for a "proportional response" to the 180 missiles launched by Iran against Israel last week. OK, let's go with that. There are approximately 9 million jews and 90 million Iranians. So a proportional response for a 10x population should be a 10x missile launch of 1,800 missiles. How's that for "proportional"? (I am a Christian whose blood boils for what has been done by Iran and its vassals.) The 7th century mindset of the Iranian regime must be destroyed!
The Israelis should do whatever, whenever, however and wherever is neccessary to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities and or any other Iranian asset that supports the Iranian nuclear program
I sincerely hope the Israelis have the spine to do that which our feckless, cowardly "leaders" here in the West can't bring themselves to do.
I've been doing a judgmental scroll through my replies. My personal fave: Sarah, who said the firebombing of Dresden during WW2 shows the effectiveness of IDF's scorched earth policy in Gaza and Lebanon.
I was quite silenced by that.
This was a very depressing and sad read. If this somehow makes it to our country, we are doomed. With an obese, unpatriotic and unruly population, there will not be a big enough military should Russia, North Korea, and China decide to join forces with Iran and take us out. We only have nuclear bombs left in our arsenal to put a stop to it. Everyone will pay a high cost for war.
Thank Jimmy Carter for the mullahs, he alone brought down the great Shah. Iranians despise Carter the Destroyer and his foreign minister Vance. And then again, behind a bad American president, always the French intellectuals, with Foucault demanding the return of Ruhollah Khomeini. Remember: after the peace accords were signed, the Islamists killed El Sadat. Get Carter!
I do not disagree with your assessment of those facts, in that timeline expect that the Shah was also a repressive dictator to the Irranian people with his own secret police, etc. it is just that with 20:20 hindsight that they can now see that they backed a new government that is even worse. (Anwar Sadat deserved that Nobel Prize in 1978- smart, gutsy move to seek peace with Israel. But it took Egypt until 2013 to expell the Muslim Brotherhood).
Thank you for your input. But, I’m afraid that you are repeating the content of discredited propaganda. The Shah, like Batista before him or Pinochet in the time of the bloody guerrillas, or Israel today, had to defend his country at any price. They called him dictator, he was a Prince, and his father the liberator of Iranian women from Islamic obscurantism. Remember, a dictator cannot be a modernizer and a proponent of liberalization. Now, even if you think he was a dictator, our rulers knew better, they knew that Khomeini was a bad ayatollah and a bloody fanatic. Geopolitically, the US imperative as Empire was to save the Shah at any cost. Instead, we persecuted him and banned him from entering the US!! But talk about hindsight! Look around you now. Since Obama we want to destroy Netanyahu and condemn Israel, the only democracy in the region. It’s the same situation, and the commies in our midst are patient and relentless.
Diana, the propaganda is the most powerful weapon. Shah had a situation that required force, violence. It was imposed from without. Extrapolate his accomplishments 45 years into our times and you’ll see his importance. Iran would’ve been a force for good in the world.
There is nothing wrong in saying that the Shah did terrible things but was still a mover, an innovator, and trying to bring his country into the 20th century. I concur that he was a much better choice and leader for Iran. We do not disagree there. And I am in complete agreement about how the West and the US want to condemn Israel. Joe Biden made it very plain in 1982 with Begin that he is not a true supporter of Israel, so why should we believe him now that he believes "Israel has the right to defend itself. Full stop". Rather like when he said to Iran "Don't". It a sin what is happening today to Israel at the hands of her "allies".
Isn’t this the plot of Top Gun 2? We need Maverick up in here
You come at the king, you best not miss.
Hit Kharg Island and drive the price of oil up a month before the presidential election. Israel badly needs Trump to win, they will be in deep trouble if Harris wins the election
The Obama/Biden regimes have actually strengthened Iran by appeasement, weakness and actual COLD HARD CASH through the removal of sanctions. The administration has failed Israel, the USA and the world with their lack of support of Israel, the delay of military materiel and the overt public criticism of Israel. This Chamberlain doctrine has failed miserably and has further destabilized the region.
No one cares what we say. It’s about what we are doing which is not enough. What are we doing about the American hostages being held in Gaza? Have we forgotten about them?
