Monk

Touche, my dear!

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"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time. "

"Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."

Sir Winston Churchill

Garry

Realistically Israel can not use nukes in a pre-emptive strike and kill millions of Iranians. If it does so it is simply doomed.

On the other side they can not let somebody strike pre-emptivelly them.... so they need a creadible retaliation weapons. The German subs which they have are serving this role. They can attack Iran with cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. Probably Israel needs few times more than what they have......

In this case nuclear attack against Israel will be suisidal.

Israel has no rights nor means to occupy Iran...... They are smart and they will never even think of this. Anyway:

this would be a clear act of agreesion and it will meet a lot of opposition worldwide, while Israel is very dependent on Europe and USA, and foreign trade. Israel will see even new democratic Iraq fighting them together with other arabs.... even an attempt for such an invation would lead to big and bloody war...

It is simply not feasible. Israel has no logistical possibility to fight anywhere where there is no border with them directly..... Israelly army is not mobile enough. Another issue is that Israel does not have enough army to fight Iran on its own territory. For this war to be a fast blitzcreig Israel has no platzdarm to launch fast war.... It will also need a lot of army on its own borders to prevent attacks from other arabs.

Israel would need to get permission from Russia before that..... if it does not then Russia would be supplying Iran with weapons accross the Casian.... even US could not hold that in Vietnam.

Israel will surelly bomb Iran in 2006 or 2007..... however it must then do it regularly...... Uranium mines in Iran can not be terminated.... even if bombed heavily. So it is matter of time when Iran gets its first bomb. Ofcause bombing may delay that.... but will not solve the issue - if Iran wants it, it will get it.

There is one thing that Israel can do and is probably doing - obtaining large scale retaliation weapons - a large fleet of subs capable carrying nuclear warheads.

Leader

You're completely forgetting that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable to the US and we most certainly can prevent them from ever developing a nuclear weapon. We also don't need to nuke Iran to do it.

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nickshepAK

Why are you so quick to assume Israel's airstrikes would fail? I know the US Army War College recently issued a report that stated Israel does not have the capability to take out Iran's nuclear facilities on their own. But as this article points out, past missions prove otherwise.

Isreal can't stop Iran?

"How about when Israel bombed PLO headquarters in Tunisia?" I checked it out. According to the report:

Brom said Iranian nuclear assets are located between 1,500 and 1,700 kilometers from Israel.

So, at 1500-1700 Km, can they do it? Let's take a look at what they've done in the past with Operation Wooden Leg, where ten F-15s struck PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia with a single Boeing 707 (built in 1950; the first ever successful commercial airliner; read: really old technology) for mid-air refueling. The PLO headquarters were 3,000 Km away! That's double the distance to Iranian nuclear assets! And they did it in 1985 with technology from 1950 (Boeing 707) and 1972 (F-15E)! So, you can see why my scepticism.

However, there are extenuating circumstances. The flight to Tunisia was over the neutral waters of the Mediterranean. The strike was in a small African country with no Air Force to speak of. The flight to Iran would need to overfly Jordan or Syria, both unfriendly territory. They would need to fly low to avoid radar detection which takes up extra fuel. They would have friendly territory to fly across in US-occupied Iraq. However, they overflew that unfriendly territory before when they hit the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor and that was a strike that was 1,100 Km in length, only 400-600 Km less than an Iranian strike.

Furthermore, the legendary Mossad has the capability to pinpoint the location of Iran's nuclear assets. Also of interest is the time that Israel took five planes filled with 100 commandoes down to Entebbe, Uganda (a distance of approximately 3,200 Km) to free a bunch of Israeli and Jewish hostages held by Arab terrorists that had hijacked an airliner.

I think that Israel has the capability to do it. Everyone thought that the Osirak strike was impossible, too. They said it was too far away and over hostile territory. They never dreamt Israel would do it because they thought they couldn't! They were proved wrong. In this case they have the additional advantage of flying over a friendly Iraq and the hawkish Bush administration would consider lending refueling support to any strike. The US has just as little interest in Iran becoming a nuclear power as does Israel. Really, the easiest thing would be if the US simply lent an Iraqi Air Force base to Israel for a couple of days. (Oh the irony of the IAF operating out of an Iraqi AF base! The Iraqis probably wouldn't like that too well, though. But, you never know: Iraq and Iran fought several long, bloody wars.)

