Israel's Iran dilemma: To strike or not to strike

When Obama spoke in Cairo recently, reaching out to the Muslim world, almost every word was dissected, weighed and analysed. While some sought solace in his remark that US-Israel bonds were unbreakable, it did little to bolster confidence.

Obama has set two conditions for Israel: an end to settlement building in the West Bank, and acceptance of a two-state solution. Both are issues Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reluctant to subscribe to. But since then, the Israeli premier has declared his willingness to accept a demilitarised Palestinian state.

But it is Obama's policy of engaging Iran diplomatically that is causing great angst. Israelis believe Tehran is only buying time in its quest for nuclear weapons.

Israel has been exercising great pressure on the world community for the past few years to tackle the issue of Iran's nuclear programme and has never ruled out strikes as an offensive option, something the Obama administration is opposed to.

There was a ray of hope that the US was lifting the yoke of restraint when Vice President Joe Biden said earlier this month that Israel was a sovereign nation that could launch strikes on Iran if it felt threatened, irrespective of whether "we agree or not". Many saw it as a green light for an Israeli strike. But within a couple of days, Washington had clarified unequivocally, warning Israel that the US remained opposed to the strike option.

The signals from Washington continue to be mixed and confusing. Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised "to extend a defence umbrella over the Middle East if Iran developed nuclear weapons." Israeli policymakers see that as a sign of weakness and resignation to the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Across the spectrum of society, Iran is being seen as the greatest threat to the existence of the Jewish state since its creation in 1948. Some even draw parallels between the current Iranian Islamist regime and the Nazis, prominent among them being Netanyahu himself. Speaking to delegates at the annual United Jewish Communities General Assembly in 2007, Netanyahu, then the opposition leader, said: "It's 1938, and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs."

Alluding to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his diatribes challenging the holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel, Netanyahu said: "Believe him and stop him. This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this."

Stepping up the rhetoric, Netanyahu said that while the Iranian president denied the holocaust, he was "preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state".

Prof Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Studies Centre in Jerusalem, says Netanyahu has a point in comparing the Iranian regime with the Nazis.

"The Islamic Republic wants to destroy the Jewish state. In this respect, they are just like the Nazis. Fortunately, Israel's Jews of today can defend themselves.

"Iran is a nation of 70 million people with a radical leadership. Theirs is a genuine ideological effort to get what they believe to be Muslim land. We have to take such a threat seriously."

Jonathan Spyer, senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs Centre in Herzliya, sees two movements under way in the Middle East.

"There is the rise of Iran's Islamist extremists, personified by Ahmadinejad, who want to revive the fire of the 1979 Islamic revolution, and there is the ongoing Islamisation of regional politics."

Spyer believes if free and fair elections were to be held, "most countries in the region would see right-wing Islamists taking power". He says a combination of these two factors is spawning a whole new conflict in the region, beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This is also mobilising Israelis and making them cling more to national symbols. "This has led to the virtual eclipse of the left in Israeli politics," says Spyer.

Inbar believes the secretive nature of Iran's nuclear programme need not pose difficulties.

"I believe adequate intelligence and capability exists for a strike. It is not difficult to identify the Natanz uranium enrichment installation. We're in much better shape today strategically than before. Our economy is booming, there is political stability at home and the conflict with the Palestinians has been reduced to low-intensity."

The doctrine of pre-emption is not new to Israel. In 1981, Israeli jets crippled Iraq's Osirak reactor, dealing a crushing blow to Saddam Hussein's ambition of acquiring nuclear weapons. Had Saddam been successful, it would have been hard to imagine today's Middle East. Israel also bombed Syria's nuclear reactor in 2007, suspected to have been built with North Korean help, sending out the message that it will not allow a nuclear-weapons state in the region that could threaten its own existence.

At a time when Arab leadership is at its nadir, Inbar believes the rise of Iran has caused great discomfiture, and even Arab regimes may give tacit support to a strike by Israel. The issue of direct Iranian reprisals seems less of a worry, though Tehran is known to possess missiles with a striking distance of some 2,000km.

"Missiles with conventional warheads can cause only limited damage. Israel has been through such an experience, in 1991 when Saddam sent 40 Scuds into Israel," says Inbar.

Last month, the Israeli Air Force held its 17th test of the Arrow 2 interceptor, shooting down a missile that mimicked an Iranian Shahab ballistic missile, although that technology needs more fine-tuning.

Israeli experts believe a strike, either unilaterally, or with US backing, may become inevitable sooner or later.

"We don't have to destroy the entire facility," says Inbar, who was a paratrooper in the Israeli Defence Forces. "Even if we hit a part of the enrichment facility, it should help set the programme back by a few years. We could either launch air strikes or commando operations from the sea. Of course, there will be a price to pay. We could lose a few soldiers and planes. But the price would be just right."

With a centre-right government in power, Israel is unlikely to be wanting in the political will to launch strikes. The real decision the leadership will have to make is how imperative it is, and how equipped the state is to pay the price for such an adventure.