Going It Alone
When you're a minority nation in a majority region refused recognition of right of existence, a powerful patron can do much to restore hope become faint with daunting experience. In the light of Iran's continued program of uranium enrichment for the purpose of creating its own nuclear arsenal, and the country's president and its ayatollahs' determination to wrest the "Zionist entity" from the geography, Israel needs all the help it can get.Most countries strenuously resist the placement of foreign troops on their territory, invoking the inviolability of territorial integrity. Governments of most nations insist on their right to remain completely autonomous, irrespective of the assistance they ask from other nations. They will resist, and resent any incursions onto their territory, as an insult, an assault against their self-sufficiency.
The government of Israel, in facing up to the reality of the existential challenge that Iran represents to their little nation - particularly in view of the fact that they will receive no sympathy, no practical help from their neighbours, themselves nervous about the clear dominating aspirations of Shia Islam in a dominating Sunni geography - has had to make a decision.
Their great and reliable patron, the powerful - now somewhat sagging but ever renascent - United States, has always been a dependable ally. When Israel attempted to forge an invasion alliance with the United States to destroy Iranian nuclear emplacements, it was informed, unequivocally, that not only will the U.S. not commit to such an enterprise, it also sought to forbid Israel from embarking on it.
The imponderables were too great, the risks, formidable. The many, deeply underground caverns, well fortified, that shelter Iran's nuclear ambitions too difficult to identify, too well protected to effectively infiltrate, and the attack would most certainly result in a violent, and unpredictable response. Those were the reasons given in the public forum of response and reportage.
As solace of sorts, and practical assistance, the United States has agreed to establish a permanent military presence within Israel. Israel must surely have been of two contradictory, very polarized minds about this; on the one hand, struggling against the need to permit a foreign power a military base in perpetuity, on the other agonizing that to invite that power is to ultimately protect itself.
One hundred and twenty U.S. troops to be permanently deployed in the Negev Desert, to set up and operate a state-of-the-art early warning radar to track Iranian-launched missiles. Capable of tracking at a distance of 4,700 kilometres, this represents a meaningful increase in radar capabilities.
The system is allied with American satellites and an Israeli weapons system whose purpose it is to destroy ballistic missiles. Iran's most advanced missiles are thought to be 11 minutes' flight time from Israel. And Israel's top military member of its research section noted that Iran is "galloping toward a nuclear bomb"; time truly is of the most vital essence.
Iran, if we can recall, has been assisted in its nuclear ambitions by none other than Russia. It is from Russia and from China too that Iran purchases its most upgraded military equipment. Massive amounts of oil-derived credit changes hands from Iran to its partners in this enterprise, while the number of Iranians living in poverty grows, unemployment blooms, repression increases.
What now? Will there be a response from Russia to this latest of American initiatives to assist her allies in their struggle against totalitarian Islam? Will the Kremlin now seek to position troops outfitted with advanced equipment in Iran?
Labels: Israel, Middle East, Terrorism, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 29, 2008
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