Israel Likely To Strike Iran Prior To American Elections. Details Leaked.

In Israel, speculation rises of pending attack on Iran's nuclear facilities

Public statements and anonymous quotes to Israeli media in the past week have raised speculation that an Israeli attack on Iran could come before the U.S. presidential election in November.

By Anne Gearan

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Preparations in Israel for a possible war are focusing new attention on whether Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities and force an unwelcome debate in the thick of a U.S. presidential campaign about the U.S. role in stopping an Iranian bomb.

Public statements and anonymous quotes to Israeli media in the past week have raised speculation an Israeli attack could come before the U.S. presidential election in November.

The government appears to be readying the country for war by issuing gas masks, building underground bomb shelters and testing an early-warning system for missiles. The departing Israeli homefront defense minister said he had worked to ensure the nation was ready for a monthlong war "on multiple fronts."

The atmosphere grew more heated Friday with comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called Israel's existence an "insult to all humanity."

He was addressing worshippers at Tehran University after nationwide pro-Palestinian rallies, an annual event marking Quds Day on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Israel considers Iran a threat because of its nuclear and missile programs, support for radical anti-Israel groups on its borders and repeated references by Iranian leaders to Israel's destruction.

Iran has denied it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at producing electricity and radioisotopes used to treat cancer patients.

Analysts in the United States and Israel are divided on whether the escalating war of words foreshadows an imminent attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Some say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bluffing in hopes of forcing President Obama to issue an ultimatum to Iran that America would do the job itself later. Although Obama has said the United States will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, analysts suggest Netanyahu is looking for a deadline on abandoning talks and resorting to military action.

Others argue the Israeli leader appears to be laying the case for unilateral Israeli action over the objections of the U.S. and the majority of Israeli public opinion. This view holds that Netanyahu thinks he cannot rely on Obama for help now or later, and that he cannot afford to wait for a friendlier Romney administration to back him up or do the bombing itself.

A new war in the Middle East would be deeply unpopular among U.S. voters. Even talk of an imminent conflict with Iran could increase gas prices and unsettle the financial markets, possibly worsening the stagnant economy weeks before the November election.

The Obama administration has tried to say as little as possible about the prospect of an Israeli strike or what it might do if talks over Iran's disputed nuclear program — now at an impasse — completely fall apart.

Even if the timing is hazy, it's clear some in the Israeli government do not think they can delay.

"We can't wait to find out one morning that we relied on the Americans but were fooled because the Americans didn't act in the end," an unnamed Israeli official told the newspaper Haaretz last week. The official is widely believed to be Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.

read more at http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2018941810_israeliran18.html

Iran commander 'welcomes' Israel strike as reason to 'rid of' state

Published August 18, 2012

Associated Press

TEHRAN –  A senior Iranian commander says a possible Israeli airstrike against his country's nuclear facilities is "welcome" because it would give Iran a reason to retaliate and "get rid of" the Jewish state "forever."

The remarks by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guard's air force, were reported Saturday by the official IRNA news agency.

Hajizadeh says in the event of an Israeli strike, Iran's response would be "swift, decisive and destructive." But he also claims Israeli threats of a strike are just part of a psychological war against Iran.

His comments are the latest in a war of words between the archenemies.

Israel considers Iran an existential threat because of its suspect nuclear program. Iran denies seeking atomic weapons, saying its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes only.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/18/iran-commander-welcomes-israel-strike-as-reason-to-rid-state/?test=latestnews#ixzz23vv4sj3P

Iran calls Israel's existence an 'insult,' as prominent rabbi warns it's more than rhetoric

Published August 17, 2012

FoxNews.com

Aug. 17, 2012: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at the conclusion of an annual pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran. (AP)

TEHRAN, Iran –  Israel's existence is an "insult to all humanity," Iran's president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said confronting Israel is an effort to "protect the dignity of all human beings."

"The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to all humanity," Ahmadinejad said. He was addressing worshippers at Tehran University after nationwide pro-Palestinian rallies, an annual event marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

The comments are "reminiscent" of a letter written about the Jews and signed by Adolf Hitler in 1919, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wisenthal Center, says.

"Even though Ahmadinejad is attacking the state of Israel, we know what he means," Rabbi Hier said.

Israel considers Iran an existential threat because of its nuclear and missile programs, support for radical anti-Israel groups on its borders and repeated references by Iranian leaders to Israel's destruction. 

Ahmadinejad himself has repeatedly made such calls, as has Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rabbi Hier compares Ahmadinejad's comments to the notion found in Hitler’s letter referencing the "removal of Jews all together." "Twenty-two years later he implemented everything, and the same is true about Ahmadinejad," Rabbi Hier said.

"We assume it's only rhetoric, but we once paid a very high price for assuming Hitler was talking rhetoric," he said.

The leader of the Lebanese Shiite militant Hezbollah, which has ties to Iran, says his group will transform the lives of millions of Israelis to "hell" if Israel attacks Lebanon.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah says the group has a list of Israeli targets that it can hit with few rockets.

"We can transform the lives of millions of Zionists in occupied Palestine to a real hell," he said.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a deadly, inconclusive monthlong war in 2006, when Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel.

Iran has denied allegations that it is seeking to build nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at producing electricity and radioisotopes used to treat cancer patients.

Israel has been carrying on an increasingly public debate about whether to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Israel's official position is to favor diplomatic and economic measures to persuade Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, but Israel insists that Iran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. Israeli leaders say "all options are on the table," a clear reference to a military strike, if they determine that other measures have failed.

"You are not going to make a deal with the Iranians, not under their current leadership," Rabbi Hier said.