Based on recent intelligence successes by Israel we can assume that any destruction of any Iranian nuclear facility will be assisted by agents already infiltrated in Iran. It is not necessary to use weapons to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapon capability. Cyber warfare has been used to disrupt centrifuges in the past. Israel will not allow Iran to attain a nuclear weapon.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot folks, change some labels and see how it fits. If the US were under direct attack by misslles, bombs, terrorists, and impending nuclear threat would we not expect our "allies, who have our back" to do everytihing they could to support out fighitng back for our survival, no craven behind the back withholding of needed support? Wasn't that 9/11? The Western world rallied behind the US then. So why is this any different? Oh! Because its about Jews.
So simple an anlalogy and exactly right!
"Time Has Come Today" to recognize the Chamberlain Brothers: Neville, Barack, and Joe.
Can someone explain to me, why we (US and Biden) are against Isreal attacking the Iraninan necular facility sites ?
I can understand why we would not want them to hit the oil facilities which would drive up the cost of oil gloabally and certainly be a short term issue, but what the issue with the nuclear sites ?
As Douglas Murray so eloquently states, our society (and much of the developed, consumer-driven world) is drunk on peace. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the status quo. Keep the economy humming.
Yep, there is the constant fear of "escalation" and negative world opinion. The Biden administration doesn't want to be put in the position of defending Israel's actions.
I see many comments here that really show a total lack of understanding of the devastation that would occur if nuclear weapons are triggered. Even destruction of the nuclear sites would need to occur carefully to prevent contamination of not only the Iranian people but people that live in the entire region. The effects of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left a nuclear waste that affected the population for generations. Even the Chernobyl near melt down would have had repercussions for the region for centuries. Nuclear waste degrades over centuries.
I am certain the intelligence services in Israel are on top of this.
IMO Israel must:
1. Eliminate as many underground nuclear sites as possible in such a way that nuclear waste is not released into the atmosphere. Should be done in such a way as countries performed underground testing. This can be tricky. I doubt they would get them all, but it would probably slow them down.
2. Longer term - steps must be taken to bleed their economy. Enforce the sanctions that are already in place (not enforced by Biden) and force unrest in the country to try and force regime change.
Exploding nuclear bombs in the region should never occur and shows a lack of understanding of the true nature of the immediate and long term effects.
We can assume Israel understands Iran’s nuclear program more clearly than the Ayatollah himself. Israel has for decades maintained it would if necessary strike preemptively to prevent Iran from gaining deliverable nuclear capability (while begging the West to do so by other means). Israel does not “need” to respond directly to the Iranian missile attack is it likely to do so based on any “opportunity” created by atmospherics. Israel will strike Iran if and when doing so serves its strategic aims.
More plausibly, while the West focuses on this issue, Israel will continue to pursue its actual announced military aims; elimination of Hamas as a threat to its citizens in the south (which it has largely done), and dismantling of Hezbollah infrastructure in South Lebanon so that its 70,000 displaced citizens in the north can return home. Note the difference in wording. Israel has not said it aims to eliminate Hezbollah entirely, which it probably cannot do. Rather, Israel has seemingly decapitated Hezbollah command, control, and communications to reduce the cost of dismabtling Hezbollah infrastructure in South Lebanon to prevent both Oct 7th style incursions and the kind of low effort, short range attacks against which its missile defenses are less effective. How a strike on Iran would significantly further these aims is not obvious.
Of course, recent events may have changed the calculus in Teheran. Depending on how serious they are about this whole genocide thing, the mullahs may see the abject failure of their “ring of fire” strategy as requiring a pivot to an offensive nuclear strategy. Alternatively they may see a nuclear deterrent as essential in light of how much Iran is now exposed to conventional attacks. Much likely depends on how confident the Iranians are in their SAM anti-aircraft defenses. Israel sees these as formidable and nothing in the past few weeks has disproved this. Who knows, the Russians may be desperate enough vis a vis Ukraine to give Iran the needed capabilities? In any case, if Teheran appears to be truly close to deliverable nuclear capability, see my first paragraph.
Absent that, though, a significant attack on Iran does not seem on-strategy for Israel.
...especially if the U.S. resurrects its nuclear pact with Iran.
