Will the 2012 presidential election’s October surprise be an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program; and how would it affect the outcome of the election?

Increasingly, Israeli officials are expressing their fear that Iran is on the verge of entering the “zone of immunity” from an attack that would delay its building of a nuclear weapon. That’s when Iran is able to move sufficient enriched uranium and other essentials to a place deep underground where it can assemble nuclear weapons beyond the reach of deep-penetrator precision-guided bombs.

The closer Iran comes to this inflection point the more bellicose its rhetoric. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that "The existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to all humanity,” and "You want a new Middle East? We do too, but in the new Middle East . . . there will be no trace of the American presence and the Zionists." Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be wiped out. 

Numerous stories have appeared in the Israeli and American media in recent months about the internal debates within the Israeli government over the wisdom and timing of an attack. Those that know the Israelis well, however, don’t doubt that if and when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government determines that it can wait no longer it will attack, even if that attack takes place before the U.S. election.

How an attack would affect the election’s outcome depends on two obvious, but currently unpredictable, factors. First is the margin of victory one or the other candidate will likely have on Election Day if no Israeli attack takes place. The other is how far before the election the attack occurred. The more time between the attack and the election the better voters are able to assess the full consequences of an attack and President Obama’s response to them.  

If the election is close a relatively small number of voters will determine the outcome. Conventional wisdom says that when a national security crisis occurs, the American people rally around their commander-in-chief. An attack a few days before the election, with little time for the full impact of it to play out, could sway enough Independent voters to give President Obama the edge he needed to win if he didn’t already have it.

An Israeli attack anytime from now through mid-October could have the opposite effect, costing President Obama the election even if he might otherwise have won it.

The consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran, although not immediately apparent, will be far broader than Iranian/Hezbollah retaliation against Israel or U.S. interests in the region. Given the state of affairs in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, an Israel-Iran war could spark a wider regional conflict in the weeks and months following an Israeli attack.

Recent news reports indicate that “Egypt is sending in light tanks, armored vehicles and attack helicopters in the Sinai purportedly to fight Islamic groups blamed for a spate of attacks and attempted attacks against both Israel and Egyptian police.”

According to a senior Egyptian military official who spoke to WND.com, however, “Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi is studying the possibility of keeping tanks in the Sinai Peninsula on a permanent basis.” Not only would this violate the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and endanger $1.3 billion in U.S. military assistance, but it would increase tension between the two countries. A misjudgment on either side in the context of an Israel-Iran war could lead to a military confrontation between Israel and Egypt.

Syria would welcome a diversion of world attention from its civil war. In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, President Assad would be far more likely to use Syria’s chemical weapons to crush the rebels and their supporters. Iran and Hezbollah could more openly help Assad hold on to power and use Syria as a base from which to attack Israel.

U.S. forces have departed Iraq, but thousands of diplomats and U.S. contractors remain a prime targets for Iranian terrorist attacks.

An Israeli attack on Iran weeks before the election would provide U.S. voters with the opportunity to observe President Obama in the most serious foreign-policy crisis of his presidency. His failure to act decisively, quickly, and effectively would undercut his support.

President Obama’s supporters cite his decisions to go after Osama bin-Laden, surge U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and support the rebels in Libya as evidence that Barack Obama acts decisively on national security issues. He came to those decisions, however, slowly and deliberately. He postponed the decision to go after bin-Laden several times. He only approved half of the troops commanders in Afghanistan wanted following prolonged deliberation. In Libya, he acted slowly only after Britain and France took the lead and he built an international consensus.

It’s too early to know the long-term effects of President Obama’s decision making on bin-Laden, Afghanistan and Libya, but he deserves credit for all three decisions until history proves otherwise.

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of an Israeli attack, President Obama will have to act more quickly and alone. Regardless of how happy many countries might be to see Iran’s nuclear-weapons ambitions thwarted, there will be no international consensus on U.S. support for Israel at war.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that an attack close to the election is more likely to favor President Obama. An attack anytime from now until mid-October is more likely to favor Gov. Romney because the challenges for President Obama will be large, complex, and difficult, providing more opportunities for President Obama to stumble.