Israel at War: Inside the Nuclear Showdown With Iran by Joel C. Rosenberg Read Free Book Online

catastrophe—and happens quickly—all the evidence suggests Israel and Iran are hurtling toward armed conflict that could break out at any moment.
    What Would an Israel-Iran War Look Like?
    To be sure, such a war could move fast and be over quickly. In 1967, experts fretted over the worst-case scenarios if the Arab forces launched a preemptive strike against Israel or if Israel initiated a first strike against her enemies. In the end, their dire predictions were wrong. The war was over in six days. On the seventh day, the region rested. There was pain and sorrow, but not nearly as much as had been feared. 61
    But one cannot count on best-case scenarios. One must plan for worst-case scenarios. An Israel-Iran war could prove to be the most devastating war in the modern history of the Middle East. What if the entire region is set on fire? What if masses of innocent civilians are killed? What if a refugee crisis erupts? What if friendly governments are destabilized and toppled by radical Islamic jihadists? What if terrorist cells are activated inside the United States, across Europe, and around the world? What if American and other Western embassies are attacked and overrun, as has happened already in Egypt and Libya? What if our people are held hostage, tortured, or murdered? How high will the price of oil and gas skyrocket? How severely will the already-fragile, sputtering global economy—and America’s own struggling economy—be harmed?
    If Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear facilities first, how will Iran retaliate? Will the U.S. and our allies be drawn into the conflict? Will Iran try to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows? Will Washington respond? If so, how?
    What if the war has cataclysmic unintended consequences? What if an electromagnetic pulse bomb is detonated in the skies over the Middle East? What if chemical or biological weapons are employed? What if nuclear weapons are used? How might the region—and the world—be changed forever?
    These are the questions that Netanyahu has thought about and wrestled with for decades and in a very systematic way since coming to power in 2009. How he answers them will be determined in large part by who he is, the events that have shaped his life, and what he believes at his core.
    “The Israeli threat to strike Iran militarily if the West fails to stop the nuclear program may, of course, be a tremendous bluff,” columnist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in 2009. “After all, such threats may just be aimed at motivating President Obama and others to grapple urgently with the problem. But Netanyahu and his advisers seem to believe sincerely that Israel would have difficulty surviving in a Middle East dominated by a nuclear Iran. And they are men predisposed to action. . . . As I waited in the Knesset cafeteria to see Netanyahu, I opened a book he edited of his late brother’s letters. . . . In one letter, Yoni wrote to his teenage brother, then living in America, who had apparently been in a fight after someone directed an anti-Semitic remark at him. ‘I see . . . that you had to release the surplus energy you stored up during the summer. . . . There’s nothing wrong with that. . . . In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with a good fist fight. . . . Remember what I told you? He who delivers the first blow, wins.’” 62

Chapter Seven
    What Does the Future Hold?
    In January 2010, my wife, Lynn, and I were in Edmonton, Canada. As I prepared to speak at a Christian conference on the biblical prophecies of Ezekiel 36–39 about the future of Israel and her neighbors, I awoke to news coverage of a major Netanyahu address in Poland, commemorating the sixty-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I was both stunned and encouraged.
    Speaking on the actual site of the Nazi death camp, the prime minister warned the world of new genocidal threats against the Jewish people and the importance of acting early enough to