Israel needs green light from US to assault Iran – Chossudovsky

A group of former CIA and military officials have written to President Obama to say they believe Israel is preparing to attack Iran this month.

The group explained that Israel wants to launch a war suddenly, and make it politically untenable for Obama to do anything other than offer full US military support.

Michel Chossudovsky from the Canadian Centre for Research on Globalization thinks that, in reality, Israel would need Washington's backing first.

“It is technically impossible, from a military standpoint, for Israel to actually launch a war on Iran without the green light from the US. This is not strictly an Israeli military project. The US from the mid-1990s in fact has indicated Iran as a possible target,” Chossudovsky evaluated.

He acknowledged that the joint program of the US, NATO and Israel to attack Iran was formed sometime in 2004 at the time of invasion in Iraq.

Chossudovsky believes that the threats are real and implications are far reaching.

“If that war were launched within the next few months, a whole region would flare up from the Eastern Mediterranean right through to the Chinese border.”

According to Mordechai Kedar from Israeli Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Israel will never attack Iran by itself for a number of reasons.

“First of all, it is very far away from us. We have to refuel the planes above the hostile states – like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan – which we do not have relations with, so it is very complicated to do it. Secondly, the Israel air forces are rather small in comparison to the width of Iran and the numbers of targets which we should deal with in Iran,” he said.

“If there is something worldwide that the United States and maybe Britain and other states also take part in – maybe, Israel will take part in this as well. But Israel by itself, I think, will never attack Iran,” Kedar added.