Israel hints at war with Iran

last updated 8 January 2015

President Obama began enforcing tough new economic sanctions against Iran this week, as Israeli leaders publicly discussed a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The U.S. froze the assets of Iran’s government and financial institutions in the U.S., warning other nations that there will be penalties for doing business with the rogue nation. By isolating Iran’s central bank, the U.S. and Europe hope to choke off the country’s oil revenue, and escalate the pressure on the Islamic Republic to abandon its bid for a nuclear bomb. Iran dismissed the sanctions as “propaganda,” insisting that the country’s nuclear energy program would move forward. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the time for diplomacy is past, noting that Iran is building nuclear weapons labs in bomb-proof bunkers deep underground. “He who says ‘later,’” Barak said, “may find that it is too late.”

The saber rattling on both sides is “getting frightening,” said The New York Times in an editorial. Rumors of an Israeli attack this spring are spreading in world capitals (see Best columns: International); Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supposedly has decided that Obama won’t dare to stop him in the middle of an election campaign. An Israeli attack would trigger a bloody and potentially disastrous regional war that would drag in the U.S., whether we like it or not. “Tough sanctions and a united diplomatic front are the best chance for crippling Iran’s nuclear program.”

Israel is entirely justified in viewing a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, said Richard Cohen in The Washington Post. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week called Israel a “tumor on this region that must be cut off,” and this belligerent, messianic regime has repeatedly indicated that it “will never let Israel live in peace.” But the decision to go to war “cannot be Israel’s alone,” said Leslie Gelb in TheDailyBeast.com. If attacked, Tehran would unleash a wave of terrorists, possibly armed with chemical and biological weapons, to strike at American targets here and abroad. Gas would soar to $15 a gallon. While the sanctions do their work, we urgently need a “comprehensive U.S. and Israeli proposal” that gives Tehran room to compromise. Otherwise, “we’re stuck on today’s collision course with Iran.”