2007 – A Year of Decision in the Mi
ddle East that will affect the World – PART 3
WILL ISRAEL USE NUKES ON IRAN’S NUCLEAR SITE
S?
January 9, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Th is
is the third in a series of BLOGS on the year 2007 as a Year of Decision for Israel on the Iranian Nuclear Threat. The major question of the series is simply “What is Israel going to do about it?” How Israel handles this problem, has, is, and will continue to, cause the world to hold its breath. As you know by now, my guesstimate for the ti me
of an attack against Israel will occur on some day during the time period 2008 to 2012. I suspect the events of 2007 may well determine how early or late it will occur in this time frame.
In future BLOGS in this series I will be discussing the pros and cons of what different scenarios would favor the likelihood or unlikelihood of Israel going after the Iranian nuclear complex, which is scattered across the country on top of and beneath its topography.
Will Israel use Nukes to blast Iran’s Nuclear Sites before she is attacked by a Jihad
?
January 8, 2007
http://www.ttribulationperiod.com/
I have received several queries asking me – Will Israel try to wipe out Iran’s nuclear site before Iran gets a nuclear bomb? Now I know how the king of Syria felt when he was asked to do what only God could do.
II Kings 5:6,7 – And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. [7] And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy
? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.
Only God knows the answer to the query: Will Israel try to wipe out Iran’s nuclear sites WITH nuclear weapons before Iran gets a nuclear bomb?
I will give you my circumstantial guess answer as follows: NO!
Will Israel try to wipe out Iran’s nuclear sites with CONVENTIONAL weapons before Iran gets a nuclear bomb? My circumstantial guesses:
(1) If Benjamin Netanyahu should become Prime Minister – Probably!
(2) If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remains in office – Probably not!
Yaakov Katz, an excellent journalist, has an outstanding analysis of the pros and cons Israel faces in “to launch or not to launch,” from which I will draw in this and future BLOGS. It appears in the Jerusalem Post, and is titled “Decision Time.”
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
If Israel had tactical nukes, would it use them against Iran?
By Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
January 8, 2007
A nuclear weapon has not been used since 1945, when the US Armed Forces dropped two such bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Now, according to London’s Sunday Times, Israel is preparing for its own Hiroshima and has drawn up plans to not only introduce the weapon of mass destruction into the Middle East but even use it against Iran.
The newspaper report, improbable as it might sound, should not be immediately dismissed.
While Israel is publicly rooting for diplomatic efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program, there is no doubt that the IDF – and particularly the Air Force – are preparing for the possibility that Israel might decide to launch a military strike against the Islamic Republic’ s nuclear facilitie
s.
But would Israel use tactical nuclear weapons – if it had them – to do so? According to foreign reports, Israel has a large arsenal of nuclear weapons and according to the Sunday Times report, has been training with low-yield warheads that are just large enough to cause the necessary destruction at Iran’s nuclear facilities, but also just small enough to contain the blast and prevent major collateral damage and fallout.
While it would be difficult to completely destroy all of Iran’s several dozen nuclear facilities, senior officials and IAF officers believe that a successful strike on a number of key elements of the nuclear program – such as the uranium enrichment center in Natanz, the heavy water facility at Arak and the Isfahan nuclear technology center – would be enough to stop the country’s race for nuclear power.
Assuming strikes on these facilities would suffice in at least temporarily stopping Iran’s atomic race, there are still many hurdles along the way, some of which could potentially be passed by using tactical nuclear weapons.
The Sunday Times report is not the first to raise the “tactical nuclear” possibility. Last April, Seymour M. Hersh wrote in the New Yorker magazine that the United States was considering using bunker-buster bombs tipped with nuclear warheads to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
If Israel decided to attack Iran, in addition to the difficulty in flying directly to the country and neutralizing its air defenses, the IAF would also have to succeed in penetrating bunkers at the nuclear facilities – some known to be dozens of feet below ground and reinforced by concrete and steel.
According to Israeli officials, while an air strike on Iran could be successful, the IAF would need exact intelligence on each target and on the type of bunker, its depth, and what type of reinforcements it featured.
Those pieces of information are crucial for choosing the type and number of bombs the IAF would need to drop.
This is where tactical nuclear weapons could conceivably come in.
While bunker buster bombs would still be needed, the powerful blast of a low-yield nuke could do the trick in further penetrating and destroying the underground facility. If Israel indeed has nuclear weapons and the ability to manufacture low-yield warheads, as the Sunday Times report claims, this option would definitely be under consideration.
While the use of nuclear weapons might be tempting – due to their strength – there is a downside that could in the end tilt the scales in the direction of conventional weapons. While Israel is suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, the official Israeli policy has for years been not to be the first country in the Middle East to introduce nuclear weapons into the region. In addition, Israel would be reluctant to use a WMD that could set off a regional war.
If, however, Iran is Israel’s greatest existential threat ever, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claims it is, then even the hitherto unthinkable might be considered – even tactical nukes – when it comes to Israel’s survival.
End Jerusalem Post Article
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by
the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more detailed information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.