Posted by
Steve Yuhas on Sunday, January 11, 2009 7:03:50 AM
The New
York Times is reporting that the Bush Administration scuttled plans for an
Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. The Times’ report says that Israel
requested and was denied permission to fly through Iraqi airspace in order to
rid the world of a nuclear facility that will surely be used to produce a
militant Islamic nuclear weapon.
Israel was
forced to act on her own once before and the world saw her foresight a decade
later and it would do us well to heed a lesson of history.
On June 7,
1981 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the Israeli Air Force to
strike the French-built Osirak reactor, located 18 miles south of Baghdad. The air strike was criticized by the
entire world, including the United States, and the UN Security Council called
the strike a “clear violation” of the UN Charter.
Not
surprisingly a decade after the destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor the world
leaders wrote letters of thanks to the Israeli government for ridding Saddam
Hussein of his ability to achieve a nuclear weapon. One thing that must be said of Israeli intelligence – it’s
good. Compared to that of our own
and the world Israel’s robust espionage program runs circles around that of
Western nations, including the United States.
The USA had
our security apparatus neutered many espionage programs in order to please the
political left at the expense of missing the human intelligence that is vital
when conducting war and public diplomacy.
The world knows that Iran is producing nuclear material – that is a fact
and is not disputed by even Iran.
What is disputed is how to deal with Iranian ambitions and thus far the
world decided that chatting about it at the United Nations and the European Union
is how best to deal with a nuclear threat.
If the
Times’ piece is accurate and the Bush Administration is itself skeptical that
the unconventional manner it is taking to stop the almost certain creation of
an Islamic fundamentalist bomb will fail.
Interruption of the supply chain to Tehran, sabotage of the materials
used for the reactor (including parts and supplies) and other covert actions
are having no effect on the mullahs who issue fatwas and prayers for the
destruction of the Jewish state.
What did
Israel want? According to the
report she wanted to purchase bombs capable of destroying, totally, the nuclear
facility in Iran and the ability to fly over Iraq to get to the site. She did not ask for American bombers or
pilots (although I know a few who would have volunteered), Israel did not ask
for American support in what would surely be a diplomatic nightmare that would
follow. What Israel wanted was for
America to allow her to do what the entire world is too frightened or timid to
do itself.
Israel
wanted to destroy a nuclear reactor that is producing the material aimed at her
destruction and the Bush Administration said no. The rejection of an Israeli plan to rid the world of what is
perhaps the single largest military threat is nothing short of disaster and we
cannot blame President-elect Barack Obama if Iran develops a bomb within months
of taking office.
There are
few things that can plunge the world into a world conflagration, but one of
them is an exchange of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. There is the continued threat of an
arms race in that region because of the instability that a nuclear Iran would
create in a region where stability is the only thing that keeps one country
from invading another.
Bush should
have allowed Israeli planes to fly over Iraq and the Administration should have
provided Israel with the weapons she needed to do what the world will not. Now we sit on the precipice of an Iran
capable of destroying Israel and creating a conflict that will make the current
operation in Gaza look like a picnic.
The legacy
of the Bush Administration will be left to history and one can only hope that
historians do not have to footnote every mention of a nuclear Iran with a
footnote that it happened on the watch of a President of the United States who
coined the term “war on terror.”
Steve Yuhas
is a radio talk show host on AM 600 KOGO www.kogo.com
in southern CA. He may be reached
at steve@steveyuhas.com or www.steveyuhas.com