Sunday, September 27, 2009

The Israeli attack on Iran

The Wall Street Journal published an essay yesterday that thoroughly examines Israel's military options in attacking Iran:

"One of the fundamental problems dogging Israel, especially concerning short-ranged fighters and fighter-bombers, is distance. Iran's potential targets are between 950 and 1,400 miles from Israel, the far margin of the ranges Israeli fighters can reach, even with aerial refueling. Israel would be hard-pressed to destroy all of Iran's best-known targets. What's more, Iran has had years in which to build up covert facilities, disperse elements of its nuclear and missile programs, and develop options for recovering from such an attack.

Most analyses of a possible Israeli attack focus on only three of Iran's most visible facilities: its centrifuge facilities at Natanz, its light water nuclear power reactor near Bushehr, and a heavy water reactor at Arak it could use to produce plutonium. They are all some 950 to 1,000 miles from Israel. Each of these three targets differs sharply in terms of the near-term risk it poses to Israel and its vulnerability.......

srael has fighters, refueling tankers and precision-guided air-to-ground weapons to strike at all of these targets—even if it flies the long-distance routes needed to avoid the most critical air defenses in neighboring Arab states. It is also far from clear that any Arab air force would risk engaging Israeli fighters. Syria, after all, did not attempt to engage Israeli fighters when they attacked the reactor being built in Syria. In August 2003, the Israeli Air Force demonstrated the strategic capability to strike far-off targets such as Iran by flying three F-15 jets to Poland, 1,600 nautical miles away. Israel can launch and refuel two to three full squadrons of combat aircraft for a single set of strikes against Iran, and provide suitable refueling. Israel could also provide fighter escorts and has considerable electronic-warfare capability to suppress Iran's aging air defenses. It might take losses to Iran's fighters and surface-to-air missiles, but such losses would probably be limited.

Israel would, however, still face two critical problems. The first would be whether it can destroy a hardened underground facility like Natanz. The second is that a truly successful strike might have to hit far more targets over a much larger area than the three best-known sites. Iran has had years to build up covert and dispersed facilities, and is known to have dozens of other facilities associated with some aspect of its nuclear programs. Moreover, Israel would have to successfully strike at dozens of additional targets to do substantial damage to another key Iranian threat: its long-range missiles......" Essay

Notice the essay says nothing about the use of ground troops, special forces, anti- government elements in Iran, or submarine-launched cruise missiles (Article on cruise missile capability). Given how many years Iran has been on Israel's radar, especially for funding and supporting Hezbollah, I wouldn't bet the Mossad has much better intelligence than we do about Iran. Most of the so-called analysis on a possible attack focuses on air power and ignore other factors. Few operations that have been as heavily publicized as this one follow the predicted plan.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

This is how WWIII starts. Israel faces the threat of being annihilated by the loony mullahs, who have said that they will annihilate Israel, or taking out the threat. Israel is in a time crunch right now, because the Russians are going to but haven't yet delivered the newest anti-aircraft missiles. Israel elects to attack. The Russians, Chinese and Shiite Arab countries line up behind Iran. Israel is surrounded, threatening to be overwhelmed. What's the US going to do at this point? Watch the only democracy and our historic ally in the Middle East be overwhelmed for defending itself, or put our conventional forces into action? I think that the US is going to have to stand behind Israel. Voila, WWIII.

Anonymous said...

Bill which other Shiite Arabs are you referring to?

Anonymous said...

Bill, you seem unaware of our commander-in-chief's extraordinary history of throwing HIS closest allies under the bus when it suits. How quickly do you think he'll abandon a country that means nothing to him? I think he'll be happy to watch from the sidelines no matter how much abandoning an ally damages our country's reputation around the world.

Anonymous said...

Whoa...
might want to think this through a bit...

Why do you think it is rational nations agreed to stop above ground testing?

What do you think happened to the radioactive material released when Chernobyl melted down?

How far do you think radioactive material travels in the air?

How do forensic scientists date how old bones are and how long they've been dead these days?

Let's try a bit of science before we get excited about playing soldier.

If the technology exists to militarily destroy and seal nuclear facilities and render them harmless , great...otherwise, pause to consider what WWIII might be like. And, how easy it is to fight while puking one's guts out.

Unknown said...

Anonymous 8:22-The Obamessiah would have to grow a backbone, to use an ameliorative, to do the right thing. To paraphrase that great source of wisdom, The Godfather, the Oman does not appear to be a war time leader. For the sake of the residents of Israel, I hope that he can rise to the occasion if pressed..
Anonymous 9:25-I am envious of your technical knowledge and cannot dispute it. But it seems to me that it doesn't take into account political and commercial realities, like Czar Putin's inferiority complex re US and traditional Russian hostility toward Israel, and both Russia and China's zealous protection of their few fragile commercial ties.
Anonymous 6:18-all of them

Unknown said...

Anonymous 6:18-Don't confuse me with someone who knows what he or she is talking about, but here is a quote from Wikipedia about Shiite states: "Shia Muslims, less than a third of the Muslim world, constitute the majority of the population in Iran,[5] Azerbaijan,[6] Bahrain,[7], Lebanon, and Iraq. Countries with a significant minority of Shia are Syria, Kuwait, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Oman and Yemen."

Anonymous said...

Bill, I unfortunately do have knowledge due a government position I once held.

I am certain for the same reason that even within our own government, there are those who either don't have sufficient knowledge to take a position but do so for political reasons. And, there are those who dismiss any risks they find inconvenient if it furthered their personal or military or economic short term goals.

A few just don't really believe in science or anything they don't want to believe despite the facts they are given .

And far too many do not think the public should be informed of risks and given a say.

I'm sure that's true of other governments as well.

I suggesting we'd best not encourage those who overlook the long term consequences for short term gains and immediate gratification as that is one of the characteristics of immaturity.

It's been a while...so my last paragraph is a hope that new advances of which I am unaware would allow " taking out" a nuclear facility without significant wide spread and long term consequences but even then, I worry about who is defining " significant".



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