Here is some foundation for the points I'm about to make:
Israel is widely believed to have developed its first deliverable nuclear weapon in late 1966 or early 1967. That is 57 years ago. If Israel then produced only ONE additional nuclear bomb PER YEAR, they would now have 57 nuclear bombs. It is reasonable to assume that they produced AT LEAST 2 per year, hence the current estimates that Israel now has "well over" 100 nuclear weapons. Given Israel's technological sophistication, it is reasonable to assume that at least a few of those 100+ nuclear weapons are of the man-portable "suitcase size".
1. Regarding deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities, an "Entebbe-style" commando-raid to gain access and then leave behind a "Suitcase-Nuke" to destroy the facility(s) is certainly a possibility.
2. Iran's "capital ship size" surface fleet, at last count, consists of just 6 Frigates and 5 Corvettes. All 11 could be sunk in a single strike.
3. If Iran retaliates to items 1 & 2, Israel should respond with a large scale nuclear strike against not only Tehran but against all major cities in Iran using long range missiles of their own. The Israeli "Jericho-III" missile - which has been operational since 2011), has a range well in excess of 2,700 miles (some estimates put it at >6,000 miles), and can deliver a 400 kiloton nuclear warhead (20X the size of the Nagasaki bomb).
4. Under NO circumstances should Iran be allowed to complete a functional nuclear weapon.
Israel’s ability to decapitate Irans nuclear program is paramount. Another opportunity where Irans proxies are reeling may not happen again soon. Poison all the nuclear sites with radiation - dozens of small underground Chernobyl’s that will put the evil regime back decades while giving the Persian people the opportunity to take down the ayotollah.
It is not trivial to make a nuclear warhead that be deployed by a ballistic missile. Israel reportedly has that capability, of course they do not talk about it. Possibly Iran would have help from North Korea or Russia.
I'm in favour of a limited tactical nuclear exchange. Take out Tel Aviv and Tehran both. Hit the whole sandbox.
Then maybe the rest of us will get a little peace and quiet.
GFY
Bend over, Billy boy.
There are things that I won't even say because they could be misinterpreted. I suppose your comment is "tongue in cheek", however, comma! Nukes must not be trifled with. The US, along with Israel should use the MOP to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. We should have done this long ago but the Dems and the European statists are cowards. No surprise there. Then we should disable Iran and install a government so a vacuum doesn't develop. Next move on to N. Korea. Do it all conventionally with the goal of eliminating the ability of unstable players to possess nukes.
If it can, Israel should eliminate/degrade Iran's nuclear capabilities. For quite a while it has been deterred from doing so by the tremendous damage that Hezbollah could inflict conventionally. That is not an issue any more.
However, with respect to N. Korea, conventional deterrence remains strong. Seoul is within artillery range of numerous N. Korea batteries. The devastation that N Korea could inflict is tremendous.
He is the Free Press’s latest troll treat him like his soulmate ComProf2.0/Quato and ignore him.
....nobody asked you, nor is anyone likely to.
Why couldn't a tactical nuclear bomb be delivered by air? But what would be the conceptual fallout of Israel using nuclear weapons? I'm not sure Netanyahu is bold enough to try it.
It could and Israel wouldn't have to risk any aircrew lives:
Israel's "Jericho-III" missile - which has been operational since 2011 - has a range well in excess of 2,700 miles and can deliver a 400 kiloton bomb (for context that's 26X larger than the Hiroshima bomb and 20X larger than the Nagasaki bomb and the Trinity-test bomb).
To big for your sensibilities? Well an alternative is a series of "Entebbe-style" commando-raids to gain access to the underground facilities and then leaveing behind "Suitcase-Nukes" to destroy the facilities.
Anniversary of Oct 7 is coming. Right after Roshashana. Every war that looks easy and quick is tough and long. Netanyahu is no fool. He will do what he has to do in order to protect his country. We need to act as his ally and help. So do the other allies, the Iranians in the diaspora and the Iranians in Iran.
I believe he will wait to act until after Yom Kippur.
Militarily, the smart move would be to initiate to the retaliatory strike at sundown on October 11 - the very start of Yom Kippur - just as he conspicuously heads to Temple in front of the world's media cameras. That maximizes the element of surprise.
Mr. N.,
PM Netanyahu might, then again he might act first and ask for forgiveness later.
An easy fast!