TerryO
02-28-2012, 08:11 AM
Israel’s vow of silence on Iran strike may be a message to Washington
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/israels-vow-of-silence-on-iran-strike-may-be-a-message-to-washington/article2352400/
If Israeli warplanes attack Iran’s nuclear sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to keep President Barack Obama in the dark, according to senior American intelligence officials.
Given the mutual antipathy – verging on open disdain – between the two leaders, such a snub might seem unsurprising. But far more is at stake than the chilliest relations between an American president and an Israeli leader since the United States backstopped the creation of the Jewish State six decades ago.
Claiming it will keep Washington ignorant about any decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites – Israeli’s openly mooted option of pre-emptive attacks to keep Tehran’s ruling mullahs from getting nuclear weapons – may be more about posturing than any military reality.
Previous Israeli attacks on nuclear sites – in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 – were single-strike events, against much-closer Arab countries with far-weaker air defences and all of their, still-under-construction, nuclear facilities clustered at one target site. Whether Washington was tipped off in advance remains an official secret but in neither case was American connivance needed. So plausible deniability remained........<SNIP>
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/israels-vow-of-silence-on-iran-strike-may-be-a-message-to-washington/article2352400/
If Israeli warplanes attack Iran’s nuclear sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to keep President Barack Obama in the dark, according to senior American intelligence officials.
Given the mutual antipathy – verging on open disdain – between the two leaders, such a snub might seem unsurprising. But far more is at stake than the chilliest relations between an American president and an Israeli leader since the United States backstopped the creation of the Jewish State six decades ago.
Claiming it will keep Washington ignorant about any decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites – Israeli’s openly mooted option of pre-emptive attacks to keep Tehran’s ruling mullahs from getting nuclear weapons – may be more about posturing than any military reality.
Previous Israeli attacks on nuclear sites – in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 – were single-strike events, against much-closer Arab countries with far-weaker air defences and all of their, still-under-construction, nuclear facilities clustered at one target site. Whether Washington was tipped off in advance remains an official secret but in neither case was American connivance needed. So plausible deniability remained........<SNIP>