THE IMPENDING STORM

By Simon Fischler 

I’m not one for predicting doom, certainly not when it comes to the fate of Israel.

On the other hand Israel never before has been confronted by a doom-inspiring American President who so egregiously distorts the term “Ally” when it comes to aiding the Jewish State.

Take the impending storm launched at Teheran as Exhibit A.

Iran is speeding towards nuclear armament; there’s no question about that. The question is clear -- will the ayatollahs have a bomb tomorrow the next day or next month?

No one knows for certain how far along that evil empire has progressed on its nuclear journey toward eventual Islamic dominance!

Leon Panetta, the White House Defense Secretary, certainly does not know although he absurdly claims that he does. Nor do the usually reliable Israeli intelligence agencies. 

This is the frightening reality. Period!

The pervasive problem with intelligence is blatantly clear; it only goes so far. Most importantly, it is what a nation does with that knowledge after receiving it that counts! 

The Obama Administration constantly has proven how poorly it understands Middle-Eastern intelligence.  That helps explain the avoidable death of American Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya! 

Iran’s ally, Hezbollah, is in a weakened state. Meanwhile the combined Iranian-Hezbollah ally, Syria, is burning through a civil war conflagration with no end in sight. 

Through this whole ugly mess, the Obama Administration sits and waits.

But for what?

If anything, Washington has been betraying one of the most ineffectual American foreign policies in world history! 

What better evidence than the fact that Jihadists have infiltrated the Syrian conflict because of American indolence.

Along with Jihadists fighting alongside the Sunni Muslim rebels, Iran and Hezbollah  acknowledge putting boots on the ground to militarily prop up the Assad regime.  

(Also, consider Russian/Chinese support for Assad. You can bet that Hosni Mubarak would have welcomed such bolstering from his American Brutus, Obama).

Every nation with a significant stake in the Middle East’s future has joined this Syrian poker game with one exception, the Good, Old, USA -- the country that most needs to be involved. 

With those situations in mind, what options does Israel possess?

SIMULTANEOUS PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST HEZBOLLAH AND IRAN!

That might sound like irrational, military adventurism yet it would be right out of the book of one of the greatest armies in modern history! The IDF of the 1950s and 1960s. 

It’s evident that Israel cannot count on America. The Obama Administration has nothing close to what is needed vis-a-vis Iran, Hezbollah and Syria! 

Furthermore Israel has history to help determine its actions.

American President Dwight Eisenhower promised Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion that America and its Western allies would force open the Straights of Tiran if Egypt tried to blockade them to Israeli shipping. 

This promise was given to Ben-Gurion after America nudged Israel out of the Sinai Peninsula right after it crushed Egypt in the Sinai Campaign of 1956! 

This fallacy of that American promise was underlined when Gamal Abdel Nassar kicked United Nation peacekeepers out of the Sinai in 1967. 

This led to an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Egypt and Syria and what we now call the Six Day War. 

In June 1981, Israel was ignored by a world refusing to handle Saddam Hussein and his hopes for nuclear weaponry therefore, Israel carried out Operation Opera; successfully destroying the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak! 

Fast forward to August 2007. 

Israeli intelligence hands over hard evidence collected by Israeli special forces of a Syrian Nuclear reactor built almost identically to that of North Koreas Plutonium Reactor (clearly not for peaceful use in North Korea). Some pictures of the reactor collected by the Israeli special forces had North Korean scientists in them!  

One would have believed that Uncle Sam, orchestrated by a relatively friendly-to-Israel Bush regime would bomb the Syrian reactor! 

No way.

Hence, Israel’s Operation Orchard, carried out September 6, 2007, destroying the Nuclear reactor completely.

One pervasive issue comes to mind: Israel must do what it has to when it comes to ensuring its survival and that of the Jewish Nation.

It never can become a South Korea or South Vietnam which depends on America to do its fighting! 

Israel’s survival depends on deterrence. 

Now more than ever Benjamin Netanyahu must approve a strike at Iran and Hezbollah.

Such a pre-emptive move would accomplish plenty for the civilized world.

It also would remind Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of the Sunni Jihadists that Israel and the Jewish Nation are not to be trifled with!