Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't need Joe Biden's permission or approval to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure. But as a supposed ally of Israel, it would have been nice if Biden followed through on his promise to "have Israel's back" if, as it now appears, Netanyahu is planning to do so.
Economic Times reports a senior analyst for defense strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that “Israel is likely eyeing Iran’s nuclear facilities." If Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon, it will shortly.
But at almost every turn since the early days of the war against Hamas, Biden has either actively opposed Israel's plans or criticized them. He has threatened to withhold military aid from Israel and even suggested we wouldn't have Israel's back at the UN.
Iran Watch reports that within one week, Iran could have enough highly enriched (HE) uranium to make five bombs.
For that uranium to pose a nuclear weapon threat, however, it would have to be processed further, and the other components of a successful weapon would have to be ready to receive the processed uranium. Weaponization activities could take anywhere from several months to a year or more, although the timeframe is uncertain. Some of these activities could be done in parallel with the fissile material production and could take place on a laboratory scale, which would make them difficult to detect.
Since there have been no UN cameras in any nuclear site Iran is using, it could already have been weaponizing the enriched uranium and we'd never know it.
The conflict with Iran has been escalating all day on Wednesday. Israel announced that eight soldiers were killed in firefights with Hezbollah fighters while the Israeli air force continues to pound Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.
Netanyahu appears to have sloughed off American restraints and now believes himself free to take care of Iran in his own way.
But he's not going to have the United States support to attack Iran's nuclear sites.
President Biden said Wednesday that he opposes a possible preemptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program sites as tensions between the countries grow.
“The answer is no,” the 81-year-old retiring president told reporters under the wing of Air Force One as he departed Washington for a trip to North Carolina to tour Hurricane Helene damage.
Iran on Tuesday directly attacked Israel for a second time this year — launching some 200 rockets that reportedly did little damage and caused no known Israeli casualties.
What makes that "no" so unserious is that since shortly before the turn of this century, the U.S. has been threatening Iran to back off building a nuclear weapon, suggesting that we'd be willing to use force to stop it. This has been U.S. policy ever since we found Iran cooperating with North Korea and Russia to build nuclear weapons in the 1990s.
The world cannot abide a nuclear Iran. It doesn't get any simpler than that. It's an unstable regime run by religious fanatics who follow an apocalyptic vision of Islam.
This is why I believe both Russia and China will not join Iran in any war against Israel. They don't want the Iranians to possess the ultimate answer to insulting the prophet any more than Israel does.
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