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US keeps the powder
dry
By David Isenberg
The debate over
Iran's alleged nuclear-weapons program remains contentious.
On Saturday Mohamed ElBaradei, director of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
said he lacked useful intelligence on Iran's
nuclear program and urged states that accuse
Tehran of seeking an atomic bomb to provide
evidence.
"There's a lot of talk
about somebody believes that Iran has a nuclear-weapons
program. We cannot work on the basis of belief, we
have to work on the basis of fact," ElBaradei said
at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"If people have information on the basis of which
they are coming to the conclusion that this is a
weapons program, I'd like very much for them to
share with us."
But if one has learned
anything from the previous four years of the Bush
administration, it is that there are times when
you should take it at its word. Not on the issue
of how it perceives the world or a country, or
even if it has its facts straight, but rather what
it intends to do about something it considers a
threat.
Thus when it says that Iran's
ambition to build nuclear weapons is something
that can't be allowed, people should listen.
Currently, the establishment spin is that
the United States would not conceive of attacking
Iran, either because of political fallout - as if
that deterred the US from invading Iraq - or
because the US military is over-extended and too bloodied
from fighting the ongoing insurgency in Iraq.
For example, conservative columnist Robert
Novak wrote in the Washington Post of January 27, "US
military action against the Iranians is not a
realistic option. Pentagon and State Department
sources say a single blow could not eliminate
Iran's nuclear capability, and an attempted change
of regime in Tehran would entail a military effort
the United States cannot undertake."
But from a US military perspective, the aim in Iran
is markedly different. They are not seeking
"regime change", though there are
neo-conservative cheerleaders calling for it. What they would
be called on to do is destroy, or at a
minimum substantially set back for many years,
Iran's nuclear-weapons program.
This, of course, is something
that would be done through air power, which is
a preference for the Pentagon. As such it is a
military option that is both attractive and doable. Unlike
the US Army and Marine Corps, the US Air Force
has emerged from Operation Iraqi Freedom largely
unscathed. Its assets, in terms of attack aircraft,
are plentiful, and since the September 11,
2001, attacks it has acquired the use of many new
bases in or close to the region.
For
example, the group GlobalSecurity, in Alexandria,
Virginia, has the best open-source analysis of the
military feasibility of attacking Iranian nuclear
facilities. It notes that there are perhaps two
dozen suspected nuclear facilities in Iran. The
1,000-megawatt Bushehr nuclear plant would likely
be the target of such strikes. Also, the suspected
nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak would likely
be targets of an air attack.
US
air strikes
on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the
1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak nuclear center
in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening
days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq.
Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth
bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying
direct from the US, possibly supplemented by
F-117 stealth fighters staging from al-Udeid in Qatar
or some other location in theater, the two
dozen suspect nuclear sites would be targeted.
Satellite imagery from Diego Garcia, taken
after the tsunami that devastated parts of Asia on
December 26, posted on GlobalSecurity's website,
showed multiple aircraft, including nine B-1
bombers. Also, B-52s and B-2s from the continental
US could be used. The US also has aircraft at
Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab
Emirates.
GlobalSecurity director John
Pike said, "I don't think that such a large
campaign would be required. Most people who have
thought about it seem to conclude that hundreds of
bombs on one day, rather than thousands of bombs
over a week, would do the trick."
Pike predicted that the US would seek to carry
out a strike by next year, or even by the end
of this year. He noted that a strike would
not prevent Iran from starting over, but it might
set the program back 15-20 years. He said, "You would
especially do damage if you target the housing
which is co-located by the facilities." Such
housing is where foreign scientists and
technicians reside.
If conventional
military action is taken it would likely involve
US Navy assets capable of launching Tomahawk
land-attack cruise missiles (TLAMS) and strike
aircraft against targets in southern and central
Iran.
According to a January 2004 study by
the US Army War College's Strategic Studies
Institute, nearly all fighter aircraft, both in
the US Air Force and Navy, can deliver precision
munitions, such as GBU-28 laser-guided bombs and
the AGM-86D conventional air-launched cruise
missile Block II for use against hardened and/or
buried facilities.
In
that regard, it bears noting that
United Press International reported last week that the US Air
Force is flying combat aircraft into Iranian
airspace in an attempt to lure Tehran into turning on
its air-defense radars, thus allowing American pilots to grid
the system for use in future targeting data.
The flights, which have been going on
for weeks, are being launched from sites
in Afghanistan and Iraq and are part of the
Bush administration's attempts to collect badly
needed intelligence on Iran's possible nuclear-weapons
development sites, these sources said.
However, overt military action is not the
only option available to the US. Other measures
include harassment or murder of key Iranian
scientists or technicians; introduction of fatal
design flaws into the critical reactor, centrifuge
or weapons components during their production, to
ensure catastrophic failure during use; disruption
or interdiction of key technology or material
transfers through sabotage or covert military
actions on land, in the air or at sea; and
sabotage of critical facilities by US intelligence
assets, including third-country nationals or
Iranian agents with access to key facilities.
Such covert options would be consistent
with Seymour Hersh's article in The New Yorker
that secret reconnaissance operations have already
begun inside Iran, as the Pentagon prepares target
lists of nuclear sites that could be attacked from
the air or by ground-based commando units.
Reliable intelligence is probably the
most daunting challenge military planners face. It
is far from clear that their assessment of
Iran's nuclear infrastructure is complete.
GlobalSecurity notes that one cannot exclude the
possibility, however, that some or all of the visible
nuclear weapons complex is simply a decoy, designed
to draw attention. It is possible that Iran,
like North Korea and unlike Pakistan, has
buried nuclear-weapons production capabilities that have
escaped detection, and will continue in operation
even if the visible facilities are destroyed.
Being able to do something, however, does
not mean one should do it. The study noted that
preventive action by the US against Iran's nuclear
program today would have to contend with
intelligence, military-technical and political
challenges more daunting than those faced by
Israel in 1991.
Successful US prevention
would require exceptionally complete intelligence;
near flawless military execution; and deft
post-strike diplomacy to mitigate an anti-American
nationalist backlash, deter retaliation and, most
important, ensure that military action does not
poison pro-American sentiment, or derail the
movement for political change in Iran. The
complex, daunting and somewhat contradictory
nature of these challenges (eg, successful
prevention could harm short-term prospects for
political change and complicate long-term
prospects for rapprochement with a new Iran) only
underscores the importance of exhausting
diplomatic actions before giving serious
consideration to military action.
If
the United States does attack Iran it likely will be
entirely on its own. On November 5, British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw said the United Kingdom could
not see a circumstance that would allow it to
support such an air strike by the US, Israel, or
any other force on Iran at this time.
David Isenberg, a senior analyst
with the Washington-based British American
Security Information Council (BASIC), has a wide
background in arms control and national security
issues. The views expressed are his own.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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