Iran has warned it would hit back at Israel if it is attacked, also threatening to strike at American interests in the region.

Ahmadinejad called Israel "a corrupt, anti-human organized minority group standing up to all divine values."

 "Today, confronting the existence of the fabricated Zionist regime is in fact protecting the rights and dignity of all human beings," said Ahmadinejad, with a black and white scarf many Palestinians wear around his neck.

Remember the Holocaust?

Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies for decades. Khamenei has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be wiped out.

"This is a threat to wipe out the state of Israel," Rabbi Hier said. "We should take these people at their word."

Tensions between Iran and Israel have intensified since 2005, when Ahmadinejad said in a speech that Israel will one day be "wiped off the map." 

But Rabbi Hier said he does not "subscribe at all with those who say this is a legitimate form of rhetoric."

"The only way to stop what's happening in Iran is for at least the United States and her allies to say, 'How long are we going to sit by and take this threat?'" he said.

The Iranian president has also described the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators during World War II, as a "myth."

"Most intellectuals in 1939 and 1938 did not think Hitler was serious, they thought they knew better, but they didn't know better, and we paid a dear price that we were not on the right side of history," he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/17/iran-calls-israel-existence-insult-to-all-humanity/#ixzz23vua0fgc

Blogger: Israeli attack in Iran will include, missiles, assassinations

US blogger Richard Silverstein says Israeli source leaked attack plan Bibi, Barak pitching to ministers. According to document, campaign will open with cyber-attack that will paralyze electrical grid

Ynet

Published:  08.15.12, 21:56 / Israel News

Any Israeli attack on Iran will open with a "coordinated strike, including an unprecedented cyber-attack which will totally paralyze the Iranian regime and its ability to know what is happening within its borders," American blogger Richard Silverstein wrote Wednesday.

Silverstein claims to have obtained an Israeli briefing document outlining the Jewish state's war plans against Iran, which, according to him, include the launching of dozens of missiles, an aerial attack, a sophisticated cyber attack and even the assassination of senior Iranian military and intelligence officials.

In the blog, Tikkun Olam, Silverstein said the document was leaked to him by a high-level Israeli source who had obtained it from an IDF officer. According to Silverstein, the source told him that normally he would not leak this sort of document, but that "these are not normal times. I’m afraid Bibi (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and (Defense Minister Ehud) Barak are dead serious."

The blogger estimates that the document was leaked to him in order to "expose the arguments and plans advanced by the Bibi-Barak two-headed warrior. Neither the IDF leaker, my source, nor virtually any senior military or intelligence officer wants this war."

According to Silverstein, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using this "sales pitch" to persuade the eight-member security cabinet to support a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"This is Shock and Awe, Israel-style. It is Bibi’s effort to persuade high-level Israeli officials that Israel can prosecute a pure technology war that involves relatively few human beings (Israeli, that is) who may be put in harm’s way, and will certainly cost few lives of IDF personnel," the blogger wrote.

'Two-headed warrior.' Barak (L) and Bibi (Photo: Eliad Levy)

"Bibi’s sleight of hand here involves no mention whatsoever of an Iranian counter-attack against Israel. The presumption must be that the bells and whistles of all those marvelous new weapons systems will decapitate Iran’s war-making ability and render it paralyzed. The likelihood of this actually happening is nearly nil."

According to Silverstein, an Israeli strike on Iran will include a "barrage of tens of ballistic missiles" launched from Israeli territory towards Iran, as well as a barrage of "hundreds of cruise missiles" which will "pound command and control systems, research and development facilities, and the residences of senior personnel in the nuclear and missile development apparatus.

Hungarian Jews at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp on
 May 24th, 1944.
This was one of the hundreds of concentration camps
where Jews were killed, tortured, starved, beaten,
shot, or worked in forced labor.

"Intelligence gathered over years will be utilized to completely decapitate Iran’s professional and command ranks in these fields," according to the blogger.

Silverstein says the attack will open with an unprecedented cyber-attack which will take the internet, telephones, radio and television, communications satellites, and fiber optic cables leading to and from critical installations—including underground missile bases at Khorramabad and Isfahan - out of action.

"The electrical grid throughout Iran will be paralyzed and transformer stations will absorb severe damage from carbon fiber munitions which are finer than a human hair, causing electrical short circuits whose repair requires their complete removal. This would be a Sisyphean task in light of cluster munitions which would be dropped, some time-delayed and some remote-activated through the use of a satellite signal," the blogger claims.

According to the document, the missiles will strike their targets—some exploding above ground like those striking the nuclear reactor at Arak–which is intended to produce plutonium and tritium—and the nearby heavy water production facility; the nuclear fuel production facilities at Isfahan and facilities for enriching uranium-hexaflouride. Others would explode under-ground, as at the Fordo facility.

Following the first wave of attacks, Silverstein says, an Israeli radar satellite will pass over Iran and transfer information directly to war planes making their way covertly toward Iran.

"These IAF planes will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown to the wider public, not even revealed to our US ally. This equipment will render Israeli aircraft invisible. Those Israeli war planes which participate in the attack will damage a short-list of targets which require further assault," the blogger writes.

According to Silverstein, among the targets approved for attack are Shahab 3 and Sejil ballistic missile silos, storage tanks for chemical components of rocket fuel, industrial facilities for producing missile control systems, centrifuge production plants and more.


Silverstein mentions that Iran is divided into 31 districts, each with its own independent command and control facilities and mechanisms. "So Israel wouldn’t be able to knock out a single facility and paralyze the IRG. They’d need to knock out 31 separate sets of facilities–a much harder task," he writes.

read more at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4269110,00.html