Weekly Commentary: Exploiting the window before Iran may get the bomb

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 1 February, 2007

One certainly hopes that the nightmare of a nuclear Iran never comes to be.
But it would be irresponsible not to prepare for that terrible possibility.

Some have suggested that Israel rush to "resolve" its differences with the
Palestinians and Syria to reduce the chances that the Jewish State finds
itself threatened by Iran with a nuclear response in their support.

But there is a reason for putting the term "resolve" in quotation marks.

That's because a quick fix creating a terror Palestinian state and a hand
over of the Golan Heights that would dramatically reduce the risk taking
Israel could afford to take in the case of suspicious Syrian moves could
readily increase rather than reduce the dangerous possibility of an incident
that leads to Iranian intervention.

What, then, could help to reduce the possibility of Iranian - or for that
matter other malicious third party - intervention?

Rapid conflict incident resolution.

Simply put, a conflict incident that goes on for many days or even weeks can
heat up the Iranian and Arab street with rallies, pronouncements and threats
of intervention.

In sharp contrast, a conflict incident resolved in a short period is
considerably less likely to suck others in - even if resolution means
numerous casualties.

Creating a situation on the ground that is amenable to rapid conflict
incident resolution goes beyond military training and equipment.

It means developing a workable and effective approach to the human shields
challenge.

It means exploiting an appreciation of the nature of media coverage of
conflicts (brutally put - the bad press for bloody battles in five civilian
areas that take place simultaneously is almost the same as the bad press for
one battle).

It also means restoring a military presence in the Gaza Strip to facilitate
the intelligence gathering so critical for rapid conflict incident
resolution.

Today the Olmert team is doing the opposite as it stands by permitting the
Palestinians to invest millions of dollars in a network of battle tunnels in
the Gaza Strip as they amass huge quantities of both smuggled and openly
trucked in weapons.

Yes. Today the Palestinians are aiming some of these weapons against each
other, but it is only a question of time before they embrace Egypt's
proposal to unite for the common cause.

If there is one silver lining in the mess, the appointment of a man from
Golani as IDF Chief of Staff could make it just that more possible to reach
the goal of rapid conflict incident resolution before a nuclear Iran may
arrive on the scene.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il