A collaboration between Israel and India could yield quality birds, is the point he was making I believe.

v^2

The real point however is that while Israel can make some niche capabilities on it's own, it doesn't have the technology base, expertise, experience, MONEY or strategic depth necessary to maintain an independent national defense/foreign policy. Israel must court and maintain a relationship with an outside power, in this case the United States, if it hopes to survive in that part of the world for a number of reasons not limited to military. Because of this, the USA or whoever the current benefactor is, has a great deal of influence in ANY Israeli decision and especially decisions that involve actions of the IDF both outside and inside Israeli borders.  This will ultimately dictate what aircraft Israel flies, what systems get mated with it and level of access. Even what they do with it to an extent. Proliferating the F-35 to the IDF/AF represents a huge risk in terms of technology compromise and international incident. Not saying that the USA should not sell to the Israeli's but for sure things need to stay under very tight control and scrutiny. Does that suck for Israel? You bet.

-DA 

Have to agree on this one with JFKY, money in the billions is still going to be a problem for Israel to produce a 5th generation fighter. They would have to pool a tremendous amount of national resources together for this project when they have other pressing needs that are also competing for money, materials, and technology.

 

Personally, I believe the Israelis are sooner or later getting their F35s.

 

The U.S. needs Israel in the Middle East more than we are willing to admit.

No, wants, not needs. We have other allies in the region. Israel is a great ally and we should generally support them. But if they suddenly disappeared, the USA would survive that and adjust. It's Israel who NEEDS the USA. Without the USA, the Israelis would be in absolute peril to find another major power for support. This is why when push comes to shove, we can and should force our will on them to see to it that our interest are addressed first. Notice the latest Israeli public policy speech. That is what the PM wanted to say. It's what the current admin compelled him to say. There is a difference between want and need.

-DA 

No, wants, not needs. We have other allies in the region. Israel is a great ally and we should generally support them. But if they suddenly disappeared, the USA would survive that and adjust. It's Israel who NEEDS the USA. Without the USA, the Israelis would be in absolute peril to find another major power for support. This is why when push comes to shove, we can and should force our will on them to see to it that our interest are addressed first. Notice the latest Israeli public policy speech. That is what the PM wanted to say. It's what the current admin compelled him to say. There is a difference between want and need.

-DA

 

You've lost your mind...the Iranians wish to be a regional power, did under the Shah and do so too under the Mullahs.  The Shah may have been more pragmatic and the Mullahs more interested in the spread of the "Jihad" but both wanted Iran to be a regional power.

 

Iran, under the Mullahs, seeks a nuclear weapon to foster that power (Persian) and the "Jihad"-Shi'i version.  It is YOU who have consumed propaganda...they say "Death to America" because they believe and desire it.  If it were 1935 I'm sure we'd find you explaining how "Herr Hitler" really doesn't mean all those things he says or wrote about and that we can do business with him.....

 

 

Herald, be more clear in your writing.  India and Israel are possible partners in advanced development.  Probably be a decade or so for them to do it, but it's possible.

 

 

Israel isn't going to "steal" and engine and reverse engineer it at some manufacturing plant...it's a nice Tom Clancy novel idea but I think the resulting legal/trade imbroglio that engulfed Israel and any nation that bought such engines would be a good deterrent to the idea.

I thought that pile of CRAP was his usual pure bull assertion declared to be fact. Based on what I KNEW, I understood he was wrong, and I flat said so.

 

His backpedal and sidestep excuse, doesn't change his ignorant assertion or the stupid assumptions he used to pronounce it as fact.

 

Additional:

 

It could just as easily be the PRC bandits, Russia, or the EU who are purchase partners or a PACRIM power here for the funding.  Even though funding would be a problem, the Israelis could find the money from their  CUSTOMER BASE..You know the Israelis actually built a jet aircraft TWICE when they were a lot poorer and had no subsidy at all., They even stole the jet engine and the plans to power the reverse engineered Mirage.  NESHER, and KFIR are the concrete examples-so yes they CAN build a jet aircraft. Now they even have their own avionics and WEAPONS to go aboard it  JERICHO II technology also proves that they can build such a jet as well. The jet engine is the only holdback. If they desperately need one, they will go out to license or steal it. 

 

Want to debate this, poster? 

 

FACTS trump assertions every time.

 

Herald

The deal for F-35s does not mean Israel does not require an aircraft to replace it's F-15s in the air superiority role.  The F-35 is a stealthy strike fighter.  There is still a lot of talk about a future air superiority fighter for the IAF.

 

The notion that Israel can't build a fighter is ridiculous.  Israel was going to build one 25 years ago and after a lot of lobbying by the US was convinced that it would be too expensive by a margin of 1 vote in the Knesset.  Israel is a world leader in the production of avionics, radars, missiles, UAVs, etc.  They reverse engineered the Mirage III about 40 years ago and are a world leader in updating aircraft.

 

As Herald pointed out the one thing they did not do 25 years ago is produce jet engines.  They now have an annual jet engine symposium, a company like R-Jet Engineering which developed the "disruptive" turbine engine, a significant research facility, companies like Ashot that in the past 15 years have built more than 25,000 engine shafts for companies like GE and RR, etc.  It's not clear to me that Israel could not develop or co develop a jet engine with India within 10 years.  

