The Obama administration has virtually assured the Iranians that they can develop a nuclear bomb and that the US and the rest of the world will do nothing about it.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, vilified Israel before the United Nations on September 23, 2020, claiming that the Holocaust was the opinion of “just a few”, indicating his preference for Barack Obama over George Bush.

Representatives of only a few nations walked out in protest.

Ahmadinejad has already announced that Iran’s foreign policy calls for the annihilation of Israel.

Ahmadinejad announces the “End of Days” to the United Nations

In winding up his speech to the UN in New York on September 23, 2020, the President of Iran said,

And the last point that I’d like to make. Dear friends and colleagues; The world is in continuous change and evolution. The promised destiny for the mankind is the establishment of the humane pure life. Will come a time when justice will prevail across the globe and every single human being will enjoy respect and dignity. That will be the time when the Mankind’s path to moral and spiritual perfectness will be opened and his journey to God and the manifestation of the God’s Divine Names will come true.

The mankind should excel to represent the God’s “knowledge and wisdom”, His “compassion and benevolence”, His “justice and fairness”, His “power and art”, and His “kindness and forgiveness”. These will all come true under the rule of the Perfect Man, the last Divine Source on earth, Hazrat Mahdi (Peace be upon him); an offspring of the Prophet of Islam, who will re-emerge, and Jesus Christ (Peace be upon him) and other noble men will accompany him in the accomplishment of this, grand universal mission. And this is the belief in Entezar (Awaiting patiently for the Imam to return). Waiting with patience for the rule of goodness and the governance of the Best which is a universal human notion and which is a source of nations’ hope for the betterment of the world.

They will come, and with the help of righteous people and true believers will materialize the man’s long-standing desires for freedom, perfectness, maturity, security and tranquility, peace and beauty. They will come to put an end to war and aggression and present the entire knowledge as well as spirituality and friendship to the whole world. Yes, indeed, the bright future for the mankind will come.

Although these words seem peaceful, in the context of fanatical belief in the imminent “End of Days”, this is hardly the case.

US support of Israel is no longer assured

Even before the 2008 election, Israelis suspected that Barack Obama was not their friend, pointing to the advisers that he had chosen as indicative of his pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli bias.

On August 27, 2020, the Jerusalem Post published a poll indicating that only 4% of Israelis saw Obama’s policies as pro-Israel. The majority of Israeli Jews thought that Barack Obama favored the Palestinians.

In contrast, a Gallup Poll on May 1, 2020 indicated that 79% of American Jews approved of Barack Obama, an approval rating among religious groups only surpassed by US Muslims (85%), and far more than US Protestants (58%) or Mormons (45%) favorable towards Obama.

The explanation for the dichotomy between Israelis and US Jews is given by Norman Podhoretz in his recent book, Why are Jews Liberals?:

“Liberalism has become the religion of American Jews,” he writes, “even though it conflicts in substance with the Torah . . . [and] the most basic of all Jewish interests — the survival of the Jewish people.”

With a pro-Palestinian US President and with Iran about to become a nuclear power, while declaring its intention to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, it would seem that Israel has only a brief window to attack Iran and destroy its nuclear potential, before it is too late.

Under President Bush, the United States had agreed to provide multi-billion dollar funding and technical support to Israel for military purposes — although there is no formal mutual defense pact between the countries.

President Obama is being pressured by his supporters to suspend funding to the Israelis.

Soon, Israel may be alone, without a powerful friend in the US.

War clouds in the Mid-East

With waning US support, it seems that Israel must go it alone and determine what steps it must take to survive the Iranian threat. But this is nothing new.

Iran’s nuclear threat to the existence of Israel and memories of the Holocaust will focus Israeli minds on how best to deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his belief in the imminent return of the Twelfth Iman and the End of Days.

The strategy that Israel chooses to deal with Iran will determine whether there will be war or peace in the Mid-East, which in turn will effect worldwide prices of energy and economic conditions in many countries, including the US.

In the US, a spike in the price of oil combined with the looming inflationary effects of the Obama administration’s various “stimulus programs”, will place severe pressure on the US economy.

Many think that Israel will be forced to strike Iran soon, before the Russians deliver defensive radar systems that would make a conventional attack on Iran’s nuclear installations even more difficult.

However, it is possible that Israelis may decide that a preemptive strike on Iran, using conventional weapons, is not in their best interests.

Why Israel might allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons

Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed and buried underground in multiple locations at the extreme outer limits of Israeli air strike capability.

If Israel were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities using conventional air war techniques, the chances are that, at best, Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons would be postponed only a few years, while Iran would gain justification, in the eyes of many in the world, to attack Israel in return.

With Obama in the White House, the US is unlikely to assist Israel in attacking Iran and might even take measures to prevent Israeli success.

Israel, on the other hand, today has the nuclear capability to completely destroy Iran, setting back Iran’s ability to strike Israel by fifty years or so. (It is estimated that Israel has between 70 and 400 nuclear war heads with sophisticated missile delivery systems.)

The problem with this approach is that a preemptive nuclear strike would make Israel a pariah among nations of the world, with more enemies than it already has. Although it might eliminate Iran as a threat, its global defensive posture might be weaker.

So the question facing Israel is this:

If the only way to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat for the long term would be a massive nuclear strike on that country, how could this be done without antagonizing world opinion?

The answer, of course, would be to await an Iranian first strike on Israel, once Iran is presumed to have nuclear war heads.

Israel is said to have a sophisticated missile defense system that will be even better in 2010, so it might be possible for Israel to launch a nuclear counter-strike against Iran, while destroying incoming missiles before they do any damage.

By adopting a nuclear deterrent defensive posture and continuing to build bombs and offensive and defensive missiles, Israel could keep well ahead of Iran (it already has a fifty year lead), possibly avoiding war entirely, and, if Iran does attack, have the world on its side as it responds in self-defense.

After all, with an incoming missile from Iran (which would be presumed to have a nuclear war head), why wouldn’t Israel be justified to respond in kind?

This strategy would have the added benefit of postponing any preemptive action against Iran until Barack Obama is out of office.

We’ll see …