preemptive strike on Iran

[BluffTHIS!]

If allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon only fell into the category of "not in Israel's best interest" as opposed to that of "likely to insure Israel's destruction" then Israel should care about the US's wishes. But it doesn't.

[ACPlayer]

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If allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon only fell into the category of "not in Israel's best interest" as opposed to that of "likely to insure Israel's destruction" then Israel should care about the US's wishes. But it doesn't.

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I could not follow your hypothetical if's etc. But your last statement But it (Israel) doesn't (care about the US' wishes) was certainly spot on, so I feel it is not necessary to re-read the preamble.

[BluffTHIS!]

I meant that Israel should care about US wishes on matters that are not of paramount importance, but should not care when it concerns matters that could lead to their anihilation, like Iran developing nuclear weapons.

[mackthefork]

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Do you believe the victims of 9/11 got what they deserved? One could flip your argument to suggest that the americans who died that day were responsible for the US Government's actions in the middle east.


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They were.

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I don't think the victims of 9/11 deserved what happened to them, but it's important to be careful when saying these kinds of things.

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Neither do I, but it's about time these arguments were stripped of the geographical bias, and flat out what we do is good, what they do is bad nonsense.

Mack

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The more interesting question is:

If America were to tell the Israeli's that it is not in America's best interest for Israel to bomb Iran (and, IMO, it is not in OUR interest for Israel to bomb Iran) would Israel give a rats ass?

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Great point. Why would they? When Iraq launched scuds at them, and America asked them not to respond, didn't they flip us the bird and go wild on Saddam?

Oh wait, they didn't.

[vulturesrow]

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The more interesting question is:

If America were to tell the Israeli's that it is not in America's best interest for Israel to bomb Iran (and, IMO, it is not in OUR interest for Israel to bomb Iran) would Israel give a rats ass?

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Great point. Why would they? When Iraq launched scuds at them, and America asked them not to respond, didn't they flip us the bird and go wild on Saddam?

Oh wait, they didn't.

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I was wondering if I was going to have to be the one to bring this up. Nice post. And of course Saddam was basically relying on the assumption that Israel would conduct some sort of retaliatory strike against him for the SCUD launches.

[Cyrus]

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When Iraq launched scuds at [the Israelis], and America asked them not to respond, didn't they flip us the bird and go wild on Saddam? [sarcastically]
Oh wait, they didn't.

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Are you suggesting that the reason Israel did not retaliate against Saddam's scuds was that America demanded restraint from Israel ??

Do you, for one minute, believe that Israel would restrain itself if it thought it would be better off following a more active course?

The reason Israel did not retaliate was plain and simple : It paid to stay put. The Americans were advancing towards Baghdad; Saddam's troops had the same prospects that turkeys have around Halloween; Saddam's last hope was to turn this from a Kuwait-Iraq confrontation (an Arab-Arab confrontation) to an Israel-Iraq confrontation; he tried to provoke the Israelis into any kind of retaliation so that the world, and especially the Saudis, the Egyptians and the rest of the Arabs, would see an Arab country being attacked by "Zionists" instead of the troops of the United Nations.

Saddam's little manoeuvre failed because the Israelis are, y'know, not stupid.

For the last 50 years (something not denied even by Israel itself), Israel abides by the wishes of Washington ONLY when the abiding is convenient for Israel!

[theweatherman]

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Preemptive attack, as a last resort, in an extremely dangerous and unique situation, makes sense. In general, however, preemptive counter-proliferation actions should be considered only in the most extreme cases, where all other options appear to be ineffective, and where the conditions favor success

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Dr. Barry Schneider of the U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center

The real question is if isreal bombs them and misses one nuke howmuch [censored] is going to fly? Would all of you favoring preemptive strikes be ok if Iraq launched a preemptive attack on the US during the 24 hour ultimatium we gave? The US made very clear its intentions to invade a soverign state, of which we had no proof of any wrong doing. Sounds like a smashing idea to me if I was iraq. Then I could go to the UN and be like "yo, these haters were going to invade my country, Iraq. I put a cap in their ass before they got me so clear me like you did Israel" (FYI all english speaking Iraqis come from compton.)

But of course thats different, we are the "good guys" and therefore are allowed to invade/bomb/attack preemptivly. I think I'd be great if Iran pulled a pre-preemptive attack on Israel, then Israel could stop it with a pre-pre-preemptive attack. Soon we'd all be at war before anyone even knew there were hostilities.

[BluffTHIS!]

We can get hurt badly but not destroyed by a pre-emptive attack from a non-major nuclear power, with plenty weapons left to annihilate them in return. But Israel can't allow itself to suffer even one such attack since they are so small, even though they would still have a submarine launched nuclear retaliatory response left available. That's the crucial difference. They can get wiped out, we can't, by a small nuclear state.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

No