The Probability of An Israeli Strike Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities is Now Lower Than Low – Or Is It Not?

The Probability of An Israeli Strike Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities is Now Lower Than Low – Or Is It Not?
19th June 2009 ICSR Team
In FREErad!cals

Mossad Chief Meir Dagan said the other day that if the Iranian nuclear project has no technical glitches, and if Iran’s program does not malfunction in any way then the Iranians will have a bomb to launch ‘by 2014’. And I wonder: ‘2014’? You guys have promised us that the Iranian will be ready with their bomb by ‘late 1990s’, ‘the beginning of this decade’, ‘2009-2010’ and now you are telling us ‘by 2014’?

Well, if you are not going to change your mind again and you stick to this date, then clearly by 2014 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not be in office nor, I suspect, his boss, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose health is not great.

And given that recent opinion polls show that only one in five Israeli Jews believes a nuclear-armed Iran would try to destroy Israel (thus no pressure on the government to act) then the conclusion is simple: The probability that Israel would use military force to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities in the near future is lower than low.

Well, perhaps I should be more careful. The words ‘lower than low’ were used in Israel back in October 1973 in reference to the probability of an Egyptian attack on Israel. The rest, of course, is history.

Want to stay updated about ICSR’s work? Sign up to our mailing list here.