Why Israel probably won’t bomb Iran during the transition

There is a lot of chatter at the moment about the idea that Israel might use the gap between the US elections in November and the inauguration of a new president in January to strike a blow against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But as Bob Kaplan points out there is a good reason to think this probably won’t happen:

There is a problem, though. Violating, say, Jordanian or Turkish airspace is not really the issue. The issue is that largely because of the on-going Iraq war, the U. S. controls the airspace over the entry points to Iran: in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf. Thus, an Israeli attack on Iran could probably only happen with U. S. connivance. And even if Israel could evade American sensors, few would believe that it honestly did so. As a sort of a last hurrah, one might speculate that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would let Israel bomb Iran with a wink and a nod.