By Mladen Andrijasevic 
On August 8, 2006 Professor Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Islam studies in the West, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: "There is a radical difference between the Islamic Republic of Iran and other governments with nuclear weapons. This difference is expressed in what can only be described as the apocalyptic worldview of Iran's present rulers." And "In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement."
I did a quick search of the National Intelligence Estimate document "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities" for the words "imam" or "12th" or "Mehdi". No hits. So I can judge with "high confidence" that NIE conclusions have not much to do with why Iran wants to do what it wants to do. As long as that has not changed, nothing has changed.
In other words, it is irrelevant whether this is disinformation by Iran or not. The consequences of making a mistake in estimating the threat from Iran are so high, that the worst case scenario estimates should be the ones on which decisions should be made. The mistakes done in Iraq where Saddam's WMD were moved to Syria, apparently by the Russians, and the whole affair hushed up by both Democrats and Republicans since the truth would have embarrassed them both, must not be repeated. There is no room for petty partisan politics if the result is a nuclear war.
Why is the US less concerned than Israel about Iran? Simply put, the US is a huge country and could absorb a nuclear explosion or two and survive. Israel cannot. Israel is a "one-bomb" country. In addition, people do not seem to care as much until it is them who are the imminent target.
It is obviously not in the US interest to see a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran, the consequences of which, according to Anthony Cordesman, a strategist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, would be some 16 million to 28 million Iranians dead within 21 days, and between 200,000 and 800,000 Israelis dead within the same time frame.
So if it is not in the US interest to see a nuclear war between Iran and Israel how does the US expect to solve the problem? The US knows that Jews with their 3800 year old history will not permit another Holocaust. Israel has no choice. The US also knows that it would be preferable that the US with its F-22s, B-52s, B-1s and B-2s through a sustained weeks long campaign destroy the Iranian nuclear threat using conventional means. Since Israel does not have that capability, Israel would have to use tactical nuclear weapons to achieve the same result as the Americans would with conventional. Of course, the moral implications of such a move for Israel are staggering. But, faced with extinction, Israel would only have to do less than what the US has already done in 1945 when the very existence of the US was not at stake.
The conclusion is that since Israel has no choice, the US expects Israel to solve the problem on its behalf. A bit embarrassing for a superpower to rely on little Israel to do what in effect the US should be doing. But when you have a weak leader who keeps flip-flopping every few months then you pass the responsibility to those who have to do what they have to do. It would not be the first time.
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