NY TIMES OP-ED CLAIMS ISRAEL WILL ALMOST SURELY ATTACK IRAN

Just when I thought things were improving between the Bush regime and Iran, out comes an op-ed today in The New York Times by Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University. Morris says that Israel will almost certainly attack Iran in the next four to seven months.
Writes Morris:

"Israel will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war — either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb."

Everything about Morris's assertions is open to disbelief and doubt. Apart from the near certainty of an Israeli attack which is not that certain, consider some of Morris's other wild claims:

• Teheran is almost every day making threats to wipe Israel off the map - ". . . Israel — the country threatened almost daily with destruction by Iran’s leaders."
• Most Israelis fear that their country's life is at stake - "Nonetheless, Israel, believing that its very existence is at stake — and this is a feeling shared by most Israelis across the political spectrum — . . ."
• Every intelligence agency around the world believes that Iran is intent on making nuclear weapons - "Every intelligence agency in the world believes the Iranian program is geared toward making weapons, not to the peaceful applications of nuclear power."
• There is no diplomatic solution but only one option available - the military one - "Which leaves the world with only one option if it wishes to halt Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry: the military option, meaning an aerial assault by either the United States or Israel."
• The current leaders of Iran are not rational - "Given the fundamentalist, self-sacrificial mindset of the mullahs who run Iran, Israel knows that deterrence may not work as well as it did with the comparatively rational men who ran the Kremlin and White House during the cold war."

Everyone of these reckless statements by Morris is based on conjecture and fear-mongering. Even if Ahmadinejad did say that Iran should wipe Israel off the map (something, he did not at all say, but only that he predicted the Israeli government would topple), are words enough to start a war, much less a nuclear conflagration? Would your kid be justified in beating up another kid for calling his mother a bad name? Since when does a country attack another for mere words?

Second. Morris should show which public opinion polls show most Israelis fearing their very survival because of Iran. Where are the poll numbers? What are the poll questions?

Third. Not every intelligence agency believes that Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons. Consider the National Intelligence Estimate released last December that said that Iran had given up such plans back in 2002. Furthermore, Morris, if he is so sure, should have listed the agencies that believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons.

Four. Morris minimizes a diplomatic solution. How like Bush and Cheney he sounds. We have seen how effective the military option is in Iraq and Afghanistan. And how about the Israel fiasco in Lebanon against Hezbollah and in Gaza against Hamas?

And finally, Morris demeans and belittle Iran's leaders by saying that they are not as rational as the leaders in Washington or Moscow. The Iranians seem very rational to me. Having seen what the U.S. did to Iraq over the last five years, would it be irrational for the Iranians not to want a nuclear weapon as protection from the militaristic Americans and their Israeli allies?

Benny Morris sounds like another neo-con war monger, a brother militarist to John Bolton and David Addington. The false assumptions and bad judgments in his article will not stand.