The Bluff Game: Why the US and Israel will not attack Iran

For the past few years, the relationship between the United States and Iran has been tense to say the least. Bush has been full of hostile rhetoric indicating that Iran is a threat that must be dealt with. When asked about Iran, Bush has been very discreet about how he plans on dealing with the country while holding that the option of air strikes remains on the table. Israel has not been much friendlier to the Iranian regime. While sounding seemingly less hostile towards Iran than Bush has been, some prominent Israelis are also provoking threats to Iran. Netanyahu, a prominent leader of the conservative Likud party and a frontrunner to replace Olmert as the next Prime Minister of Israel has expressed feelings of aggression towards Iran and some of his support has come as a result.

From the perspective of the West, Iran has been perceived as a country that disregards international law, offers few rights to women, suppresses beliefs in opposition with the dominant regime, and, with the help of Russia, has been working on its Bushehr nuclear reactor. While both the United States and Israel would like to see an Iranian democracy that is open about its nuclear ambitions, both countries know that an attack on Iran would spell out political suicide. There are a few hard facts that political leaders are confronted with that are unknown to the average person. While I might have been convinced that Bush was truly planning an attack on Iran a year ago, recent events prohibit such a possibility. In December 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report surveyed Iran and concluded that not only was Iran not a nuclear threat, but even if Iran were to work on developing a bomb at full capacity, it would probably not even be able to weaponize its fissile materials until 2015. Several years ago, Bush attacked Iraq by arguing that Iraq had WMD with a strong nuclear program. Whereas in Iraq it took intervention to realize Iraq was not a threat, in Iran, Bush already knows Iran poses no WMD threat. If attacking Iraq wasn't bad enough, attacking Iran would be far worse. Thus, post-NIE, it is inconceivable that current or future leaders from either the United States or Israel are planning an attack on Iran.

Additionally, Israel is currently in an unusual state in the international arena when it comes to its display of hard power. Israel has maintained a status of nuclear ambiguity in the Middle East in that Israel has not been willing to disclose whether it has nuclear weapons or not. As crazy as this may sound, Israel's ambiguous posture has been successful in preventing large-scale conflict from arising in the Middle East. In the Middle East, the alliances of the United States are shady at best…except for Israel. Israel is the United States' largest ally in the region and if either Israel or the United States were to launch an attack on Iran, the other would likely get blamed. Due to Israel's close proximity to Iran coupled with the fact that Israel neighbors countries that are not exactly best buddies with Israel, it is safe to say Israel would be the first one to suffer from retaliation if either the United States or Iran launched a strike on Iran. Sooner or later the cat will be out of the bag, and Israel's nuclear ambiguity will be no more.

Simply by looking at the immediate aftermath of a war with Iran spells out trouble. There is no reason to believe rogue nations such as Syria or Jordan would stay silent if they notice Iran gets militarily targeted by enemies. An attack on Iran will provide Middle Eastern countries that loathe Israel with an excuse to try and wipe Israel off the map. Even a small risk of a full-scale Middle Eastern conflict is something that anyone should seek to avoid, and a strike on Iran seems to provide the likely catalyst for such a war. So while the United States and Israel may flex their muscles all they want, bet your money that neither will throw a punch.