 Israelis elected to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, should be executed if they had held talks with Hamas members of the Palestinian authority.
Even the New York Times, known for its strong support for Israel, warned in an editorial a week ago that Lieberman was "the wrong partner" in an Israeli coalition. His inclusion, the paper argued, made any arrangement with the Palestinians difficult, if not impossible. "Creating new obstacles to peace with the Palestinians is the last thing Israel needs after the Lebanon fiasco."
Strategic analysts have noticed anti-Iran noises coming from the beleaguered White House, too. "It's the same sort of language we heard in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq," one Washington insider told me. A London correspondent favoured by the Bush-Blair circle said, "It's clear that Bush will not dream of leaving office under the suspicion that he allowed Iran to get nuclear weapons on his watch. He will act, and will feel uninhibited after the mid-term elections."
The practicalities of bombing Iran's nuclear |
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| Not only would a pre-emptive strike on Iran miss more than it hit - it would invite immediate and devastating retaliation |
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installations are quite another thing, according to serious analysts. Israel lacks the capability to hit in one blow all the places where weaponry is being developed; planes would need mid-air refuelling that only the Americans could provide; and some centres of nuclear energy production - Bushir, Natanz and Tehran itself - are heavily populated. Civilian casualties would be high.
There is an even more compelling reason why realists like General John Abizaid, US commander for the region, and former Secretary of State James Baker are counselling the hawks in Israel as well as Washington to cool it.
Not only would a pre-emptive strike on Iran miss more than it hit - it would invite immediate and devastating retaliation. The Revolutionary Guards could launch a global terrorist campaign and the Iranian Air Force could bomb the offshore gas installations stretching along the Gulf from Qatar. That would knock out 15 per cent of the world's natural gas supply at a stroke.
FIRST POSTED NOVEMBER 1, 2006
 US mid-terms: First Post Briefing
First Post coverage of the Lebanon conflict
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