Benny Morris argued here last week that Israel was going to attack Iran soon. Paul Rogers has an interesting piece here which comes to a similar conclusion.

He continues: (G)iven the potentially disastrous consequences if there was to be a war with Iran, even an increased risk that falls well short of certainty should be sufficient for every effort to be made to ease tensions and argue forcefully for stronger diplomatic engagement with Iran.

A war between Iran and Israel might indeed have disastrous consequences. Still, I don’t think logic necessarily compels those that share this perception to favor immediate efforts to ease tensions or seek greater diplomatic engagement with Iran. (By the way; does anybody know exactly what greater diplomatic engagement with Iran might consist of? There can’t be many countries which have had busier foreign ministries in recent years what with the various efforts of the EU, the IAEA and the Security Council on the nuclear issue. Even the USA has been softening its line on diplomatic contacts with Iran of late.)

So, given that there seems to be a higher possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran over the coming months, what kind of action to prevent it should be taken? Let’s take it as a given that Iran is indeed seeking to develop nuclear weapons and that Israel is preparing to attack it. Given this scenario I would suggest that conspicuous attempts to lower tension and engage diplomatically with Iran - whatever that might actually mean in practice - might be more likely to encourage the Israelis to attack than they would be to encourage them not to. Decision makers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv would be likely to interpret any sudden outbreak of peace, love and understanding directed towards Iran as the international community’s way of saying to the mullahs “oh all right then, go ahead and build the bomb, we’d prefer to run the risks associated with you having it to running those associated with stopping you from getting it”.

Does anybody seriously believe that if the Israelis perceive that the international community is ready to accept a nuclear Iran, it’s going to make them less likely to attack on their own? Israel isn’t going to entrust its vital national security interests to anyone else, not even the United States. Both Israel as a state and Zionism as a historical project spring from the realization that the survival of the Jews cannot be allowed to depend solely on the promises or good intentions of others.

It may be counter-intuitive to think so, but anyone who wants to lessen the chance of Israel attacking Iran should do all in their power to convince the mullahs that the rest of the world isn’t going to allow them to build their bomb, is going to make the costs of continuing with their attempts to build it painfully high and, as a last resort, will support the use of force to prevent them from doing so.