Israel Sees No Need to Attack Iran

"According to a senior figure in the Israeli Defence Force quoted in the Jerusalem Post, Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear bomb until 2008 at the earliest; 2012 is a more realistic date and experts believe that the current situation is insufficiently acute to warrant military action.

"The best-case scenario for Israel is that the negotiations between Iran and the European Union succeed," said Emily Landau, senior research associate at the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "And at the moment that is still the most likely possibility.

"If you look at the wording of every statement by Iran, they sound defiant but always include some sort of reference to the talks and the possibility of some sort of new initiative. As long as this sort of language continues, then a full-blown crisis can be avoided."

This would suit Israel, which backs the negotiations and wants to avoid turning the current crisis into a row between Iran and itself.

As long as international negotiators are taking the lead, Israel is happy to stay on the sidelines.

And there is one important factor at play: it is one of the Middle East's worst kept secrets that Israel has the nuclear bomb. Iran certainly knows this and it will have a clear deterrent effect.

The result is that Israel might not need to take pre-emptive military action against Iran - if only because Teheran would never use a nuclear weapon against Israel for fear of itself being attacked, and annihilated, by the Jewish state's nuclear arsenal."

- rest at LINK