While the U.S. government has so far used military assets to minimize Iranian retaliation against Israel, AntiWar.com reports: “Sources: U.S. Will Enter Israel’s War With Iran.” See video report by Dave DeCamp. The outlet also reports: “Israel Kills Senior Iranian Official Who Wanted a Nuclear Deal With the U.S.”
The U.S. reportedly sent hundreds of missiles to Israel days before the attack on Iran and is now reportedly sending crucial refueling air force tankers. Fox reports: “Momentum for regime change in Iran surges amid Israel’s conflict with Tehran.”
The Wall Street Journal just published “A Battered Iran Signals It Wants to De-Escalate Hostilities With Israel and Negotiate.”
While Trita Parsi at Responsible Statecraft writes “Israel is not winning. Trump must not cave to new demands for help,” Steinbach offers insights into rarely examined aspects of the U.S.-Israeli relationship:
JOHN STEINBACH, [email protected]
A longtime independent activist and writer, Steinbach is co-founder of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area.
His 2008 in-depth paper “The Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program” is a detailed analysis of Israeli nuclear policy.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said over the weekend: “If (Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front — Tehran will burn.”
Steinbach said: “This is clearly a nuclear threat. Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal of 90-400 nuclear warheads, though discussion of it has been avoided as it has made many false claims about Iraq, Iran and nuclear weapons.
“Israel’s nuclear threat may not be directed so much at Iran and other states, through what is sometimes called the ‘Samson Option,’ but also to compel the United States government through ‘nonconventional compellence.’”
See key excerpts of Steinbach’s paper here. It notes that after President Eisenhower refused to back the British-French-Israeli invasion of Gaza and Sinai in 1956, Israel turned to France to build a nuclear weapon.
Steinbach notes that at that point, “Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote ‘We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, “If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.”‘
“During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, [Simcha] Dinitz, is quoted as saying at the time, ‘If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and we will have to draw very serious conclusions. …”