3 Reasons Israel will attack Iran

A long article out this week in The Atlantic argues there's a good chance Israel will attack Iran over its nuclear program next summer. While there are strong grounds for doubt, here are some reasons author Jeffrey Goldberg could be right.

- Dan Murphy, Staff writer

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In this Nov 2009 photo released by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency, Iranian technicians work with foreign colleagues at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, just outside the southern port city of Bushehr, Iran. (Mehdi Ghasemi/ISNA/AP)

1. A nuclear Iran would shift the regional strategic balance

One thing everyone who debates whether Iran is seeking a nuclear bomb, and what to do about stopping them if they are, agrees on is this: A nuclear-armed Iran would profoundly shift the strategic balance of the Middle East.

Israel, with an arsenal of 100 or so nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them, is the region's only current nuclear power. While that sole status doesn't give it carte blanche to do as it pleases, the day Iran has a nuclear weapon is the day Israel's ability to directly attack Iran – or perhaps other regional countries – is taken off the table.

Iran in turn would be able to act with

greater freedom in what it sees as its own sphere of influence. This alarms many of Arab states in the region, who many predict would start considering nuclear weapons programs of their own in response. The last thing Israel wants is a nuclear arms race in a neighborhood where a number of regimes still don't recognize its right to exist.

The more nuclear countries there are, the greater the chance, however unlikely, that someone will push the button first, or that a terrorist group could somehow get its hands on a bomb. Defense Minister Ehud Barak explained one of Israel's greatest fears this way last year: "It’s not just the end of any nonproliferation regime," he said of Iran obtaining a bomb. "I believe that it starts the countdown that... would lead, within another half a generation, to a crude nuclear device in the hands of some terrorist group."

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Visitors walk under pictures of Jews killed in the Holocaust, in the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem. (Gil Cohen Magen/Reuters/File)

3. Holocaust denial and Holocaust fears

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. But Israel quite simply doesn't believe the Islamic Republic and fears what a nuclear weapon in the hands of a government with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the top of the heap could mean for them.

Israel is a country whose national psyche was crafted by the Holocaust and has said time and again that it will take preemptive action if it thinks the nation is threatened. Fear of Iran has been a long-running theme for the country – in the wake of 9/11 Israeli officials mused that Iran might have had a hand in the attack (it didn't) and since, they've kept up a steady stream of warnings about what a nuclear-armed Iran would mean for the Jewish state's future.

"Iran is developing nuclear weapons and poses the greatest threat to our existence since the war of independence. Iran’s terror wings surround us from the north and south," Benjamin Netanyahu said shortly after regaining the premiership last year.

The "never again" credo of Israel drives alarm inside the country's security establishment. While most Iran watchers believe that an Iran with a few nuclear weapons wouldn't launch a first strike on Israel – something sure to bring withering retaliation – the presence of Mr. Ahmadinejad at the top of the government (thought he's still subordinate to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader) has some Israelis fearing irrational behavior.