Gary Sick, responding to the question in the headline, writes: The real answer is no, they will not. But you would never figure that out by reading the New York Times.
The sensationalist article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine (Jan. 29) adds to the hysteria surrounding U.S. and Israeli relations with Iran. Ronen Bergman, a columnist with the leading Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, concludes that Israel will probably attack Iran this year.
He draws this fearful conclusion after recounting his discussions with key Israeli military and intelligence officials, present and former, who describe to him in great detail: (1) why Israel is incapable of conducting such an attack; (2) why such a foolhardy action would fail to stop Iran’s nuclear program; and (3) why it would actually leave the situation far worse than it is now.
Say what?
Not only is his conclusion at odds with virtually everything he produces as evidence, but there are some omissions in his analysis that regrettably have become predictably routine in talking about the Iranian nuclear program:
He darkly quotes “the latest intelligence” about the number and current activity of Iran’s centrifuges. Where did he get that secret information? Well, just like you or me, he can read the periodic reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which are published on the web virtually the same day they are handed to member states.
How did the IAEA get that “intelligence?” Not hard: they have inspectors in all the sites where Iran is producing enriched uranium. These inspectors, who make frequent surprise visits, keep cameras in place to watch every move, and they carefully measure Iran’s input of feed stock to the centrifuges and the output of low enriched uranium, which is then placed under seal. You would think that would be worth mentioning, at least in passing, but it gets overlooked by virtually every journalist writing on this subject.
And why wouldn’t it get overlooked? It would then make the whole thing out to be what it is, a hoax, just another sick extension of the Israeli leadership, in its quest to run the show. They can’t really lead any other way then they do now. After all, they are masters at looting other peoples moneys, just like the common thief. Corruption is the name of their game. They sell out their own people, divide their own people, indoctrinate their own people, all in drawing attention away from what they really are/do/etc. It’s not the common Israeli who is crooked, it’s the leadership. The question that everyone should be asking: “will the leadership blow up the M.E. when there is no more room to run”?
damn norman. when i read your post i actually thought that you were talking about the us. at least until i got to israel. what can i say. what can i say. breid