US-blockade of Cuba 1962 possible model
Iran has been threatening to destroy Israel for years. Recently, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s spiritual leader, compared the Jewish state to a ‘cancerous tumor,’ that had to be eradicated. At the same time, Teheran has been developing nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
All peaceful nations are appalled and vehemently object to what Iran is attempting. Sanctions were imposed. But Teheran has been able to minimize their effect. Only fi nancial sanctions over the last year have begun to have some impact on the Iranian economy. Nonetheless, Teheran has threatened countermeasures and is proceeding with its nuclear program. Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Organisation have not been given access to the relevant facilities.
The international community is trying diplomacy. Diplomacy is good. What happens, however, when the other side refuses to negotiate substantially, or is playing to gain time in order to make progress with its own nuclear program? In that case, ‘all options are on the table,’ as President Obama stressed. The exact nature of these options, however, has not been spelled out.
Israel is demanding massive steps against Iran’s nuclear armaments program before the production of nuclear weapons becomes irreversible. Washington has warned Jerusalem against taking unilateral action, especially a military attack. An Israeli military strike would have fatal consequences. Not only would Zion be branded the aggressor, but after the attack, Teheran would repair its damaged nuclear facilities and then threaten and attack the Jewish state and its surrounding Arab countries.
An alternative which would prevent a war, with all its global al implications, would be a sea blockade of Iran. Not for food but for military supplies and oil. In 1962, the US established a blockade around Cuba. At the time, the Soviet Union was not threatening the US with destruction but wanted to raise its potential for blackmail against Washington. President Kennedy did not accept the advice of his air force commanders to bomb Cuba, but instead instituted a blockade. According to international law, a blockade is a military act, but the goal is quite the opposite – the prevention of full scale hostilities.
2012 is not 1962. Israel is not the US.
The Jews know how determined their enemies are, not just since the Holocaust. In 1976, in Entebbe, the world looked on, without intervening, as German terrorists selected Jewish passengers on a hijacked Air France plane. In the end, an Israeli commando liberated almost all the passengers. During the raid, Jonathan Netanyahu, a brother of Israel’s prime minister, was killed.
Today, the Jewish state expects western democracies to pursue effective measures that convince and induce Iran to give up its nuclear program definitively. That’s the best way to avoid an Israeli attack and the danger of unforeseeable consequences – the worst of them: war.