{"id":15975,"date":"2012-08-02T05:55:32","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T13:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=15975"},"modified":"2012-08-02T05:55:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-02T13:55:32","slug":"israel-is-not-going-to-attack-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/02\/israel-is-not-going-to-attack-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Israel is not going to attack Iran’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Journalist Larry Derfner says it plainly<\/a>: “Israel is not going to attack Iran.”<\/p>\n

Not before the November 6 presidential election, not afterward if Obama wins, and maybe not afterward even if Romney wins, which is unlikely.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that Netanyahu doesn\u2019t want to bomb Iran\u00a0– he does, and he makes that clearer every day. What\u2019s happened\u00a0is that there\u2019s been such a torrent of opposition\u00a0in the Israeli media this week from the security establishment, starting with IDF chief Benny Gantz, and backed by\u00a0the Obama Administration and Pentagon, that there\u2019s no way Bibi can get his\u00a0cabinet to vote for\u00a0a war,\u00a0and without the cabinet\u2019s backing,\u00a0he can\u2019t do it. The ministers\u00a0will not support\u00a0Bibi in an extremely risky war\u00a0opposed by the heads of the IDF, IDF\u00a0Intelligence,\u00a0the Air Force, the Mossad,\u00a0the Shin Bet and the United States of America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The military establishment in the United States and Israel have been pretty strongly against launching a war on Iran<\/a>. In Israel, everyone from the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad Meir Dagan<\/a>, to current head of the Mossad\u00a0Tamir Pardo<\/a>,\u00a0Israel\u2019s military chief Benny Gantz<\/a>, former prime minister\u00a0Ehud Olmert<\/a>, former leader of the Kadima party\u00a0Tzipi Livni<\/a>, and internal security chief Yuval Diskin<\/a>,\u00a0have come out to push back against Netanyahu. Broadly speaking, they argue that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, that Iran doesn\u2019t present an existential threat, and that war is not the appropriate answer.<\/p>\n

Those pushing for war are a relatively small but extremely influential group of politicians and foreign policy analysts. But since the costs of an unnecessary war are hard to deny – as is the fact that it’s even more likely to produce a nuclear Iran<\/a> – these habitual interventionists will find other ways. Already,\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/em> is running essays by raving necons like Michael Ledeen<\/a>, who is arguing<\/a> for Washington to foment internal revolution to change the regime in Iran…because, you know, that worked out so well last time<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journalist Larry Derfner says it plainly: “Israel is not going to attack Iran.” Not before the November 6 presidential election, not afterward if Obama wins, and maybe not afterward even if Romney wins, which is unlikely. It\u2019s not that Netanyahu doesn\u2019t want to bomb Iran\u00a0– he does, and he makes that clearer every day. What\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15983,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975\/revisions\/15983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15975"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}