The first link below, citing a Los Angeles Times story, reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has defied President Obama’s strident demands that the Israeli government cease building settlements in what is called either the West Bank or Samaria and Judea, dependent on one’s point of view. Given the full-court press that Obama has put on the Israelis to stop all such settlements, Netanyahu’s action is very telling, indeed. The story states that “US officials had hoped that Netanyahu would yield to the popular new American President” on the settlements issue. This story is apparently living in the past. Obama is still a “new” American president, but he is no longer a “popular” one. American polls have shown that a majority of American voters oppose his “Obamacare health care revision” and Obama’s overall popularity has dropped quickly from a very high mark to barely 50% of American voters. Obama’s plunging poll numbers may have strengthened Netanyahu’s willingness to say “No” to Obama’s demands.
Obama’s intensely pro-Palestinian positions have always seemed odd given that the Palestinians celebrated when America was hit on 9/11, and there is no indication that the Palestinians are at all friendly to American interests. Since polls have consistently shown huge majorities of American voters favor the Israelis over the Palestinians, Obama’s harsh anti-Israeli positions also threaten to lower his standing with American voters even further.
In a related issue, America’s intelligence estimates now seem to have agreed that Israeli intelligence estimates re: Iran’s nuclear program were correct all along. According to the BBC (see second link), the US representative to the IAEA has acknowledged that “Iran was nearly or already in possession of enough low-enriched uranium to produce a [nuclear] bomb.” This is a dramatic reversal from the previous American assessment that the Iranians were a year or more away from developing nuclear bombs. This development adds urgency to the need for the Israelis, the Americans and their allies to take military action to stop Iran’s nuclear bomb from being built and deployed. If Iran deploys a nuclear bomb and uses it against Israeli targets, a larger nuclear war in the Mideast is certain. The Israelis will kill innumerable Iranians in their own nuclear response against Iran if Iran attacks the Israelis with a nuclear bomb. I think the world realizes this reality, and sees the need for Iran’s nuclear program to be stopped to prevent a nuclear war from occurring.
If the Israelis, Americans or others do strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a Mideast war with conventional weapons may be inevitable. However, a conventional war is preferable to a nuclear one. The third link below, from the World Tribune, reminds us that Iran has threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz if it is attacked. Iran’s intention would be to “cut off oil supplies to Asia, Europe and the U.S.” If war breaks out, oil tankers would be sitting ducks for Iranian missiles, and I expect Iran’s missiles would also be fired at American and western warships in both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The link reports that Iran is expected to have 300 subsonic cruise missiles with which it can attack shipping in the Persian Gulf. Obviously, if the Israelis or Americans hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, it will be necessary to also strike Iran’s missile-launching sites at the same time to prevent Iran from sinking oil tankers and creating an instant crisis in world energy prices. What the third link’s analysis leaves out is a discussion of whether Russia or China (Iran’s allies in the prophesied Ezekiel 37-38 Gog-Magog alliance) have secretly supplied Iran with new supersonic Sizzler cruise missiles (made by Russia but also furnished to China as my previous blogs have documented). If Iran has some supersonic cruise missiles in its inventory, it is likely to fire them at any American aircraft carriers or warships. If they do, that is when we will learn if the American fleet has been furnished with defensive systems against supersonic cruise missiles. It will be a debacle for the Obama administration if any Iranian missiles sink US warships.
If an Israeli or American attack is delayed until the winter months, any Iranian success in sinking oil tankers will have a much-worse effect because Europe, Japan and North America will need much more energy for heating purposes during the winter months. If any attack vs. Iran is going to take place, it would make much more sense to do it in the Autumn months when energy/heating needs are not at their peak.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/09/05/20090905a8-main.html
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8246110.stm?ad=1
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/me_iran0714_09_09.asp
