ANALYSIS: Will Israel attack Iran?

By Ofira Koopmans Feb 16, 2012, 15:59 GMT

Tel Aviv - Will Israel attack Iran? The answer depends on whom you ask.

Pundits around the globe have spent hours interpreting remarks by Israeli officials, US administration members or Western diplomats, but all leaks are agenda driven and the resulting reports - speculation.

As for Israelis, those who know, do not talk, and those who talk, do not know.

In the final analysis, it is likely that even the handful of decision-makers who are in the know, do not know - because they have yet to make up their minds.

The two Bara(c)ks themselves earlier this month said this was the case, although their remarks too could be either truth or spin.

'I don't think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,' US President Barack Obama said in an NBC interview.

'No decision exists for now to attack Iran. The whole thing is very far off,' Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Army Radio.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote on February 2 that US Defence Secretary Leon 'Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.'

But this week Panetta echoed Obama when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that 'I think we do not think Israel has made that decision.'

He confirmed he spoke to Ignatius, but 'about a lot of things, frankly' and said he usually did not comment on columnists' ideas.

Meanwhile, many believe an undercover war is already underway. Israel has accused Iran of being behind attempted attacks against its diplomats, including in Georgia and India this week. Tehran has accused Israel of being behind explosions killing Iranian nuclear scientists.

As Iran ploughs forward, the internal debate in Israel about whether it should attack becomes more acute, but it is not new and has flared for years.

Those who are against a strike argue that an Israeli attack would at best delay Iran's nuclear project by two or three years. Tehran would only become more motivated; oil prices would hit the roof; Israel's economy would crash; and the Middle East would burn, with thousands of rockets falling in Israel, including hundreds on Tel Aviv in the first days, followed by a drawn-out war.

In response Zvika Fogel, a top former Israeli military commander, warns: 'The sand is trickling through the hour glass. We will suffer much more if we postpone the day we respond.'

'I don't plan to wait and see, if the head of military intelligence says that there are 200,000 missiles pointed at us,' the reserve brigadier told a Tel Aviv radio station.

He was referring to Israeli Military Intelligence Head Aviv Kochavi's statement earlier this month about the total of number missiles currently facing Israel from Iran, Iranian-backed radical groups in Gaza and Lebanon, and Syria.

'What are we supposed to do,' continued Fogel. 'Wait until they become 300,000? What else exactly are we supposed to wait for?'

Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ayalon early this month rejected arguments by other Israeli security experts that a military strike would not be effective enough to justify one.

'Any facility protected by a human being, can be penetrated by a human being,' Ayalon told a conference north of Tel Aviv. 'It's possible to strike all of Iran's facilities, and I say that based on my experience as a (former) Israel Defence Force chief of staff.'

Barak himself told the same conference that 'whoever says in English 'later,' is likely to find that 'later' is too late.'

Are these remarks an indication of Israel's intentions, or are they simply its way of pushing the world to tighten the sanctions?

As former Israeli Military Intelligence head Shlomo Gazit put it: 'If there is no threat, or a supposed threat or a threat to threaten with an Israeli threat, all other players in the world won't move their arses and won't do anything.'

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