Would the IAF attack Iran for Bibi?

With regard to a putative Bibi order to the Israel Air Force  (IAF) to attack Iran (presumably in a maximum effort) there is an open question as to whether or not the IAF would obey such an order.  Israel is not the United States.  Israel is a parliamentary democracy.  The US is a presidential democracy.  American officers have no tradition of overt resistance to presidential orders.  In Israel the cabinet are members of a committee of something like equals with the PM as first among equals.  IDF officers routinely enter politics after if not during (reserves as well) military service.  Politicians are not a separate and alien class to IDF officers.  To career IDF officers civilian politicians are basically something that should be scraped off a boot.  IDF General Staff intelligence estimates that Iran has not had a nuclear WEAPONS program since 2003.  The US IC has the same opinion.  I ask again - would the IDF obey an order to attack Iran in these circumstances?   pl

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

IMO NO! Why? Because there is increasing recognition in Israel's polity [not Bibi IMO} that the reality is Israel exists only as a PROTECTORATE of the U.S.! And that the USA polity is a particularly unstable and uncertain supporter of Israel.

[Nancy K]

Col Lang, my husband ended up a Captain in the Paratroopers IDF. He knew Netanyahu and he didn't like him then and he doesn't like him now. He does not believe that the general staff and heads of the IAF would support such folly. He thinks he is pandering to his extreme right wing base in Israel and the US. It is not in Israel's best interest to start another war that cannot be successfully accomplished. Where would the planes be refueled, whose air space would they violate? He thinks Bibi's government would collapse if he even attempted such a thing.

[Fred]

WRC,

A US Protectorate? If that were the case they would be doing what we tell them not the other way around.

[ked]

If Henry & Haig could stop a USA Unitary Presidency president besotted on Martinis from starting a war, I suppose anything is possible.

[oofda]

Colonel,
The IAF is a professional organization- and as such, recognizes its limits, and IMO would resist such an order. Bluntly speaking, the IAF does not have the capacity to conduct an air campaign against Iran- over Iranian territory. They could not accomplish the mission of destroying the Iranian facilities, if that was their ordered task. They simply do not have the capacity- which involves more than F-15s and F-16s. Tankers, electronic warfare aircraft, S&R aircraft, etc would be rquired- and far beyond Israeli territory. Just getting to Iranian territory would be an extreme effort- and through whose airspace?

If Bibi orders such a mission, it would be insane folly and would result in a political crisis beyond anything he has seen. The IAF won't commit suicide on a hopeless mission.

[kao_hsien_chih]

This description of Israeli military and politicians reminds me of something very disturbing: Imperial Japan before World War 2. Nominally a parliamentary democracy, but increasingly a military dictatorship without the military "formally" taking charge of politics, with the military officers enjoying enormous prestige in society that allowed them to scoff elected politicians with scorn, complete with colonial dominion over their "cousins" with whom they had extremely complicated relationship. Some military officers were saner than the civilians, others were batshit crazy, but, in the end, the center couldn't hold and the only question remained was whom they wanted to fight and when. We know where that ended up...

[Dismayed]

I interpreted WRC's use of "protectorate" as a reference to the balance of security dependence, not the balance of administrative power. While the Zionists own much of our political class (however you want to define it) and exercise adequate influence over most of the rest, if those controls were severed it would not be us whose security was imperiled.

Note that their failure (so far) to get us into a shooting war with Iran does not invalidate this control/influence assessment. They merely failed to get their 'wildest dream' scenario, but they still have us thoroughly involved in the Middle East doing incredibly stupid things that are utterly against our own national interests measured against any remotely rational metric. Sports analogy: we are losing 28-0 and our defense picks off a pass into the endzone stopping them from running the score up even further. Yeah, it's great we stopped them this time, but we are still getting our asses kicked and we would be fools to pretend otherwise.

[different clue]

NancyK,

Your comment is heartening. One hopes it is entirely correct. Is someone studying every single individual person in the Israeli air force to see which ones have which ideological orientations? I believe that any Likudist or Leibermanist or Bennetist or other Revisionist-type Israeli Air Force person would certainly obey such an order if he/she had enough like-minded IAF members to be able to actually do all the things necessary to get one or more planes properly supplied and prepared to fly against Iran. And if no such order came, I wonder whether Revisionist-oriented members of IAF wouldn't go "General Ripper" and try to do it on their own.

So if no one is currently finding, naming and tagging every Revisionist-oriented person in the IAF, I hope someone begins doing that so they can be followed and removed from contact with planes if prudent to do so.

[Toivos]

" Where would the planes be refueled, whose air space would they violate? "

That is a major logistical problem. But the answer is in Saudi Arabia. There have been rumors for years that the Saudis would cooperate with Israel in this regard. Are these rumors true? Who knows but who would have predicted that Israel would be supporting Al Nusra in Syria which is funded by the Saudis.

[Babak Makkinejad]

"Would the IAF attack Iran for Bibi?"

No.

They killed Rabin, they could kill Bibi as well.

