A report by CSIS in Washington
During the last several months, the Burke Chair has carried out a detailed examination of Iran’s programs involving missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The key drafts involved are available on the CSIS website at:
http://www.csis.org/burke/reports/
A final comprehensive report will be published this summer as a CSIS book by the Praeger Press.
In this detailed, 114-page assessment of how Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, conducted by Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman at the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Cordesman is a military analyst and a former national security adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Haaretz recently dissects this report but according to Haaretz:
“One of the conclusions from Toukan and Cordesman’s study is that it is questionable whether Israel has the military capability to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, or even to delay it for several years. Therefore, if the diplomatic contacts the Obama administration is initiating with Iran prove useless, and if in the wake of their expected failure the American president does not decide to attack Iran, it is likely that Iran will possess nuclear weapons in a relatively short time. It seems, therefore, that policy makers in Jerusalem should begin preparing, mentally and operationally, for a situation in which Iran is a nuclear power with a strike capability against Israel.
This is the place to emphasize Israel’s mistake in hyping the Iranian threat. The regime in Tehran is certainly a bitter and inflexible rival, but from there it’s a long way to presenting it as a truly existential threat to Israel. Iran’s involvement in terror in our region is troubling, but a distinction must be made between a willingness to bankroll terrorists, and an intention to launch nuclear missiles against Israel. Even if Iran gets nuclear weapons, Israel’s power of deterrence will suffice to dissuade any Iranian ruler from even contemplating launching nuclear weapons against it.”
Find the report @ CSIS
main report in PDF @ CSIS
