Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak
The war of words between Israel and Iran just got ramped up a notch with Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak declaring, "Time is running out for stopping Iran's nuclear advance. Whoever says "later' may find that later is too late."
Earlier today, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded (though not mentioning Israel directly) with his own warning to the West and the U.S. in particular that oil sanctions and threats of military action against Iran would cause severe damage to its interests if a strike was carried out and Iran "has its own tools" that it would use "if necessary" in retaliation.
From here it seems logical that any military action conducted against Iran's nuclear facilities would be seen by Iran as inspired, authorized and perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel acting in tandem with Iran making no distinction between the actual policies and actions of its two main adversaries.
And why not; the U.S. may "say" it opposes a military strike by Israel against Iran and it does seem true that Israel's government has intentionally failed to assure the Obama administration it would notify them beforehand if a strike was to be launched. This would seem to indicate the policies of the Israeli's and the U.S. are not in total agreement vis-Ã -vis Iran.
But the reality seems clear; the U.S. will NOT act to prevent Israel from pre-emptively attacking Iran. The reasons:
1. The Israeli Lobby in the U.S., primarily AIPAC, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress that essentially prevents any real debate that may be critical of Israel and any of its policies. Anything critical of Israel is immediately branded as anti Israel tinged with anti Semitism. Then there's AIPAC's hand (though indirectly) of securing financial bundlers who help fund the electoral campaigns of most Congressmen which assures and secures their knee-jerk support for ANYTHING the Israeli government decides, including a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. So Congress will give their unequivocal support to the Israeli's.
2. With this being a presidential election year in the U.S. the Obama administration would undoubtedly consider it political suicide if it didn't support the Israeli's AFTER they attacked Iran. If Obama condemned the attack, the right wing echo chamber would become apoplectic in denouncing him as anti Israel and believe they'd have him over a barrel with their ascendance to the White House assured. So the Obama crowd seeing this scenario would believe their hands were tied and they'd have to support Israel in any case. Of course the Israeli government is readily aware of Obama's predicament and know they can ratchet up their war mongering bellicosity with impunity.
The Irony is the U.S. could prevent Israel from attacking Iran.
It could threaten to suspend the $3 billion yearly military aid to the country.
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