Middle East: Israel vs Iran

The stupidest diplomatic blunders made by Iran are, firstly, not recognising Israel as a state, secondly, continuously threatening to wipe it out of the world map. Iran is paying heavily for this. On the contrary, the other state named Israel withstood against all odds proving its resilience and diplomatic maturity as a nation and truly competent to stay alongside its notorious enemies in the Middle East. But sadly, Israel too started losing its diplomatic shine repeating the same blunder that Iran is famous for – threatening to attack Iran. Two high level Israeli officers including former Mossad chief, Meir Dagan and former Chief of Staff of Israeli Defence Force, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi warned about possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran and expressed concerns over the recklessness shown by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. However, it created more sensation when a retired CIA officer, Robert Baer who served America for 21 years in Middle East, recently, revealed that Israel is preparing for an attack on Iran tentatively in September this year before the UN session starts on the Palestine issue and how Israel wants to drag US in it in a Los Angeles radio show. In addition, Aftenposten, a Norwegian news daily, released US diplomatic cables that indicated dialogues between US legislators and Israeli officials on preparations for the next Middle East war. As per reports, Israel did try very hard to convince Bush to initiate attack on Iran before he left office, but somehow couldn't convince him.

Though historically, the animosity between them became evident after the Islamic revolution in Iran, it is until recently as Iran started building nuclear weapons; the relations became worse. Israel is not able to digest the fact that Iran is going nuclear. Moreover, the international community has not been quite successful to stop Iran. Add to that, regular threats of the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his demand for "the regime occupying Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time," made Israel more desperate to check Iran from becoming a real military threat. Thus, a full-fledged military strike on Iran becomes the ultimate option for Israel.

However, a full-fledged war is much more complicated than just saying. There are two facets of the real story behind the threat game. First is to force US and Europe to think more audaciously on Iran and prevent it from going nuclear; second is to deter Iran from doing something nasty to actually defend itself. Since last one decade, Israel has only warned Iran. November, ‘03: a Scottish newspaper claimed that Israel is prepared to take unilateral military action against Iran if the world fails to impede Iran from going atomic. December 2005: a British newspaper claimed that the-then Israeli PM Ariel Sharon ordered the military for possible strikes on Iran’s uranium enrichment sites. May 2006: Israeli Nobel laureate Shimon Peres warned "…Iran can also be wiped off the map."

Interestingly, the West enjoys the game as long as it helps them sell weapons. Israel, Iran, Bahrain, Saudi are largest importers of weapons from Russia, US, UK and France. Israel has ordered 100 GBU-28, 5,000-pound laser-guided bomb to strike on Iran. However, possibility of a real attack on Iran would depend on US' willingness and ability. But after the huge cost incurred from Iraq and Afghanistan war and a subsequent recession, Obama will be less interested!