Reuters reports: Israel’s “go-it-alone” option to attack Iran’s nuclear sites has set the Middle East on edge and unsettled its main ally at the height of a U.S. presidential election campaign.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exudes impatience, saying Tehran is barely a year from a “red line” for atomic capacity. Many fellow Israelis, however, fear a unilateral strike, lacking U.S. forces, would fail against such a large and distant enemy.

But what if, even without Washington, Israel were not alone?

Azerbaijan, the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic on Iran’s far northern border, has, say local sources with knowledge of its military policy, explored with Israel how Azeri air bases and spy drones might help Israeli jets pull off a long-range attack.

That is a far cry from the massive firepower and diplomatic cover that Netanyahu wants from Washington. But, by addressing key weaknesses in any Israeli war plan – notably on refueling, reconnaissance and rescuing crews – such an alliance might tilt Israeli thinking on the feasibility of acting without U.S. help.

It could also have violent side-effects more widely and many doubt Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would risk harming the energy industry on which his wealth depends, or provoking Islamists who dream of toppling his dynasty, in pursuit of favor from Israel.

Yet despite official denials by Azerbaijan and Israel, two Azeri former military officers with links to serving personnel and two Russian intelligence sources all told Reuters that Azerbaijan and Israel have been looking at how Azeri bases and intelligence could serve in a possible strike on Iran. [Continue reading…]

When Mark Perry broke this story in March this year, the White House swiftly denied that the administration had leaked any such information and at least one commentator in Israel dismissed its plausibility. An Azerbaijani diplomat also described the story as “fiction.” The denials followed the same tack: to try and cast as much doubt on the messenger as the message — which suggested then (and now, since the sources are different) that the story is not baseless.

FAREED ZAKARIA: You have indicated that you think that the Israeli prime minister’s threats toward Iran are ones you don’t take very seriously. But I was wondering how seriously you take the rhetoric of the president of the United States. President Obama said at the United Nations that he was determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Do you regard that as a bluff?

PRESIDENT MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRAN (through translator): You set forth two or three questions here. I have never used the word bluff. When we say we do not take it seriously, we mean that it impacts — it does not impact our policies in the slightest. Iran is a vast country. It’s a great country. Let’s assume a few terrorists come and assassinate some of our officials. Will the country be damaged? No. A couple of bombs would be set to explode. Will the country be destroyed? No. We see the Zionist regime at the same level of the bombers and criminals and the terrorists. And even if they do something — even if they do something, hypothetically, it will not affect us fundamentally. But vis-a-vis the expressions of the president of the United States, because I do not wish to speak in any way about anything that may be interpreted as meddling or interfering in America’s domestic or electoral affairs — but perhaps myself — compared to everyone else in the world, I am perhaps much more keen than anyone else not only that there will be no more production of nuclear bombs around the world, that even those that exist today would be eliminated.

ZAKARIA: If there were an Israeli strike on Iran, there are other senior Iranians who have said things that are much more forceful about how Iran would respond. And they seem to take it very seriously. The head of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammed Ali Jafri, said that in response to Israeli strike, Iran would strike back with missiles. And I think he says nothing will remain of Israeli. I don’t think any spot would remain safe. Is that also your view of what the nature of Iranian retaliation would be?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): I — understand this: that Iranians never start a war unprovoked, never start a war, period. But if they are attacked, they defend themselves very well, quite well. And no one throughout her history has been able to gain and come out on top from an attack on Iran.

ZAKARIA: President Ahmadinejad, you said in a couple of your interviews that you don’t really think much is going to happen on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, until after the American election. What do you think will happen after the elections? Do you expect that at that point there will be a new proposal from the major powers? Or do you think Iran will present another proposal?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): As you touched upon, yes, during a couple of interviews, yes, I did speak of this. I think, at the end of the day, that the decision making vis-a-vis Iran’s nuclear issue with Five Plus One is a very important decision. And it is one of the most — and one of the most important players in the Five Plus One equation is America. But we have seen during many years that as we approach the United States presidential elections, no important decisions are made. Also keep it in mind that certainly following the election, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable. And important decisions can be made and announced. We have set forth proposals. We are holding dialogue. And, as of late, Mr. Jalili and Ms. Ashton have had productive talks. And we do hope to be able to take some steps forward.

* * *

ZAKARIA: Mr. President, let me ask you a question about human life. You spoke a great deal while you were here in New York about the value you place on human life. Every life is important, you say. The government of Syria has, by all accounts, killed about 20,000 people. About 250,000 Syrians, men, women and children, have fled the country. And 1.2 million Syrians have been displaced within the country. Why will you not call on Bashar al-Assad to resign and leave the presidency of Syria?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Do you think that if we do such a thing, the problem will be resolved?

