Obama leaks: US presents Israel with Iran strike plan; Romney to Netanyahu: Whatever you want is fine
We have another apparent leak from the Obama administration, with Haaretz reporting (behind a paywall) that the United States has presented Israel with contingency plans for striking Iran.The Haaretz daily says National Security Adviser Tom Donilon sought to reassure Israel that Washington is prepared to act military should diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program.Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney told Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will support any action Israel wants to take against Iran.
Haaretz said Sunday that Donilon detailed the plans to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a visit to Israel earlier this month.
An Israeli government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. A U.S. Embassy spokesman couldn’t be reached.
"If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision," Romney's senior national security aide Dan Senor told reporters travelling with the candidate.Hmmm.
The comment made ahead of Romney's planned meetings in Jerusalem with Israeli leaders seemed to differ with attempts by President Barack Obama to convince Israel to avoid any preemptive attack and let a regimen of international sanctions squeeze Iran's economy until it agrees to nuclear concessions.
...
In excepts of a speech Romney was to deliver on Monday evening, the former Massachusetts governor planned to say that an aggressive approach to Tehran was needed to protect against a threat to the very existence of Israel, the closest U.S. ally in the turbulent Middle East.
"When Iran's leaders deny the Holocaust or speak of wiping this nation off the map, only the naïve - or worse - will dismiss it as an excess of rhetoric," he would say. "Make no mistake: the ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defences. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way."
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Mitt Romney
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:39 PM
2 Comments:
Color me cynical, but hasn't Obama's gang been trying for months to forestall an Israeli operation against Iran's nuclear program? And now Obama has finally come up with an operational plan? After the negotiations with Iran have ended, and without explicitly painting any red lines and consequences to Iran?
I don't know whether the report is accurate. But I doubt very much that the intent is what this report says it is.
OF COURSE there has been an operational plan developed to attack Iran! There is also one to attack Canada, and/or Mexico, Cuba, the UK, or any other country in the world - it is what military general staff members do for a living!
One of the responsibilities of the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (in conjunction w/the War Colleges) is to maintain a library of war plans for ANY conceivable military operation. They are updated as necessary to reflect changes in weaponry, military doctrine, political/economic changes, & etc. For example, the WW2 Pacific Campaign started out as "Case Orange" (invasion of Japanese Empire whilst they opposed the US, UK, China, France, and Netherlands, but not Russia).
It originally didn't include heavy, long-range, strategic bombers, or envision the total dominance of naval aviation (much less atomic weapons). The General Staff had to make major revisions to accommodate the effect on military doctrine of the "Essex" class fleet aircraft carrier, the B-29 bomber, and atomic bombs.
I dare say that while all of these plans are periodically reviewed, those for attack scenarios vs Iran have been re-reviewed and updated to the point of reflecting which Carrier Strike Groups are currently in the region, and how much fuel is in the bunkers at 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain!
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