[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Sure, the headline writers at Haaretz based their headline ["Barak to
Haaretz: Iran won't drop nuclear bomb on Israel"] on his response when
asked whether he thinks Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel: “Not on us
and not on any other neighbor.�

But in the very same interview he concedes that “I don’t think that anyone
can say responsibly that these ayatollahs, if they have nuclear weapons, are
something you can rely on...to say that somebody really knows and
understands what will happen with such a leadership sitting in a bunker in
Tehran and thinking that it’s going to fall in a few days and it is capable
of doing it? I don’t know what it would do.�

Put another way: OK children, daddy will tell you that everything is OK so
you can continue with your lives. But in the event that things don't work
out please note that I warned, for the record, that I am clueless as to what
will really happen.

Mr. Barak declines to entertain the possibility that, driven by a set of
values and belief that are absolutely alien to us, it turns out to make all
the logic in the world to try to incinerate Israel with a nuclear weapon out
of the belief that the act will bring about a mystical transformation of the
world.

There are two problems with this approach:

1. You don't analyze and predict the actions of a third party by asserting
that they follow your set of values and beliefs but instead on the basis of
the third party's set of values and beliefs.

2. When Israelis assert that Iran is not a nuclear threat unless Iran itself
is threatened, the message to the world is that a nuclear Iran would not
represent a clear and present existential danger and thus efforts to prevent
a nuclear Iran do not have to be a top priority for the world.]

Barak to Haaretz: Iran won't drop nuclear bomb on Israel
Though the Iranian government seems to have largely eluded the wave of
revolutions in the Arab world, the defense minister thinks it too could
collapse.
By Gidi Weitz Haaretz 00:42 05.05.11

If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to bomb
Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Haaretz in an Independence Day
interview.

Barak said Israel should not spread public panic about the Iranian nuclear
program − a position that seems to put him out of step with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has repeatedly compared the Iranian
push to develop a nuclear bomb to the Third Reich’s development of
increasingly sophisticated weapons.

When asked whether he thinks Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel, Barak
said: “Not on us and not on any other neighbor.�

“I don’t think in terms of panic,� he said. “What about Pakistan, some
political meltdown happens there and four bombs wind up in Iran. So what? So
you head for the airport? You close down the country? Just because they got
a shortcut? No. We are still the most powerful in the Middle East.�

All the same, Barak said Iranian rulers could not be relied upon to remain
clearheaded.

“I don’t think that anyone can say responsibly that these ayatollahs, if
they have nuclear weapons, are something you can rely on, like the Politburo
or the Pentagon,� he said. “It’s not the same thing. I don’t think they will
do anything so long as they are in complete control of their senses, but to
say that somebody really knows and understands what will happen with such a
leadership sitting in a bunker in Tehran and thinking that it’s going to
fall in a few days and it is capable of doing it? I don’t know what it would
do.�

Though the Iranian government seems to have largely eluded the wave of
revolutions in the Arab world, Barak said it too could collapse.

“I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of the dictatorships in the
Arab world, including the Iranian one,� he said.

Speaking of Israel’s failure to secure the release of captive soldier Gilad
Shalit, despite having offered to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners,
Barak said he thinks Shalit could have been freed three years ago.

Commenting on his wealth, he said he was indeed a millionaire but “not a
tycoon.�

“I’m no wealthier than Bibi Netanyahu or Arik Sharon,� he said. “I don’t
feel that I’m more hedonistic than Ehud Olmert, or Yitzhak Rabin, or Shimon
Peres.