New York Times Op-Ed: Israel Will Attack Iran

Yes, you read my title correctly. Today's New York Times includes an op-ed piece by Benny Morris, a Professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben Gurion University. He claims Israel will most certainly attack Iran within the next 4 to 7 months, and if conventional weapons are unsuccessful to knock out Iran's nuclear program, than Israel will escalate to the use of nuclear weapons.

By all accounts Professor Morris is no Likudist or neoconservative stalking horse, but a leading figure among Israel's "New Historians" movement which has portrayed the history of the creation of Israel and the genesis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms traditional Israeli historians deem revisionist and flawed because it claims to present a more balanced view of the history of the Palestinian conflict, one at odds with the traditional Israeli narrative of the "Palestinian Exodus" from Israel on the eve of the 1948 war.

All this as context for what is a deeply disturbing essay by Professor Morris, for his concerns cannot be brushed aside lightly as the ravings of a right wing Israeli figure, or as propaganda from someone connected to the current Israeli government. If accurate, the next President of the United States will face the beginning of his first term in office with a Middle East in flames with all that portends for the world. Here's Professor Morris in his own stark words describing the current situation as he sees it:

ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran's nuclear sites in the next four to seven months -- and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country's nuclear program. Because if the attack fails, the Middle East will almost certainly face a nuclear war -- either through a subsequent pre-emptive Israeli nuclear strike or a nuclear exchange shortly after Iran gets the bomb. [...]