I am unshakably on the side of the Israelis vs. Iran, but something troubles me.
If they are going to strike at Iran, why have they waited, and waited, and waited, and ...
.... until "the point of no return" is so close at hand?
Why didn't they attack earlier?
Israel's capabilities for such an attack were almost certainly as good 5 years ago, as they are today. And if they had attacked in the interim between the November 2008 elections and Obama's inauguration, the outgoing Bush administration would have done nothing to stop them, and perhaps would have aided them.
Obama will not "help" Israel in its struggle against Islam. If anything, he will side with Islam. I'm sure Netanyahu (and the rest of Israel that is realistic and conservative) realizes this. So... why did they wait?
I believe it's because of "Jewish guilt". The Israelis are quite proactive about _defending_ the Jewish homeland, per se, but I believe there's something in the Jewish mindset (post-holocaust) that "stays their hands" where it comes to acting offensively. By "acting offensively" I mean military action taken outside Israel, as distinguished from defensive actions taken adjacent to Israel's immediate borders. They are reluctant to blindly kill Islamics en masse far away from their own turf. The act of doing so must seem as palatable to them as the genocide of the Nazis in World War II.
Something has held them back, something ephemeral.
Again, "Jewish guilt".
Since the 1940's, the cry has been, "Never again!"
If they don't act soon, those words will forever ring hollow.