[fasteddiez]

Commenters:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-and-barak-ordered-the-military-to-be-ready-within-hours-for-strike-on-iran-in-2010-but-security-chiefs-rebuffed-them-tv-report-says/
If past is prologue.

[FB Ali]

Don't get hung up on the rumours being true or not. The fact is that if Israel were to attack Iran, not only the Saudis but also most of the Gulfies would help them, providing passage, if necessary.

Of course, there'd be the usual PR stuff afterwards - it never happened! we never knew! we couldn't catch them in time! No one would be taken in by this BS, but for these Arabs their honour would have been preserved.

[Imagine]

Yes, certainly. All Bibi has to do is to point out some particular facts, and frame it in a situation that causes IAF to truly believe they are in an existential war already. At that point it's a done deal.

In '12 Israel got a $650M bombs package from the US that apparently included 1,725 BLU-109 and 3,450 GBU-39 bunker-buster bombs:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-sale-of-5000-bunker-buster-bombs-to-israel-israel-bunker-busters-in-exchange-for-not-striking-iran-2012-12

and this '15 spring, I am probably missing some years, saw a $1.9B transfer of bombs, apparently including 50 BLU-113 Super Penetrator and 700 more BLU-109 Penetrator bombs:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4659768,00.html

You don't stockpile $2.5B worth of next-generation bombs just because "they might be useful some day".

Israel has a long history of attacking its mortal enemies, ignoring the U.N., and letting the chips fall where they may. The U.S. could only be shocked, shocked at a fait accompli. Close to all the population are required to attend military service and subjected to victimization indoctrination, at the profound tribal & religious levels. They drink Kool-Aid willingly. Given the right framing stimulus, it would become an obvious choice from which there is no alternative.

[Imagine]

"IDF General Staff intelligence estimates that Iran has not had a nuclear WEAPONS program since 2003. The US IC has the same opinion."

IMO this has always been completely irrelevant to the Israelis. The goal is the overthrow of a rival. The "Iran will be building a bomb in six months" meme has always been red meat for the goyim rubes; cf. the laptop of death. Israel wants Iran wiped out, whether they happen to have nukes or no.

[different clue]

Toivos,

How could the KSA authorities do that without being seen to be doing that?
For if they were seen to do that, they would have worn out their welcome anywhere within the Islamic world. After being seen to have helped Israeli planes get across KSA to reach Iran, they would have to arrange to get themselves and their money out of the Kingdom and into safe harbor somewhere in the West. Surely they understand this . . .

[Babak Makkinejad]

The Israelis are supreme realists who will not attack Iran.

Unless they wish to be declared the Enemy of Islam and Iran and thus commit themselves to a decades-long war with the Shia and Iran.

Not going to happen.

[optimax]

Babak

I agree that Israel will not strike Iran. The Israelis never advertise their intentions or acknowledge their airstrikes or assassinations even when obviously it us their doing. The Arabs, on the other hand, are prone to bluster even when they know they don't have a chance in hell. Saddam's "Mother of all wars" in the first Gulf War. Unfortunately, Obama has the bluster and braggadocio of one-side of his racial duality.

[optimax]

Bibi's bluster is for the US, trying to get us to do the dirty deed. He knows Obama will not comply and is thinking ahead, of the next president.

[William R. Cumming]

Thanks for your explanatory comment!

[William R. Cumming]

WOW! Documentation?

[Imagine]

"47% of Israelis would back unilateral Iran strike: poll"
http://news.yahoo.com/47-israelis-back-unilateral-iran-strike-poll-093113859.html

I'm remembering this is a wider support than Bush enjoyed attacking Iraq.

[Imagine]

Bibi does not give a fig for what the rest of the world thinks. His main objective is to stay in power; his secondary objective is to wipe out and degrade Iran as much as possible. He wants to start a war so badly we can taste it all the way over here.

Given this, there's a whole range of possibilities. It does not have to be a full aircraft bombing onslaught. Submarine cruise missiles. ICBMs from Israel. Loaned ICBMs from 3rd party or ship. Commando suitcase bombs, e.g. from sub. Any of these can be thermobaric, conventional, or possibly nuclear. There are other possibilities we haven't thought of.

MH-17 showed the world has to absorb anonymous atrocities, while America won't speak out against its backees, even when electronics monitors everything.

I rate the probability of a catastrophic act of war by Israel upon Iran as high. For means, I favor anonymous submarine-launched cruise missiles, repeated, although others can probably come up with something more devious. Bibi has nothing to lose personally, and cannot afford to allow peace to happen.

[Odin's Raven]

Maybe no one would need to disobey an order if they had a word with the sort of people in the intelligence services who were supposedly behind the murder of a previous Israeli premier.

[Charles I]

again, as WRC asks of Bababk, any documentation of the supposedly please?

[different clue]

FB Ali,

If the Saudis and the Gulfies lend Israel active or passive assistance to reach Iran for bombing, do the Saudis and Gulfies think the "Shia-Sunni split" would mean very much to the Sunni parts of the wider Islamic world? If the Saudis and Gulfies think so, would they be wrong to think so?