Israel Might Strike Iran After U.S. Presidential Elections – Russian Analyst
“Israel Might Strike Iran After U.S. Presidential Elections – Russian Analyst” – Interfax-AVN – Sept. 11, 2012
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Interfax-VN cites Alexei Arbatov, former Duma member and current head of the International Security Center under the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), as suggesting that Israel might launch a war against Iran after the November U.S. presidential election, perhaps by the beginning of 2013:
“The zero hour will probably begin at some point after the presidential elections in the U.S. It is quite likely that Israel might eventually strike Iran by the end of this or at the beginning of the next year. Israel is running out of patience. In technical terms, Iran has advanced a lot. We don’t know what is going on there. And therefore such a war is quite likely. At least all experts agree with this,” Arbatov, who is attending a joint conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe and the Geneva Center for Security Policy, told journalists in Geneva on Tuesday.
Arbatov predicts Israel will use bunker-busting bombs with deep earth-penetration capabilities, believing that key Iranian sites are deep underground in rocky terrain.
But Arbatov also predicts that Israel cannot succeed in completely wiping out an Iranian nuclear weapons program indefinitely.
Moreover, Arbatov predicts that Iran would later withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), sever all ties with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and go completely underground with its nuclear weapons program.
Arbatov doubts that Iranian nuclear proliferation can be stopped forever, absent conquering and occupying the country:
“If the problem cannot be resolved politically, through negotiations with the Iranian leadership, then the Iranian program can be fully stopped only through the country’s military occupation. After the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, not a single country, or NATO, or the U.S. will resort to this, because this is impossible,” he said.