Israelis strategize amid Iran threat

TEL AVIV -- With diplomatic sanctions against Iran appearing unlikely and military options promising to be risky, Israel has begun debating the unthinkable: how it might live in a world in which its archenemy has a nuclear arsenal of its own.

In academic seminars and news commentaries, and even among Israeli government insiders, some of the country's leading thinkers are starting to sketch out possible alternatives should international pressure and military action fail to stop Iran from halting its nuclear program. Iran maintains that the program is for peaceful power generation, but the United States believes that it is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.

Some strategists are dusting off Cold War theories to draw lessons from the tense but ultimately stable five-decade standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, suggesting that a similar détente could be achieved between Iran and the Jewish state -- itself presumed to be a nuclear weapons power.

The thinking goes that a fanatical but not entirely irrational Iran would be deterred from using its weapons against Israel for fear it would be destroyed in retaliation.

Others are calling for research on multibillion-dollar missile defense systems to neutralize any Iranian missiles.

``Just because Iran is a Muslim country doesn't mean it has a death wish," wrote Reuven Pedatzur , a political science professor at Tel Aviv University who has been among the first to raise the potential for a Cold War-style balance of power. ``There is no reason the deterrence of mutual assured destruction shouldn't work in the Middle East also," he contended in a recent article in the daily newspaper Haaretz.

Even mention of a future with a nuclear-armed Iran is highly controversial in Israel, which has labeled Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , as the ``Hitler" of the 21st century for his denials about the existence of the Holocaust and his calls for Israel to be ``wiped off the map."

Israel, established in 1948 after the extermination of 6 million European Jews at the hands of the Nazis, views its own nuclear deterrent, developed in secret in the 1950s and '60s and never publicly acknowledged, as its main insurance policy against hostile neighbors. As a result, Israeli leaders have maintained that any nuclear-armed adversary such as Iran is simply intolerable -- especially given that Israel has such a small and concentrated population and would be at risk of extinction from a single nuclear attack.

In 1981, Israel attacked the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing an atomic bomb.

Rumors abound that the Israeli high command is drawing up plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites before Tehran's nuclear program reaches ``the point of no return," which some Israeli intelligence officials warn could be achieved within months.

The official Israeli policy, however, remains that the international community must use sanctions to pressure Iran to halt its weapons research.

In a speech before the UN General Assembly last week, Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni , said the international community ``is faced with no greater responsibility than to stand against this dark and growing danger -- not for Israel's sake, but for its own."

Nevertheless, the failure so far of US-led efforts to rally the UN Security Council has forced Israelis to ask ``what if?"

For one, there is a new sense that the United States, bogged down in Iraq, will be unwilling to take on Iran militarily if diplomacy fails, according to Shai Feldman , director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.

``For the moment, Iran seems to be dealing with a very, very strong hand," Feldman said in an interview, citing high oil prices and new influence in the region. ``If there weren't these new considerations there would have been greater confidence in Israel that if all diplomacy failed that the United States would act militarily to stop Iran. There is a growing assessment in Israel that the United States might have no choice but to let this program go through."

There is also a deepening suspicion that any Israeli military strike would only embolden the Iranians, while doing little to prevent the country from ultimately acquiring a nuclear arsenal.

Unlike the Israeli airstrike against the Iraqi program, Iran's project is believed to be spread across multiple underground sites, many of them secret. Iran is also significantly farther than Iraq, making it more difficult for Israeli aircraft to travel undetected. Another complication: Any Israeli mission would be viewed as approved by Washington -- whether it is or not -- because the US military controls the Iraqi airspace through which Israeli jets would probably have to fly.

A senior Israeli diplomat said the Israeli government has no formal planning underway for how to respond to a nuclear Iran. But the official, who declined to be identified while discussing internal deliberations, acknowledged that a quiet debate is going on at the highest levels about what to do if, for example, Iran conducts a surprise nuclear test.

Yehezkel Dror , a member of the government commission reviewing the recent 34-day conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is among those raising such questions. He maintains that Israel must have a new plan to deal with the prospect that it will wake up one day to find that Iran has the bomb.

He said in a recent article that some ``red lines" would have to be laid down so that Iranians fully understand the kind of ``heavy" response that would come from Israel if it felt threatened; for example, Israel might publicly state that any missile originating from Iranian territory would have to be assumed to be a nuclear attack.

``If efforts to prevent fanatical enemies from acquiring weapons of mass killing fail, total deterrence may often be the only effective counter stance," Dror asserts. ``This requires an image of unshakeable will and assured capacity to annihilate any country that causes grievous harm to Israel, even after Israel is devastated."

What's for certain, Feldman said, is that the unfolding debate will be fierce.

``Some will argue that it is not the Cold War -- you are talking about people who welcome death," he said, referring to Islamic extremists in Iran. ``But there will be new pressures to sharpen Israel's deterrence and the perception about it s ability to retaliate."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.