THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 24, February 4, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PANETTA PREDICTS AN ISRAELI STRIKE ON IRAN
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
ISRAELI MILITARY ACTION AGAINST THE IRANIAN POLITICAL REGIME & ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM: THOUGHTS ON THE LIKELYHOOD
THAT ISRAEL WILL STRIKE IRAN IN APRIL, MAY, or JUNE, 2012
FULL STORY:
It's not every day that someone like the U.S. Secretary of Defense forecasts an ally's move, but this just happened when Leon Panetta said that he believes, in the
paraphrase of a Washington Post reporter, that "there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June." Thoughts on this unusual
statement:
It's a paraphrase: For delicate statements, top officials prefer indirection and written words. It offers wiggle room and reduces tensions. Asked whether he
disputed the Washington Post report, Panetta inscrutably stated:
"No, I'm just not commenting. What I think and what I view,
I consider that to be an area that belongs to me and nobody
else."
(Contrast this episode with Barack Obama talking about drones in front of the cameras, an indiscretion that won him trouble, including a lawsuit from the ACLU.)
It might be disinformation: In the mirror world of nuclear diplomacy, we on the outside have almost no way of discerning wheat from chaff. Panetta could be
sending a signal to Tehran, as opposed to telling the truth. The same applies to other news, be it assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists or sales of ordnance
to Israel. Wait a decade to learn what's really happening now.
Tehran is determined: Iran's supreme guide, Ali Khamene'i, again confirmed that nothing and no one will impede his regime from acquiring nuclear weapons,
announcing that "Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course." I believe him. Just as the North Korean regime allowed
its subject population to starve in the pursuit of nukes, so will the Iranians pay whatever the price.
Israel is also determined: The Israeli leadership looks back to the Holocaust and feels the weight of its responsibility. Commenting on those top-ranking military
personnel who disagree with him and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu about the Iranian nuclear danger, Israel's Minister of Defense Ehud Barak commented:
"It's good to have diversity in thinking and for people to voice
their opinions. But, at the end of the day, when the military
command looks up, it sees us — the Minister of Defense and
the Prime Minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the
sky above us."
U.S. presidential elections: Were the Israelis to attack Iran, Obama's response could have major electoral implications. Were he to approve or (especially) join in the
attack, he would scramble the elections to his advantage. Were he to condemn the Israelis, however, he would likely pay a price.
© Daniel Pipes 2012
Originally Published in National Review Online, February 4, 2012
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, February 4, 2012
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2012/02/panetta-predicts-an-israeli-strike-on-iran
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iran
Israel, Arabs, Muslims, & the Islamic Middle East -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict;
The State of Israel versus the Islamic "Republic" of Iran -- The State of Israel in War & Peace
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and President of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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