This is something I thought would have been done back in 2008.
Trump Team Weighs Options, Including Airstrikes, to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Program https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-iran-plan-nuclear-weapons-def26f1d President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options for stopping Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon, including the possibility of preventive airstrikes, a move that would break with the longstanding policy of containing Tehran with diplomacy and sanctions.
The military-strike option against nuclear facilities is now under more serious review by some members of his transition team, who are weighing the fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad—Tehran’s ally—in Syria, the future of U.S. troops in the region, and Israel’s decimation of regime proxy militias Hezbollah and Hamas. Iran’s weakened regional position and recent revelations of Tehran’s burgeoning nuclear work have turbocharged sensitive internal discussions, transition officials said. All deliberation on the issue, however, remains in the early stages.
Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent calls that he is concerned about an Iranian nuclear breakout on his watch, two people familiar with their conversations said, signaling he is looking for proposals to prevent that outcome. The president-elect wants plans that stop short of igniting a new war, particularly one that could pull in the U.S. military, as strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities have the potential put the U.S. and Iran on a collision course.
Hmm, I wonder if there if this could be avoided by getting all the players together e.g. Saudi Arabia, Russia, US, Israel, and cutting a deal that Iran would give up all of its highly enriched uranium, agree to give up its advanced centrifuges, agree to build no more reactors, and agree to inspections with only 24 hours notice?
I guess that would mean we couldn’t bomb them, so that’s a non-starter for us.
I thought the rest of the world was not our problem?
Why would an administration bomb a sovereign country to stop them from developing nukes when so many other countries have them? Even some of his best buds have nukes.
I thought the next Admin was going to keep us out of these foreign wars?
Donald Trump at a rally in Michigan, on the Friday before the election. “I am the candidate of peace.” In a typically ridiculous rhetorical flourish, Trump added: “I am peace.”
Maybe. Looking at the current situation in the mideast, things have changed this year. Israel has destroyed the Shi’ite Crescent which was Iran’s regional strategy. Syria no longer has any air defenses or radars to warn Iran, and Israel pretty much wiped out Iranian air defenses. Iran stands naked.
The bad side is that Iran now has more incentive to go nuclear. The West has to stop them or provide enough disincentives to get them to stop. This current “leak” may be intended to do that; something similar happened under Obama back in 2011.
Now that Israel has shredded Iran’s defenses, Iran has to either a) have a massive expansion of conventional force to counteract the combined militaries of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia or b) go nuclear. The mullahs can’t afford option A and have already funded option B.
So, the leak is a message to Iran that the gloves have been removed and the US would support a wide range of Israeli strategies for dealing with Iran. Tehran could afford to scoff at the idea that Obama would bomb Iran, but they can’t afford to laugh off a threat from TIG
I don’t believe that. What evidence do you have that TIG would ever attack anyone, other than a couple of missile strikes, which every President does, there isn’t any evidence.
Iran feeds the narrative of the “Islamic boogyman”, a bipartisan favorite scapegoat. Remember TFG’s “muslim ban”?
So Israel is given the green light to bomb anything it wants in Iran. Iran launches a counterstrike, and the US extends it’s air cover over Israel, from the 6th fleet, to help insure that counterstrike is as ineffective as the previous ones. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I believe the threat to Iran’s nuclear program is not directly from the US, but that TIG would, as I wrote, “support a wide range of Israeli strategies” including attacks on Natanz.
Remember, how TIG took a bunch of classified documents with him to Mar a Lago? Those documents included the US war plans for attacking Iran. TIG enjoyed showing them to visitors and was even recorded (with TIG’s permission by an author who was working on a book) discussing with the plans with visitors. The issue was that TIG had wanted to invade Iran, but was discouraged from doing so by then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. TIG claimed the plans proved an attack was feasible.
TIG later said on Truth Social that Milley is a traitor and should be put to death, and recently said that Hitler had better generals. There is clearly a grudge here, and TIG is looking to settle some old scores.
I’d say there is a 100% chance TIG will attack Iran, very possibly involving US troops on the ground.
SA and Iran are rivals. One gets nukes so will the other.
Three or four go off in the future and a month later your life will be over. Do you like those odds? Why would you take that bet?
The two governments have decent people who love their families running the countries. But neither of them has stable long-term democracies that MIGHT be able to not use them later under a different leadership.
Iran inches further and further talks become an excuse to let it happen. Then SA will have them quickly. Talks won’t matter.
“Long term democracies” is no guarantee of anything. As we have seen, South Korea had a duly elected leader who declared martial law because he didn’t like what the opposition was doing to stymie him. Every democracy at times faces anti-democratic forces, we have Andrew Jackson who refused to abide a Supreme Court decision, and our current situation invites speculation for obvious reasons.
My biggest fear with nukes in the Middle East is that they are all Abrahamic religiously based, and each has a doomsday mentality not far enough removed from life as to make it unthinkable. The cartoons of the sandwich-board guy saying “The End Is Near” is more appropo to these cults (including many in our own society). If one of those gets hold of it, well, they have the after-life to look forward to.
It’s been whispered all along that Israel would attack Iran when they were close to a bomb. Having TIG support has never been a factor. In fact having the United States support was never a factor. The only way Trump would get any credit, from credible sources, is if the United States was fully involved in the Attack with their own assets. Which Trump has said he would never do.