In related news, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for Israeli to make such a strike.

lwarmonger

1) You'd need a sustained air campaign to be sure, and the Israelis can't mount that.

2) When the Israelis launched their raid on Osirak, the Iraqis were embroiled with their war against Iran. The Iraqi air force was caught completely flat footed because they were looking (quite naturally) to the east. That is not the case for Iran.

3) Syria supported Iran against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Syria would not support Israel against Iran however, and any air strike through their territory is likely to be met either on the way there or the way back.

Commando

Does not matter, Israel knows there will be retaliation but Syria can not hurt Israel.

Leader

I think he's referring to that the planes might be shot down trying to fly over Syria on their way to Iran.

Commando

Point taken. Yeh that sounds right since Iran and Syria have high tech russian aviation defence systems in place. Although with the power of the Israeli air force there will need to be a lot of their planes shot down to hamper continous future air strikes.

If Israel does perform air strikes on suspected nuclear facilties. Will Iran launch a full or small scale retaliatio and what countries will militarily support Iran?

Cheers,

Leader

I really don't think Israel will attack, but I doubt the Iranians can do much in response. A few missiles maybe, but then they will likely get anything the give back 10X. No one will militarily support Iran. That would be just asking Israel to kick their ass. I can see any of the Arab states doing more then complaining.

Commando

That would not suprise me. The arabs reputation has diminished somewhat after the "no show" Iraqi army. Arab countries seem to be full of hollow threats.

In this documentary on al jazeera they expressed how degraing it was for the whole arab world that when the Americans took down the statue of Saddam they had no resistance. Over 1.3 million troops had run scared. They said even if they didn't support Saddam they still should have fought, i found that quite ironic.

Garry

luckilly decisions are made by mature people..... whatever beliefs are.... it is hard task invading and occupying Iran with a territory 4 times more than that of Iraq, and has terrain. Add there 66mln of population compared to 26mln in Iraq.

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back to Israel air strickes. They are possible in 2006 and 07

Syrian and Irani air defenses are weak.... but may be enfored if Israel starts attacking them.

Remember that time to have S-300PMU combat ready is just 15 minutes since it is loaded from aircraft. The short-rante Tor-M1 can be combat ready in just few minutues after it goes out of IL-76.....

The only reason why it is not delievered - Russia does not need them strong...... but dependent. And Russia does not want them to challenge US.....

As for effectiveness. It would take more than just few precision strikes to destrong their nuclear industry. Israel will not solve this issue with one sortie nor even with few..... it requires thousands tons of explosives delivered to targets -i.e. around 500-1000 sorties.

Even if this would be realized. Israel will then need to do it pretty regurlarly to make sure Iran did not resume and progress further. All Uranium which is already enriched can not de destroyed.... but each time Iranians will add more and more to this using their open pit uranium mines and isolated centrifuges..... It is matter of time when they get enough for first bomb.

I talked on that with people experienced in civil uranium enrichment technolgies in Russia..... we also discussed this with colonel here

http://worldaffairsboard.com/showpos...6&postcount=70
http://worldaffairsboard.com/showpos...8&postcount=66

the conclusion. To stop Iran you need to invade it...... it is not possible to stop or delay them materelly until they have their own uranium source.

So my conslusion. ISRAEL NEEDS NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON MANY SUBS.... URGENT AND CREADIBLE

Monk

Israel will also need an Aircraft carrier. That could really tilt the balance.

Dreadnought

If Iran was to continue to threaten Israel and continues to keep trying to buy time
over the nuclear issue. I wouldnt be surprised if "W" lent them one we have in the reseve fleets or sold them one very cheap.

lwarmonger

Hahahaha! That's a good one! Even if the Israelis had use of an aircraft carrier (I don't think they have the manpower or the need), the Egyptians wouldn't let them through the Suez, and they lack sufficient basing rights to get any escorts around the Horn of Africa and back.

lwarmonger

But Israeli stocks of modern weapons are also limited. 1973 demonstrated the superiority of Western tanks, but also demonstrated the effectiveness of Russian surface to air missiles (at shooting down aircraft from both sides).


The US might allow Israeli air strikes over Iraqi air space... but they won't allow the Iranians to hit back through American defenses.

I agree that it would take more than a few air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear program. I'm not so sure about 500, but clearly more than Israel is capable of launching at a target that far away.

Their mobile launchers should tide them over for a while to come. It will take a bit of time before Iran develops counter-force capability, even when they do acquire nukes.