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Israel: How the US is preparing for war [1]
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Date: 2025-01
US and Israeli leaders have celebrated this week’s death of Hamas military commander Yahya Sinwar. But while attention is focused on what it means for Gaza and the unlikely possibility of a ceasefire – few have noticed what this means for the much wider US-Iran war.
The US has, of course, put its military might, money and rhetoric behind Israel in its devastating operations in Gaza since last October. More specifically, the US even has a little-noticed permanent military presence in Israel itself – an advanced long-range over-the-horizon X-Band Radar system in the Negev. It is believed to be particularly effective against Iranian medium-range ballistic missiles.
But this week, two recent developments point to the US preparing for direct confrontation with Iran as it sharpens its ammunition and shares even more weaponry with its ally Israel.
First, we saw the US use long-range B-2 stealth bombers in attacks on underground weapons stores in Yemen for the first time. Only the US has these weapons which are thought to be the world’s most powerful ‘bunker-busters’ and can reach 200-feet underground. If there is a war with Iran it will be one of the very few means of inflicting damage on some of Iran’s most heavily protected targets.
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That might sound scaremongering but the bombing of the Houthi targets in Yemen with these tools looks uncomfortably like a dry run for any conflict with Iran.
Secondly, we saw the deployment of an advanced US anti-missile system to Israel, again involving US military personnel. This is the THAAD weapon (terminal high-altitude aerial defence) which will supplement Israel’s own system that has not been as effective as the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) would like.
From an IDF perspective, if Netanyahu agrees to a substantial military attack on Iran, the likely response from Iran will be to do its best to swamp Israeli missile defences. Thus, the US THAAD deployment will reduce the risk of an effective Iranian response.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/israel-us-preparing-for-war-with-iran-weapons/
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