16 September 2007

Israeli raid into Syria - the plot thickens

As if it were not foggy enough, now we have Peter Beaumont of the Observer jumping into the fray with a new version of the event.

First of all, he came up with a name for this sortie: Operation Orchard. Now, of course, the relevance of the whole story he concocted is that much higher, due to this morsel of inside info. Then, in a generous display of his ability to reach deep into the IAF secret vaults, he says:

It was a secrecy so tight, in fact, that even as the Israeli aircrew climbed into the cockpits of their planes they were not told the nature of the target they were being ordered to attack.
Gee... I wonder, have the pilots realized by now where they have been taken? No worries, they could wait for the next issue of The Observer.

And then, after going through and discarding all previously offered versions, Beaumont comes up with a smasher of his own:
So Operation Orchard can be seen as a dry run, a raid using the same heavily modified long-range aircraft, procured specifically from the US with Iran's nuclear sites in mind.
To make it irresistible, he adds something that the previous authors have neglected:
It [the nuclear angle version] also combined a series of neoconservative foreign policy concerns:...
This one is definitely a clincher, and the artful (?) insertion of the neocons is a winner. At least with the right kind of reader. And to increase the impact of this penetrating analysis, Beaumont finishes the piece in a deafening crescendo:
In the end there is no mystery. Only a frightening reminder. In a world of proxy threats and proxy actions, the threat of military action against Iran has far from disappeared from the agenda.
I hope, dear readers, you are sufficiently scared by now. Just hold on to your seats...

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