I think Iran has been emboldened by the fact we've er gone to war with their arch enamy and removed that threat to them whilst leaving ourselves well overstretched and unable to sort out Iran because there would be no public support and a massive internationally out cry. At the same time Iran has got hold of nuclear technology - (now where did that come from? Oh according to the BBC in 2005 'Pakistan's Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. He has admitted involvement in the transfer of nuclear secrets to Iran.' ) and they've got a method to deliver it. Where did they get that from? Choose from China, North Korea and Russia.
And Iran has some elections though not for the Supreme Leader. For the President I believe. I reckon that they have a Supreme Leader as a by product of the coup and the imposition by foreign powers of the Shah. Just a thought like.
Sorry - forgot to mention Pakistan is our Ally on the War on Terrror (Redux).

Seems the Saudi's getting re-armed soon ....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6238633.stm

Must have been another slow news day... so the Israelis are drawing up and training on tactics to be used in the event of...

The UK used to have kill plans in TacMans for Soviet vessels.... to be used in the event of

What the freak is an armed force supposed to do but train for possible scenarios? That's it's purpose, to be ready to protect its country.

That aside - considering the crusade against state sponsored terrorism etc, the holier than thou governments of the west should really look at their allies and see what they are up to, as nicley summated by Load Toad in posts 8 and 21.

There again, we have a history (old and recent) of supporting governements/regimes, sponsoring the leaders, then going to war with them when they start to do things we do not like... why change the habit of a lifetime :ugh:

It does seem that Iraq must have been pre-occupied with defending its eastern border and perhaps moved the majority of its Air Defence to that region and left the western borders pretty much open? By the time the Early Warning Radars picked up the packages i guess it was too late to swing the other way and even if they did, they would have opened a gap in the eastern border allowing further strikes from Iran.

It is still odd that although Saudi Arabia didn't get on with Saddam, that they would still let Jewish aircraft fly over their airspace, especially well armed Israeli aircraft. And Jordan for that matter who haven't exactly seen eye-eye with Israel in the past.

Fade,

Are you suggesting the way to world peace is to destroy the Israeli's and return the land to the Palestinians?

Your premise seems to suggest that.

Sassy

Not really, it's not a practical thing to advocate. Although I can see why some would be keen to see such an outcome and that it would certainly bring this particular long running conflict to a close.

But it does seem to me that Israel is the pivot upon which a lot of our troubles revolve.

Frankly, I'm not a fan of either their foreign or domestic policy. Neither, FWIW, do I approve of, or even understand, the US's unequivical backing for Israel.

Heaven knows what solution could be found for the 'situation' out there, but I think we'd be a lot nearer to peace worldwide, if it could be sorted out.
I think the creation of you know where back in 48 was a giant boo-boo, by the Brits and one that we'll still be living with the consequences of for a good many years after you and me are long gone.

There's no real solution that I can see, but remember the Balfour declaration was descibed at the time as 'one country handing a second the territory of a third'.
It was never really going to go down well. and ermmm, it hasn't.

One point that nobody's mentioned - this is the Sunset Times here. At best, this is somebody flying a kite. The chances of that paper accurately reporting what's going on with Israeli top-level military planning is about the same as me having a bar mitzvah in the Dome of the Rock.

Oy and indeed vey.

R

The Sunday Times, Israel and nuclear weapons.

Where the Mordechai did I hear that before?

The same story was the front cover of this week's Spectator magazine, which was out last Friday, somewhat before the Times.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/new_covers/cover.gif

Fade,

I fully agree with all you said. The Sixty Four Dollar question is how a peaceful and permanent solution can be found that will answer every party's needs.

Move the Israeli nation somewhere else, i.e. where we haven't simply stolen the land and drawn lines on maps expecting thousands to abide by western "rules" without any mandate or sense of responsibility. After all, Israel has only been an independant nation since 1947, a mere 3 or 4 generations.

Arkansas, perhaps?

Maybe, the Palestinians need to find a home....Jordan. It was the British who put the King of Hajez (western Saudi Arabia today) into power in the Transjordan (Palestine) as a consolation prize for having lost the Hajez to Ibn Saud in the 1920s. The Arabs have done nothing for the Palestinians after telling them to leave and, then, losing the war to push the Israelis into the sea. If the Arabs wanted to help the Palestinians, they would welcome them into their countries. Having done that, the Jordanians were "thanked" with a near-Civil War in 1970, the Jordanians had to violently throw them out in Black September 1970.

I am sure there exist many refutations to this history.

GF

Love it!!
GAGS
E86
PS C'mon JackoDicko don't disappoint me!

