Michael Burleigh est convaincu qu'Israël bombardera l'Iran bientôt

L'éminent historien britannique Michael Burleigh est convaincu qu'Israël, à bout de patience et face aux menaces, bombardera l'Iran dans les semaines prochaines.  Les conséquences seraient très graves.  Mais ne pas intervenir  a aussi ses dangers.  Une analyse très intéressante qui mérite d'être lue en entier.

Source (extraits): For months there have been international discussions about the threat a nuclear Iran would present - most notably to its avowed enemy, Israel, which Iran has vowed to 'erase from the map'. Aggressive, war-mongering rhetoric has been bubbling in Israel as a result. And seeing no signs that slow-burning international sanctions are effective, Israel is coming to the view it should no longer entrust others with its own security.

This summer has an ominous feel, like August 1914. In the Middle East, the Arab Spring has replaced several autocrats, not with Western-style liberals, but with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. The civil war raging in Syria is threatening to spill over into Lebanon and Jordan, and is really a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia to establish dominance over the region. [...]

Almost daily, the Iranians boast about new capabilities: high-powered speed boats — based on Britain’s 63mph Bradstone Challenger — designed to swarm enemy ships, and the upgraded Fateh-110 missile, which could hit U.S. bases and the two aircraft carrier groups massing in the Gulf.

In the event of an Israeli strike, Iran plans to use Hizbollah, the Shi’ite terror organisation in southern Lebanon, to hit back. Iranian weapons, including up to ten powerful Scud missiles, have been shipped via Syria to Hizbollah, which has an arsenal of more than 50,000 rockets capable of hitting much of Israel, many concealed in up to 100 fortified villages.

The Iranians also repeatedly trumpet their irrational hatred of Israel and Jews in general. Only last week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed Israel would soon ‘disappear’, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described it as ‘a cancerous tumour’.  Revealing further depths of anti-Semitic bile, Ahmadinejad averred that ‘Zionists . . . have been inflicting very heavy damage and suffering on the whole of humanity for over 2,000 years, especially during the last four centuries’. As Zionism came into being only just over a century ago, what he can only mean are ‘the Jews’.


Not surprisingly, levels of anxiety are exceptionally high in Israel, where a minister recently calculated that 500 civilians might die in up to 100 retaliatory attacks per day should Iran hit back against any Israeli attack.  Half the population has been equipped with gas masks, while a text messaging service has been tested that will alert specific areas about incoming rockets. Beneath the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, 60 parking spaces have been cleared for use as an emergency bomb shelter. [...]

But the threat to world peace is severe. Why Iran should want a bomb is obvious. Persia was once the hegemonic empire in the greater Middle East. Since 1979, when Iran’s Shah was overthrown, the country has been ruled by an Islamic Revolutionary government, which sees its world mission — rather like the old Communist China — to spread its hardline Shi’ite creed far and wide. It wants to be the big boy in its wider region, cowing Arab monarchs into doing its bidding. [...]

Ideally, Obama wants to leave the issue of how to deal with Iran until next year during his hoped-for second term as President. By contrast, the mood in Israel is much more bellicose.

The country’s leaders — Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak — believe that within months, Iran will have entered a ‘zone of immunity’ from Israeli air strikes. By then, the mullahs will have successfully moved their nuclear weapons equipment so deep underground that Israel will be unable to destroy it. Also, they believe that diplomacy and their favourite covert operations — sending Mossad agents to kill Iranian scientists or launching sophisticated cyber attacks — have reached their limits.

The logistics of an attack on Iran, though, are formidable. This is not like disabling one plant, as the Israelis did at Osirak in Iraq in 1981. Its F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers will have to fly three hours to reach multiple targets — which will stretch their limited air refueling fleet somewhere over Iraq, or Saudi Arabia, the latter of which has supposedly promised to switch off its air defence radars.
Israeli opinion is also heavily divided over an air attack. Voters would much prefer the U.S. to bring its awesome air power to bear.

Although Iran would undoubtedly still attack Israel in retaliation, only America has the power to spend weeks systematically degrading Iran’s air defences and pulverising its entire defence sector.

One also easily forgets that the U.S. navy and strategic bomber force have been sitting out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and may also be itching to explore capabilities that one day might be needed against China in the Pacific.  Since the Iranians are rash enough to lash out at U.S. assets in the Gulf, such a response might be among the Israeli government’s secret calculations.

For many in Israel’s military and intelligence establishment believe that the country’s leaders are acting ‘hysterically’ and that a series of ineffective attacks will only spur Iran to try harder to acquire a nuclear weapon. They also point out that Israel will forfeit any moral high ground it possesses while becoming an international pariah if it attacks Iran.

But I am increasingly convinced that nothing will stop Israel. Shortly before the U.S. elections, and most likely in October, I believe Israel will launch air strikes on Iran.

The Iranian people won’t realise what has happened until the F-15s and F-16s have long departed Israeli airspace. And I wouldn’t be surprised, either, if Israel made pre-emptive strikes against Hizbollah to take out Iran’s means of retaliation.

The chilling prospect we face is that such an act of aggression risks turning into a Middle East conflict that would unite every regime in that volatile region in yet another — and this time uncontrollable — war.

MICHAEL BURLEIGH is the author of Blood & Rage: A Cultural History Of Terrorism