Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman: “A Confrontation with Iran is Only a Matter of Time, and Not a Long Time”

Despite the panoply of issues that Israel negotiates on a daily basis including the Covid-19 virus, Palestinian terrorism, Charedi participation in the army, budget allocations, relations with America and many others, what stands out as matter of existential concern is that of Iran’s often stated objective of destroying Israel with their aggressive nuclear weapons program that they have been meticulously pursuing for decades.

Ina recent interview at Walla studios with Tal  Shalev and Yaki Adamkar, Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman has said that :a confrontation with Iran is only a matter of time, and not a long time.” He added that “no diplomatic move or agreement will stop the Iranian nuclear program. They see North Korea, despite the diplomatic moves, they see its unprecedented intensification. The Jewish people must not live in illusions. Hitler wrote his book in 1923 and then seized power. This is a problem of the international community but first of all ours because they have stated that their policy is the destruction of Israel, and they do mean it.”

For decades, Iran has been laboring assiduously to create an arsenal of nuclear weapons in which to attack Israel and perhaps other Western allies. Despite their protestations, their uranium enrichment program is focused on energy needs, nothing could be further from the truth.

The United States is quite cognizant of this propaganda and as such has made countless attempts to negotiate with the rogue regime. The Obama “Iran Deal” proved to be an abysmal failure in dissuading Iran from continuing their insidious plot and ultimately, only helped Iran in sponsoring more state terrorism with the hundreds of billions of dollars that were handed to them by the United States.

At this juncture, the US has no interest or motivation in launching a pre-emptive strike on Iran. As      John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney recently wrote in an op-ed piece, “a full-on confrontation with Iran would make the recent U.S. experience fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan seem like child’s play in comparison.”

During the recent visit to Washington by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, he said, “Iran has publicly stated it wants to wipe us out. We have no intention of letting this happen.” His US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded by saying at a press conference that Iran wasn’t negotiating and that Washington is “prepared to turn to other options.”

The question remains as to what other options are feasible and would serve US interests. Should the US even entertain the notion of attempting to put a screeching halt to Iran’s voracious nuclear ambitions by conducting a pre-emptive strike then Israel would certainly feel the deadly brunt of a retaliatory strike. As Hannah had written: “ Israel’s entire territory, population, and national infrastructure would be vulnerable to Iran’s inevitable retaliatory strike, including up to 150,000 lethal projectiles in the hands of Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese proxy, stationed directly on Israel’s northern border.”

Since the US comprehends that intensive negotiations, diplomacy, sanctions and even covert actions targeting Iran would amount to yet another feckless option in ensuring that Iran does not continue in its path to the bomb, the only other viable alternative is to allow Israel to engage militarily for its own survival.

Hannah writes that Israel has the “will and military capacity needed to effectively paralyze Iran’s most important nuclear infrastructure for any length of time.” He adds that the “remaining option is to make sure that Israel has the military assets it needs to, first, inflict maximum damage on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and, second, prevail as quickly as possible in the devastating war that Iran and its regional proxies would likely impose on the Jewish state in response.”

He writes that in order for Israel to launch an effective strike, it would need to significantly upgrade its military capability. Despite the legendary prowess of the IDF and the fact that it has achieved military superiority because of US funding, it would still need additional hardware to get the job done.

In order to achieve the kind of effectiveness of a US strike, Hannah suggests that Israel receive KC-46s, the new American aerial refueling tankers that would enable Israeli fighter jets to make the minimum 2,000-mile round trip to Iran’s key nuclear sites.

Despite the fact that Israel has established a security partnership with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain thanks to the Abraham Accords, they cannot count on them to actively participate in an IDF strike on Iran—or even allow Israeli planes to refuel in their territories.

America has agreed to sell Israel eight KC-46s, but delivery is currently not scheduled to start for several years, Hannah writes. Israel is urgently seeking to expedite the delivery of at least the first two.

Moreover, Hannah suggests that Israel acquire America’s most advanced strike aircraft, in particular F-35s and F-15s, to ensure that the IDF can conduct the huge number of sorties that would be required not only to hit the targets most critical to Iran’s nuclear program (perhaps multiple times each) but also to defeat Iran’s significant air defenses and suppress as much as possible its second-strike capability, especially its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, the largest in the Middle East.

If America does not give Israel the green light to conduct a pre-emptive strike on Iran, then our worst nightmares of nuclear annihilation will be realized. And let’s ne reminded of the fact that Iran has within its power to offer their nuclear secrets to Pakistan and other such hostile countries such as North Korea.

At this time, Israel can save itself and the world and further the interests of the United States, if strategy on Iran is successful. Only America can and should support this decision before it is too late.