אבי אהרן

But carrying a big stick – is.
I really don’t care what would happen with Iran. They’ve cultivated their own little empire of evil for threen decades now and they can keep doing this forever. Sure, Israel has an open account with Iran – for them helping Hizzbullah kicking our ass in Lebanon for almost three decades. But I can live with such an open account. It helps me keep in mind that victory in the battlefield is something one should work for.
Now, a nuclear Iran is a new game. The risk looks somewhat high – and there is no reword for accepting this increased risk.
So Israel is probably cooking something. All of these airforce drills in the mediternian, trying to get metrics on how far can one fly and the way bombing accuracy and fighters shield efficiency drop over time on the air.
I know absolutely nothing on air force operations but I read Benny Peled’s book. Benny Peled was an air force general in two decisive wars. In 1973 he was the commander of the israeli air force in the Yom Kippur defeat. 6 years earlier he was the designer and commander of operation Moked, in which the IAF has completely wiped out the air forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 3 hours.

Peled, a true military intellectual, analyses the causes of the Yom Kippur defeat (in addition, he portrays some rather embarrasing stories of the corrupt IDF of the 1950s and 1960s).
Israel’s IDF and IAF are probably not the best examples for organizations that learn from their own mistakes, but Operation Moked is a high enough standard to keep up with. Operation Cast Lead (Dec-2008 – Jan-2009) had failed to defeat Hamas, but it was a snadbox for IAF plans. The arial part of the attack lasted 4 minutes. That’s right. The entire operation took weeks. I am more and more convinced that the entire land manouver was only a disguise for these 4 minutes.

So Israel carries a big stick. Now what?
The French foreign minister is now using this big stick to threaten Iran. Cinically, we can say that he is using Israel to bail Europe from the punishment Iran is about to take. That’s OK, too. Noone know what Iran is going to do and whether it is going to look like 1945 Japan (that is August/September 1945, not January…). What we do know, is that by carrying this big stick, we’re more likely to be happy with the results.