Vad kan, får, bör Israel göra?

Bolton - som kan fakta som få andra - har flera år rekommenderat Netanyahu att attackera Irans kärnproduktion snarast. Här nämns lite olika faktorer som spelar in.

Förebyggande attacker har använts av både USA och Israel. När Israel attackerade kärnreaktorerna i Irak och Syrien. När, före 6-dagarskriget hela arabvärlden hade radat upp sina flyg etc. runt Israel för det slutliga blodbadet. Iran? Många olika faktorer, läs artikeln.

Analysis: Strike sooner or never - Preemptive strike on Iran harder once UN lifts sanctions

Once preemptive strikes can be undertaken to block an imminent attack, broadening the definition of what is “imminent” to permit a strike even more in advance of a potential threat is less of a jump.

Israel probably has until around mid-December to preemptively strike Iran’s nuclear program before it gets even harder to justify legally than Tuesday’s deal has already made it.

Of course, right now diplomatically, a strike seems unthinkable with the deal representing years of work by the US, EU, China, Russia and Iran and enjoying powerful global support aside from Israel and Sunni Arab nations competing with Iran in the Middle East.

But until mid-December when the IAEA renders its “final assessment” of “all past and present outstanding issues,” as referred to in the around 150 page agreement, the UN will likely not have actually removed most sanctions.

As long as UN sanctions are in place, the legal record of Iran’s history at violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of UN resolutions and actions framing Iran as a violator and of the failure of those actions to stop Iran’s push for the bomb are still the narrative.

Why does this matter? Some say that preemptive strikes are barred by international law from the outset, as only a real-time armed attack activates the right of self-defense to attack an aggressor.

Those countries, like the US and Israel, who have carried out preemptive strikes in the past largely base their actions on the concept that international law permits preemptive strike to prevent an imminent attack, even if that attack is not yet in progress.

Once preemptive strikes can be undertaken to block an imminent attack, broadening the definition of what is “imminent” to permit a strike even more in advance of a potential threat is less of a jump.

This is especially true concerning weapons like nuclear weapons which can essentially end the game if they are launched.

Still, most scholars find it dicey legally to push the timeline backwards too far, which leaves them with the problem of a covert nuclear weapons move catching Israel or another target-country off-guard.

This is where the UN resolutions could come in to play.

The resolutions do not authorize a preemptive strike on Iran, nor does the current Iran deal. Far from it.

But some argue that legally the reason that individual nations are supposed to hold off from preemptive strikes is that the UN is supposed to handle collective security issues so that individual nations do not need to.

Some have argued that if the UN drops the ball persistently over a long time in protecting an individual nation from a security issue, that there is more justification for that nation to take preemptive action in self-defense.

While there will likely be an initial UN resolution passed in the near future to set the stage for later sanctions removal, until UN sanctions are actually removed and Iran’s violator status is reset by a second round of UN resolutions likely around when the IAEA gives its report, Israel can still argue Iran is a violator which the UN failed to stop even according to its own standards.

All of that changes once sanctions are removed and Iran is no longer a presumed violator.

Also, until the second round of UN resolutions pass, there could be numerous instances of Iranian cheating or foot-dragging on specific obligations.

According to the Iran deal, a Joint Commission vote of the US, UK, EU, France and Germany can override Iran, Russia and China to snap sanctions back on and within Under the deal, this could happen within about 24 days of say, Iran being caught carrying out nuclear activities that were “undeclared.”

What if Iran gets caught, 24 days pass and the five Western powers blink? If this is before the decisive UN resolution, the Israeli argument would actually be stronger because Iran would be in express violation of its most recent commitments, along with past UN resolutions.

Of course the agreement views non-compliance as a reason to snap back sanctions, not for a sudden strike on Iran.

But on the spectrum of legal justifiability, Israel would be better off with a strike than it would after the decisive UN resolution is passed.

There is one other surprising provision in the deal which Israel could try to use to legally justify a preemptive strike if its intelligence services caught Iran cheating in a serious way.

Under the agreement, Iran is bound never to move down a nuclear weapons path, even beyond the life of the deal, let alone during the 10-25 years of the deal.

If Israel felt its intelligence evidence of Iranian cheating was serious enough in violating that commitment, it could try to use that to boost the legal legitimacy of a strike.

At the end of the day, some of this is very theoretical as Israel is not even a party to the deal and when it struck Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, Israel showed a willingness to stand alone even against an angry US President Ronald Reagan.

But in an age when many see the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign as a serious challenge to Israel’s legitimacy and continuity, any preemptive strike would likely take into account the best timing and circumstances to boost legality and legitimacy.

†Iran  †Barack Hussein †Antisemitism †Israel. .........