Some strange reasoning coming out here on a Military Forum, from military people. The media urge for scoops leads them to look in the obvious places to be the first to report on something and it wouldn't have taken a genius in the editorial office to work this one out.
The job of the military is to defend the state and prepare for any likely scenario. Iran is developing nuclear weapons and has a declared intention of wiping out the State of Israel. The plain fact is that the Israeli defence forces simply must prepare for a pre-emptive strike against the Iranian nuclear programme - before they are capable of producing the weapons and mating them with a delivery system. Iran will never enter diplomatic negotiations with Israel so there is no alternative. The Iranians are getting closer to achieving their aim, hence the inevitable Israeli pre-emptive strike must be getting closer. The Iranian production facilities are deep underground, what have the Israelis got that can do the job?

Could they get away with a nuclear strike? Hell, the Iraq invasion was a pre-emptive strike to disarm Saddam - because he "has weapons of mass destruction and can deploy them within 45 minutes". What's a couple of tactical nukes compared to a complete invasion?

What about the oil? Well, they have to sell the damned stuff somewhere. With a 20% shortage, when the price becomes impossibly high we'll do what we did last time - turn to alternative energy sources. Once we're suffering from electricity rationing the Greens opinions will be overridden and we'll simply go nuclear and do without the oil.

The Beeb carried a couple of good interviews (one with four of the F-16 pilots, a second with an Indian pilot in Iraq on 6/7/81) last year:

Osirak: Over the reactor

"The F-16s passed me at Osirak"

I/C

I suppose it might help to put yourself into this scenario. If, for example, Bulgaria were developing a weapon system that could destroy all of the UK and they declared a serious intent to use it, even stating they would accept retaliation. How would you feel today???? If you knew that we could destroy that weapon before it was finished, would you want the military to do it??? Just remember folks, this technology could eventually be used as a threat against the Western nations, even in our lifetime.
On the other side of the coin, is this weapon actually being developed?? Or is it like Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?????
I say go for it and 'undevelop' the nukes!!

SAS

We agree on something??? Now I am worried!

I feel sorry for them, as did the Brits and the UN back in 48. We probably thought we were doing Gods work by helping to re-establish Israel. I think we should have let him do it in his own time-as He said he would.

This will prove to be a false start imho.

PTT.

While no-one advocates or approves of conflict, if they'd installed Israel where I live, I'd be fighting them myself!

As the yanks seem to be in love with them-although no-one ever seems able quite to explain why- maybe Arkansas would be a good choice!:ok:

Interestingly I'm led to believe from ex colleagues that IDF aircraft regularly overfly Tabuk and have on the odd ocassion performed a touch and go. :uhoh:

Curious how threats from Iran about wiping Israel off the map seem to be lost on the Euro intelligensia. When Israel plans for action based in part from these threats, they are lambasted.
Love to see a hostile government in Dublin with a few nukes to spare and an agenda. A record of rhetoric that included wiping the UK off the map and a soon to be capability to do so and your lot would be a helluva lot more receptive. Thankfully your level of hypocracy and ignorance is based on the reletive peace the majority of your citizens have grown up to enjoy.

At least Israel is listening when threatened.

Fade
How's the cave and OBL doing these days? He would be proud of you.

Dear dear dear! I thought military aircrew might be better informed. Please remove foot from mouth before engaging same.

For a start, Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non proliferation treaty. All that the IAEA has said in their reports is that they cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

The Likudniks and their fellow travellers in the press (especially the Murdoch press) then morph the possibility of a program into a capability to build a bomb into posessing nuclear weapons.

Current wisdom is that Iran doesn't have the capacity to produce weapons grade uranium and certainly doesn't have the reactors operating to make weapons grade plutonium.

Then there is the little matter of weaponising a device into a deliverable package - something that I'm sure you know far more about than I do, but which is commonly believed to be not a trivial, nor quick, task.

Go and read up about it at armscontrolwonk, they do the calculations on the electrical power and number of centrifuges required to do this stuff.

Then there is the little matter of what Iran's leaders have actually said.

Firstly they have consistently said that they have no nuclear weapons program and wouldn't want one.

While they quite obviously hate Israel's guts, they have never said that they are going to attack Isreal, let alone with nuclear weapons, and they have been widely misquoted about their intentions. What they have said, taking a thirty year old quote from Kohmenie, is that Israel will eventually "disappear from the pages of history".

Read up at "informed comment" by Prof. Juan Cole who speaks the language and studies the country.

The real issue is that if Iran is not attacked the current debacle in Iraq will see it emerge as the leading regional power, something that is a nightmare for Israel and the oil interests that are driving the Bush Administration and that bloody poodle Blair.

We are going to attack Iran, probably after a false flag operation, or perhaps the Iranians will be provoked by the forthcoming deliberate destruction of large areas of Baghdad and the killing of all shia males of military age - for that is what "rapid disarming, clearing and holding to provide security" in Kagan's presentation actually means.

The outcome of such an adventure is going to be at the minimum the destruction of the forces in the gulf and the emasculation of the United States and Britain as world powers.