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WILL TRUMP AND BIBI STRIKE PICKAXE MOUNTAIN?
The US and Israel may be targeting another nuclear site in Iran
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Israel, led by a morally corrupt prime minister, and the United States, led by an increasingly unpopular and unsuccessful president—both facing imminent elections—are again talking of jointly attacking a suspected nuclear enrichment site in Iran. If the planned attack on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility takes place, a well-informed international oil expert told me this week, one sure result will be a response from Iran attacking US allies in the Gulf region. The US will essentially have thrown a beleaguered Saudi Arabia “under the bus.”
The Saudis, and many other oil- and gas-bearing states in the Middle East, have been struck, again and again, by Iranian drones and missiles since Washington and Tel Aviv conspired to renew their war against Iran in February.
There has not been a clear explanation of the need to bomb Iran again from Trump, who is campaigning hard on behalf of the Republicans, who are facing a wipeout in the Congressional election on November 3. The Israeli elections are on October 27, and Netanyahu sees the renewed bombing of Pickaxe Mountain as essential to his re-election. Iran still has no significant anti-aircraft defenses, nor do Lebanon or the Palestinians in Gaza, who both face continued bombing by Israel.
Here is the view of a well-informed Israeli combat veteran who believes and fears that the current Iranian leadership would, under duress, attack nuclear-armed Israel with a nuclear weapon, if Iran were to obtain one. His views are consistent with the views of many Israelis I have known and reported on for the past five decades. They also reflect insight into American intelligence reporting and analysis. The Israeli made five points:
Pickaxe Mountain is still working on enrichment, according to US and Israeli covert intelligence.
There is a consensus shared by the US and Israel that the Iranians will continue to attack oil and gas infrastructure in the Middle East whether or not Pickaxe is attacked. They will do so if their economic situation deteriorates further and desperation takes over.
The Israeli working assumption is that the oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf is doomed as long as the Iranian regime is in power and the Gulf powers are hostage to that regime. The Israelis consider this a geographic reality.
Trump now admits, the Israeli says, that the Central Intelligence Agency’s conclusion is right and that Vice President JD Vance’s argument that a meaningful political agreement can be reached with the Iranian regime is “delusional” because there no longer is a regime. There is instead a coalition of various religious and political factions including extremists and moderates. There are also the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the large standing army to deal with.
The Israelis still hope that the economic situation will lead to an uprising against the Iranian leadership and that it will be led by potential candidates for a secular leadership. Even if that were to happen, the Israelis believe that extremists in the current government might attempt to take the oil and gas infrastructure of the Gulf down with them.
The Israeli concluded his informed analysis with an analogy. “Dealing with this regime is like dealing with a cancer,” he said. “Do you want to go for chemotherapy and radiation, risking that the cancer will spread as the treatment is underway or do you go for drastic surgery—another round of military attacks? There is no risk-free option here.”
He did not have to add that whatever is to come in Iran from Netanyahu and Trump will be violent, drastic, and far from therapeutic.
It should be noted that not every Middle East expert was persuaded that there is a crisis at hand. “For Bibi to win re-election,” I was told by a US official, “he must double down on his openly professed strategy to ‘eradicate Iran,’ which is a mortal threat to Israel’s survival. So now the Iranian threat hysteria extends to all of the Middle East’s oil resources.”
Netanhayu, the official added, by ignoring America’s current strategy of “patient economic starvation,” with the goal of creating a peoples’ movement to finally force the religious leadership out of office, “hopes to force the nuclear issue as an election tactic” in both Israel and the United States. “Ain’t working at this end,” the official said.