Israel ponders an attack on Iran

Last week, Israel's minister of defence dropped a strong hint that the country was preparing an aerial attack on Iran. For years, Israel has worried publicly that Iran's nuclear programme poses a threat to Israel's existence. The Iranian government has only stoked those fears with its rhetoric. But the tension seems to be reaching fever pitch.

Israel is not alone in worrying about Iran's nuclear programme. Although Tehran maintains that its programme is intended purely for peaceful purposes, the international community has not bought it. Increasingly, governments have been lending their support to the United States-led campaign to impose sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Israel points to the Iranian construction of a new bunker that it maintains will put the country's nuclear facilities beyond Israeli warplanes. While Israel would prefer the US to carry out an assault, the Americans are disinclined to do so right now. Despite President Obama's insistence that all options are on the table when it comes to preventing Iran getting the bomb, Washington feels no pressure to act just yet.

Turning up the heat

For one thing, economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure appear to be turning up the heat on Iran. Moreover, having enlisted the support of so many governments for the sanctions regime, the Obama administration has little interest in shattering that goodwill with a sudden, unilateral action.

Besides, the US can afford to wait. Its military technology is more advanced than Israel's, and it wants a bit more time to develop a new bunker-busting bomb. It can afford to bide its time before it goes to Plan B. Israel, by contrast, worries that the window for a strike is closing. If it does not act, it fears it will then become wholly dependent on the US for action.

The current government does not want that to happen. It is rooted in the revisionist tradition of Israeli politics, which maintains that the only people on whom the Jewish nation can rely are themselves. International alliances play their role. But the Israeli right are stung by a history in which they see themselves having been repeatedly betrayed by those in whom they had placed their trust.

Few Israelis embody that tradition as strongly as the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Given that much of the international community has rallied behind the sanctions regime, Israel will give it some time. But talk is growing that if Iran does not demonstrate a retreat from its programme, a spring strike will follow.

Should that happen, Iran says it will pull out all stops in responding. With the region's largest conventional forces, a network of terrorist cells it could activate, and the capacity to choke off oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran could certainly deal a savage blow to both the region and the world economy.

Iran might be its own victim

But would it do so? Many analysts point out that the principal victim of a closure of the Strait would be Iran. World oil prices would indeed spike, which would do the struggling world economy no favours. But Iran's economy, already sickly, would collapse.

As for the scale of eventual Iranian military action, opinion divides. Many in Israel think the retaliation on Israel could be dire. But some intelligence estimates believe that Iran overstates both its capacity, and its will, to impose carnage.

Yet at the end of the day, that will remains indiscernible. Foreign spies have few good leads on the mind of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Moreover, just how much power behind his throne lies with the military leadership is unclear. If the generals are really calling the shots, as some suspect, they may prove themselves to be more pragmatic than ideological. Or they may not.

We won't know until we know. And if that Rumsfeldian declaration reveals nothing, it's because this is one of the most uncertain moments in recent Middle Eastern history.

John Rapley is a research associate at the International Growth Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and rapley.john@gmail.com.