Wouldn't you then lose the vector-ness of Flash? GIFs are raster....

vector-ness?

Flash animations typically use vector images, which define the different shapes that make up an image. A GIF is a bitmap (or raster, they're synonyms) image format, which defines the individual pixels that make up an image. Image below is an example of the difference, stolen from Wikimedia Commons.

Congrats on using a jpeg to explain what a vector is.

lol

oh, i see you could make a high resolution image...

Meh...I've never used flash, but I'm guessing that it's not that hard to loop an animation. Probably a lot easier than converting fifty frames to GIF format and piecing them together.

nah, 2 images, looped, and you are good to go!

animate the eye with Gimp, then save it as an animation

something like this;
http://www.instructables.com/id/Create-an-animated-Avatar/