 

Focusing on Iran's nuclear weapons program is not being mired in one's own propaganda and saying so is disturbing on myriad levels.  First lets just assume, as you apparently do, that Iran is a rational actor and is not an existential threat to Israel.  Let us further assume Israel believes this and will not seek to attack Iran.  Then let us assume Iran will not give a nuclear weapon, nuclear materials, or nuclear weapons technology to a 3rd party.  Further let us assume Iran will not use the threat of it's nuclear weapons as a political tool against the interests of the US or our allies (leaving Israel aside).

 

Even assuming all this there remains the reality that Iran with nuclear weapons means nuclear weapons programs sprouting up in Saudi Arabia, the UAE (they have already contracted for multiple new reactors), Turkey, Egypt and others.   This type of nuclear arms race is a rather large geo poltical problem that is not mollified by the simplistic notion that a nuclear Iran can be both contained and deterred.

 

A nuclear Iran will have much higher regional fallout than a nuclear North Korea and the fallout from a seriously rearmed Japan has not even begun to be appreciated.

 

Isreal managed to survive 1948, 1956, and 1967 withou major US government support.  Isreal managed to survive after losing it's major arms suppliers in France and the UK in the 1960s.  It now has hundreds of it's very advanced thermonuclear weapons without the Cold War USSR propping up Syria and Egypt.  Unlike 1973 a combined invasion by these two nations today is going nowhere.  The use of WMDs is another matter altogether.  In any case saying Israel does not survive without the US is a tad silly.  Israel recently exported more arms than the UK or France to hit 3rd behind the US and Russia.

 

 

 

 

Again, you do not get it. Ally doesn't mean 100% agreement, 100% same kind of government, 100% same culture. The ME is full of nations that are allied to US interest. I've personally spent 6 months as a liason to one of those nations and the assignment was prior to the GWOT. You really should research this if you don't have the benefit of any experience with nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE ect. 

Explaining the Long-term Hostility between the United States and Iran

Nils Jordet

Ph.D. Dissertation

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

THE RESEARCH PUZZLE

It is unfortunate that the long-term hostility between Iran and the United States has come to be seen in the oversimplified and narrowly defined terms of Islamic fundamentalism. One ramification of this common ideological construction is the difficulty it causes in answering an important historical question: How do we theoretically explain the long-term hostility between the United States and Iran? This dissertation seeks to explain the enduring animosity between the United States and Iran.

Despite the passing away of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, U.S.-Iranian relations have remained virtually frozen for two decades. In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1978-79, Iran became in due course the permanent enemy of the United States. The 19th century British foreign secretary and prime minister, Lord Palmerston, famously proclaimed that Great Britain ?has no permanent friends; she has only permanent interests.? Correspondingly, one needs to ask the question why the United States—the most powerful and prosperous nation of the 20th century—as a matter of fact acquired a number of ?permanent enemies.?

OBSERVATIONS

Since Ayatollah Khomeini denounced the United States as the "Great Satan" and approved the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979, the U.S. has treated the Islamic Republic of Iran as one of the most extreme, irrational, and dangerous governments in the world. President Clinton?s national security advisor, Anthony Lake, characterized Iran as a ?backlash? state and concluded ?[Iran?s] revolutionary and militant messages are openly hostile to the United States and its core interests. This basic political reality will shape relations for the foreseeable future.? The Clinton Administration then called for a policy of ?dual containment? of Iran and Iraq, which culminated in the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996.

Despite the extremely ideological and hostile rhetoric coming out of Iran, the argument can be made that Iran?s foreign policy since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini has been predominantly pragmatic and above all rooted in realpolitik dictated by economic, demographic, and legitimate security problems. However, two years into the second Clinton Administration, U.S. foreign policy toward Iran was paradoxically more uncompromising than at any time since the Hostage Crisis.

Today, the collision between Iran and the United States is directly linked to Iran?s involvement in international terrorism and Iran?s program for acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and indirectly connected to parallel armed conflicts in the region. The United States and Iran have come to see several contested military and political issues in an entirely different light. The United States considers Iran?s effort to strengthen its military capability as destabilizing to the region. There is widespread agreement in the United States that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran?s program for acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is of great concern not only to the United States and Israel, but also to countries in Europe. However, Iran is nearly completely surrounded by countries with nuclear, chemical, or bacteriological capabilities. The eight year long war with Iraq taught Iran an extremely costly lesson not to ever fight another war without access to unconventional military capabilities. Moreover, Iran is geographically located within a conventional regional security environment that is extremely unstable. The region has seen three major wars over the last two decades—the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the never-ending war in Afghanistan—in addition to a nuclear build-up between Pakistan and India. The region has in the same period experienced numerous smaller wars and armed conflicts in places like Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Chechnya, and ?Kurdistan.? The conflict in southern Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah is particularly illuminating with regard to the United States and Iran?s diametrical perception of the same disputed issues. The United States has branded the Hezbollah a terrorist organization, wh