Israel's plans to strike Iran's nuclear research facilities has been largely foiled because of a lack of support from the United States. Breaking Defense. Israel has long wanted to strike Iran's nuclear sites due to fears of a nuclear strike from the Islamic country. However, those plans would require long range fueling planes, which Israel does not have. They have tried to get the United States to lend them some planes for the operation but the Biden administration has refused. They also will not speed up the purchase of two KC-46A refueling planes, scheduled for delivery in 2023-2024. The Biden administration has been focusing on getting a new nuclear deal with Iran in place, but Israel has said that they would not tolerate a bad deal and would act to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. With a more traditional strike out of the question short term, it is assumed that Israel will continue their non-conventional "shadow war" against Iran.
My Comment:
I actually agree, somewhat, that war with Iran is not in our best interests at this time, even if it is just supporting Israeli air strikes. That would have a major effect on the economy, could damage relations with out other Middle Eastern allies and could start a larger regional conflict with Iranian sleeper cells being activated.
Plus, I don't really buy that Iran is close to creating a nuclear weapon. Much like Fusion power, it's always just a few years away but never seems to actually show up. I don't think Iran has competent scientists or the resources to pull a nuclear weapon off anytime soon.
But I am sure that the Israelis are seething about this. They currently do not have the capabilities to launch an attack against Iran through conventional means. And given the hardened conditions that these Iranian research labs are under it would be difficult if not impossible to do anything other than a conventional airstrike against them.
That of course requires refueling planes, which Israel does not have. Why they waited so long to purchase them is beyond me. You would think that would have been a priority for them years ago given that Iran is their major enemy in the region. But I guess not and now they are paying the price.
I don't see the United States offering up our refueling planes anytime soon. The Biden administration wants another stupid deal with Iran, that won't actually fix anything but will enrich the Iranian government. They want the status quo ante and they might even cite the reasons I wrote about above as reasons to avoid war with Iran.
Indeed, I wonder if these refueling planes will be delivered at all. After all, it seems clear that the planes are the only thing stopping the Israelis from starting a war. If the United States really doesn't want there to be a war with Iran they could stop it pretty easily if they just simply stopped the sale of these planes to Israel.
I have no doubt that Israel will see all of this as a betrayal but I don't see how much they can actually do about it. Israel's diplomatic power has been greatly exaggerated by people that hate the country and they can't actually order us to do anything. They might have some ways to get back at the Biden administration but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Israel's best option is to probably keep doing what they are doing. Their shadow war against Iran has been fairly successful. They have destroyed some labs, killed some scientists and slowed Iran's progress in the field of nuclear power. These actions are a lot harder to pull off than the airstrikes so that's why they are upset, but I think they can get most of what they want if they just keep doing what they are doing. And if not, they only have to wait until 2023 to get what they want anyways..
No comments:
Post a Comment