Will the US bomb Iran? Will Israel?

If you missed my Weekend Column (with Aluf Benn) you can read it in full here, or just a couple of paragraphs here. It deals mainly with Iran.

1.

As he prepared to say good-bye to the Ministry of Defense, Ephraim Sneh expressed concern over what he saw as Israeli complacency vis-a-vis Iran. He does not feel as if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert goes to bed every night and gets up every morning with the Iranian threat, as he should.

According to Sneh, Israel's military budget is inadequate against the Iranian threat and more money is needed for the development of both defensive and offensive means. The sums involved are not enormous. He believes an annual increase of NIS 500 million for each of the next four years would solve the fundamental problems in this regard - not much for a national insurance policy, and it is within Olmert's control.

Sneh's position has the support of Uzi Arad, former political adviser to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu who now heads the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. Arad has examined the attention given to the Iranian threat by the country's leaders and what he found has him worried. Arad believes the declared position according to which Iran poses the greatest threat and the greatest challenge to Israel must also find expression in the deeds of the cabinet ministers.

The diplomatic schedules of Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni support these arguments. Their meetings with foreign leaders are largely devoted to the Palestinian issue and "strengthening Abu Mazen." Iran is dealt with mainly at the professional diplomatic level and through confidential channels. Netanyahu acts as if he were an independent propaganda agency, traveling the world calling for an end to economic ties with Iran and the prosecution of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for inciting genocide.

2.

From the meeting between presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin; to the joint statement the next day by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov about future cuts in both countries' nuclear arsenal of the two countries; and to the Joseph-Kislyak briefing, the message was clear: both states want to display their good working relationship.

In the practical arena, however, no particular progress was made on either arms reduction or sanctions against Iran. All that Bush and Putin said was that they would continue to present a united front. To do so, one of the parties will have to make concessions. This week several observers ventured that it was Iran's leaders who had cause for optimism: If the U.S. is so keen to sort things out with Russia, then perhaps they might agree to pay for it in the coin of greater flexibility regarding Iran.

So what will happen with regard to Iran - a confrontation, an acceptance of its becoming a nuclear power, or some deal that gives everyone a climb-down? Israelis with access to the relevant materials believe the U.S. will not bomb Iran's nuclear facilities for fear of the wave of terror the Iranians would unleash in response.

Will Israel attack Iran? Israeli experts say the Israel Defense Forces must develop the operational capability to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities. But they are divided as to whether such an attack is practical, whether the potential benefits would outweigh the enormous risks and whether the U.S. would green-light it. With the U.S. military deployed between Iran and Israel, it would have to provide flight paths, target intelligence and a promise to extract the Israeli pilots if necessary.

3.

On Sunday, Michael Hirsh, a senior editor at "Newsweek", published an article in "The Washington Post" called "Iran has a message. Are we listening?" After the article was published, Hirsh sat down to respond to readers' questions on the paper's web site. One tried to understand the extent to which the "Israeli lobby" was involved in pushing the U.S. into a confrontation with Iran.

Hirsh responded: "When it comes to the administration's policy toward Iran, there is, in my view, a little too much of a tendency to identify Israel's very justifiable existential fears of Iran with Iran's place in U.S. foreign policy."

In other words, Israeli fears aside, the U.S. does not face an existential threat and it must consider its own interests. Appeasing Iran is definitely a U.S. interest.

A recent study by The Israel Project, which specializes in examining U.S. public opinion, asked 800 respondents to rank the issues over which the U.S. should fear Iran. Only 20 percent ranked Ahmadinejad saying that "Israel should be wiped off the map" in either first or second place. Above all, Americans fear terror: "conscripting suicide bombers" (31 percent); "Iran's promise to share nuclear technology with other Islamic extremists" (27 percent); "the continued development of its nuclear program" (26 percent) and "Iran's support for terrorists operating in Iraq and Afghanistan" (26 percent).

More Iran on Rosner's Domain:

The Iran Time Saver updated

The Iran beauty contest: The Republican candidates and Iran