So apparently Israel approached the United States asking if we’d be willing to help them bomb Iran. Being somewhat reasonably alarmed by the concept of Iran having the Bomb, they were looking to destroy Iran’s capability to enrich uranium. It seems incredible that Israel might do that and the Iranians would just grin and bear it…but of course that’s what Iraq did after Israel bombed its reactor at Osirak in 1981. And say what you will about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but I’ll give him credit for being probs more reasonable than Saddam Hussein, who was no prize.
Now, the Iranians couldn’t help but learn the take-home lesson from the Osirak incident, which was why the Iranian nuclear facilities are under many feet of reinforced concrete. Which, in turn, was one of the reasons the Israelis were coming to us, in order to buy super high-tech bunker-buster bombs, which of course the US needs to hang on to for when we need to bomb the Iranians. They also needed permission to overfly Iraqi airspace in order to get to Iran, which the US refused, on the grounds that the Iraqis would be incredibly angry, and the possibility of the US and Israel getting sucked into a wider war in the Middle East was a definite non-zero.
Let’s just reflect that in a difficult decision, with the chips down, serious consequences, and a complex situation, the Bush Administration seems to have done something pretty much correct. And not even that, but for the right reasons. So yes…it could be worse.
-Alex Copulsky, Books & Arts Editor