War and Bluff: Iran, Israel and the United States
By George Friedman | Sept. 11, 2012 – Stratfor
For the past several months, the Israelis have been threatening to attack Iranian nuclear sites as the United States has pursued a complex policy of avoiding complete opposition to such strikes while making clear it doesn’t feel such strikes are necessary. At the same time, the United States has carried out maneuvers meant to demonstrate its ability to prevent the Iranian counter to an attack — namely blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
While these maneuvers were under way, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said no “redline” exists that once crossed by Iran would compel an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Israeli government has long contended that Tehran eventually will reach the point where it will be too costly for outsiders to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
The Israeli and American positions are intimately connected, but the precise nature of the connection is less clear. Israel publicly casts itself as eager to strike Iran but restrained by the United States, though unable to guarantee it will respect American wishes if Israel sees an existential threat emanating from Iran. The United States publicly decries Iran as a threat to Israel and to other countries in the region, particularly Saudi Arabia, but expresses reservations about military action out of fears that Iran would respond to a strike by destabilizing the region and because it does not believe the Iranian nuclear program is as advanced as the Israelis say it is. Read More »
Comments
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
Nation states play games with nuclear threats as though they were playing with marbles.
I am revisiting this 2012 posting for the benefit of Albert – Here is an example of the economic ties [that was supposed to be secret in 2015] between Iran-Israel:
Israel’s chief military censor, General Sima Vaknin-Gil, is urging Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to investigate leaks to Haaretz related to economic ties between Israel and Iran, according to a report that aired Sunday on Channel 2 news.
According to the report by Channel 2 diplomatic correspondent Udi Segal, the military censor was referring to a series of articles written by Haaretz Editor-in-Chief, Aluf Benn, on the “oil arbitration” between Israel and the National Iranian Oil Company estimated to be worth billions of dollars, as well as a secret Israeli government bank account that holds some $256 million (about 1 billion shekels) meant to be used as compensation to the Iranian government for the debt owed to the Iranian oil company.
According to Channel 2, the censor clarified that the sources for Benn’s articles must be probed, as few people were privy to the leaked information. At the same time, according to the report, most of the information published in the series was based on publicly available sources.
Haaretz responded to the report: “The newspaper acted lawfully and published information that is of interest to the public about economic ties with Iran.”
Deh buddy-buddy, a tell ya!!