Israel Matzav

Report: Arab countries pushing US to strike Iran by year's end

Desperate for Iran to be stopped, and perhaps fearful of being seen as even passively supporting a strike by Israel, several Arab countries are pressuring the United States to strike Iran before year's end.

Newly acquired intelligence reports indicate several Arab countries in the Middle East are lobbying the US to strike Iran this year, Israel's Channel 10 reported.

According to the report, which is said to be making its rounds in Britain's political circles, Saudi Arabia wants the Obama administration to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the final withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

US president has vowed to close the door on American military involvement in Iraq by year’s end, but Riyadh is reportedly afraid Iran will use the American exit to take over the country.

Since 2008, officials in the Iraqi interim government have complained to Washington that both Iran and Saudi Arabia were, respectively, funding the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies that have plagued the country since the US-led invasion that toppled late dictator Sadam Hussein.

Security experts say Baghdad's security forces are unprepared to confront the rival insurgencies that hold Iraq in their grip - and that Obama's dogged drive to fulfill his campaign promise may have disastrous consequences both for the region and US interests.

It's no secret that the Gulf countries - especially the Saudis - want the US to strike Iran. Wikileaks told us that. But the Saudis are even more deathly scared of being seen as backing Israel than they are of an Iranian nuclear weapon. That's why they're pushing the US to do the job.

One has to wonder whether one of the reasons Obama is pushing for the withdrawal from Iraq is to get US troops out of harm's way before a spring or summer assault on Iran's nuclear weapons program, whether that assault is by the US or Israel (and I believe that if there is no US assault by the summer, there will be an Israeli one - Israel cannot allow Iran to move its entire nuclear development program to underground bunkers without responding).

But I don't see the Obama administration doing this - certainly not in the winter. It's already been colder than normal in these parts (our temperatures this weekend are January temperatures) and there have been significant rains this week. The winter is already here, and a strike in the winter is much more difficult. On top of that, Obama is known to oppose a strike, and that's why we keep hearing doomsday scenarios from his Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta.

At this point, I don't believe anything will happen before the spring. It's possible if the weather gets clearer in January or February that Israel will go for it once the US has withdrawn from Iraq. But other than that, I don't expect anything to happen before late March.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iranian nuclear threat, Iraq, our friends the Saudis

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:24 PM