ZAKARIA: If you say that you care about human life, you should take a moral stand.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Yes, but do you think that if we make the request that you ask, the problem will be resolved? Not so. The problem of Syria is very complicated. And it requires a just and the right solution. And I’m truly sorry and saddened not only in Syria, but anywhere in the world, from any side, where there are people losing their lives. The opposition members, the Syrian Army, they’re all from Syria. They’re all the people of Syria. Why should they be killed? There can be two proposals and solutions for Syria. One is that of warfare. But there is also a second way of thinking, a national understanding. And I do believe that if both sides sit and reach an understanding on a free election, a national understanding on a free election, and follow — and become subservient to the choice of the people, every — all sides should accept the wish of the Syrian people. Therefore, we are standing up a contact group. And I do hope that they will have their first meeting and gathering here in New York City. Thereby, we can succeed in bringing both sides closer together, so they can reach an agreement for a political process. In my opinion, Syria has no military solution. And I think it is amply clear. I think my opinion is amply clear about Syria. I’ve said it 50 plus times thus far. We are on the side of the people. Everywhere we’re on the side of the people.

ZAKARIA: But the people are getting killed by the government. You keep saying you’re on the side of the people, and yet you support a government that is massacring its people.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): You mean that we should then enter the scene and provide arms, like other countries have, in order to — for the battling groups, in order for the war to continue? Is that your opinion?

ZAKARIA: No, my opinion is you should ask the Syrian government — for the president to step down, since he is presiding over a mass massacre.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): Well, we make all kinds of requests. We have announced it officially. Do you think with our request, things will come to an end?

ZAKARIA: You mentioned the contact group that you believe could be a path to a negotiated or diplomatic solution. And this is a group that is meant to be — include Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. But at the first meeting of the group, Saudi Arabia refused to attend and let it be known that the reason they would not attend is they will not sit down with Iran in the same room. How do you get over that obstacle?

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): This I hear from you for the first time.

ZAKARIA: I can tell you it based on my reporting. It’s true. You know it is a fact they didn’t attend the meeting.

AHMADINEJAD (through translator): This is something — what they have announced officially is that they have said that our minister of foreign affairs is ill.

(Rush transcript provided by CNN.)

William J Broad writes: Advocates of airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities have long held that the attacks would delay an atom bomb for years and perhaps even buy Israel enough time to topple the Iranian government. In public statements, the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, has said that an attack would leave Iran’s nuclear program reeling, if not destroyed. The blow, he declared recently, would set back the Iranian effort “for a long time.”

Quite the opposite, say a surprising number of scholars and military and arms-control experts. In reports, talks, articles and interviews, they argue that a strike could actually lead to Iran’s speeding up its efforts, ensuring the realization of a bomb and hastening its arrival.

“An attack would increase the likelihood,” Scott D. Sagan, a political scientist at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, said of an Iranian weapon.

The George W. Bush administration, it turns out, reached an even stronger conclusion in secret and rejected bombing as counterproductive.

The view among Mr. Bush’s top advisers, recalled Michael V. Hayden, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was that a strike “would drive them to do what we were trying to prevent.”

Those who warn against attacking Iran say that such a move would free officials in Tehran of many constraints. An attack, for instance, would all but certainly lead to the expulsion of international inspectors, which, in turn, would allow the government to undo hundreds of monitoring devices and safeguards, including seals on underground storage units. Further, an Iran permitted to present itself to the world as the victim of an attack would receive sympathy and perhaps vital imports from nations that once backed trade bans. The thinking also goes that a strike would allow Iran to further direct its economy to military ends.

Perhaps most notably, an attack could unite what is now a fractious state, these analysts say, and build an atmosphere of mobilizing rage. As the foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland wrote earlier this year, “It’s difficult to see a single action more likely to drive Iran into taking the final decision.”

History, the analysts say, demonstrates that airstrikes and military threats often result in unbending resolve among the beleaguered to do whatever it takes to acquire nuclear arms. [Continue reading…]

Mark Perry writes: While no one in the Barack Obama administration knows whether Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear program, America’s war planners are preparing for a wide array of potential Israeli military options — while also trying to limit the chances of the United States being drawn into a potentially bloody conflict in the Persian Gulf.

“U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing on Iran has been extraordinary and unprecedented,” a senior Pentagon war planner told me. “But when it comes to actually attacking Iran, what Israel won’t tell us is what they plan to do, or how they plan to do it. It’s their most closely guarded secret.” Israel’s refusal to share its plans has persisted despite repeated requests from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, a senior Pentagon civilian said.

The result is that, at a time of escalating public debate in both the United States and Israel around the possibility of an armed strike on Iran, high-level Pentagon war planners have had to “fly blind” in sketching out what Israel might do — and the challenges its actions will pose for the U.S. military. “What we do is a kind of reverse engineering,” the senior planner said. “We take a look at their [Israeli] assets and capabilities, put ourselves in their shoes and ask how we would act if we had what they have. So while we’re guessing, we have a pretty good idea of what they can and can’t do.”

According to several high-level U.S. military and civilian intelligence sources, U.S. Central Command and Pentagon war planners have concluded that there are at least three possible Israeli attack options, including a daring and extremely risky special operations raid on Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow — an “Iranian Entebbe” they call it, after Israel’s 1976 commando rescue of Israeli hostages held in Uganda. In that scenario, Israeli commandos would storm the complex, which houses many of Iran’s centrifuges; remove as much enriched uranium as they found or could carry; and plant explosives to destroy the facility on their way out. [Continue reading…]