Iran will fight to its
strengths By Richard M Bennett
It seems increasingly likely to many
foreign observers that Iran's army has quietly
acknowledged that it stands little chance of
defeating the United States in the event of
invasion, at least using conventional means.
However, its planning for an
unconventional or guerrilla warfare campaign of
resistance is far advanced and its confidence that
it would prove ultimately successful has been
greatly reinforced by the ongoing insurgency in
Iraq and the resistance shown by Hezbollah in
Lebanon.
In recognition of this, the US
may be losing interest in the vast commitment
needed for an invasion and the strain this would
undoubtedly place on its already overstretched
armed forces. The suspicion grows that any future
US-led attack on Iran may be
restricted to a massive
series of air and missile strikes on strategic
targets, most directly linked to Iran's nuclear
program.
The US would certainly wish
severely to damage not only nuclear-research
facilities, but missile-production centers;
chemical and biological warfare installations; the
air-defense infrastructure, radar, command and
control sites and probably the most significant
air bases as well.
It is unlikely,
however, that anything short of a ground invasion
or the use of small nuclear weapons would do
anything more than seriously degrade Iran's
advanced weapons programs and at most set the
country back some five years. The US must hope
that it "gets lucky" and that a serious military
humiliation for Iran would fatally undermine the
government in Tehran and lead to an eventual
change of regime.
It is interesting to
consider whether the Central Intelligence Agency
and other Western intelligence services have
achieved any great degree of penetration of Iran
or indeed anything on the scale of intelligence
available on Iraq's air and ground forces. Even in
Iraq it must be remembered that the intelligence
on weapons of mass destruction proved to be
grossly flawed.
Iran's powerful and
much-feared intelligence and security services
have built highly effective networks of informants
around the world and have a tight hold on Iranian
society. So far, it seems, Iran has proved rather
hard to infiltrate - its political intentions,
military installations and probably its most
important secrets are very well protected.
The army Iran's armed forces
have been placed on a high level of preparedness
and a number of major exercises have been carried
out in recent months, particularly along the
coastline of the Persian Gulf.
There is a
growing confidence among its leadership that Iran
could survive a conflict, short of outright
invasion, with the United States. Both the army
and the Republican Guard have invested much time,
effort and thought into providing Iran with an
effective low-tech response to the United States'
overwhelming military power.
The army of
some 325,000 is organized into a Northern
Operations Sector headquarters Reyaiyeh
(Azerbaijani and Turkish borders - reserve for
Iraq front); Western Operations Sector
headquarters Bakhtaran (Kermanshah); Southern
Operations Sector headquarters Dezful (southern
Iraq front - Gulf Coast - Strait of Hormuz);
Eastern Operations Sector headquarters Birjand
(Afghan, Pakistani and Turkmen borders); Airmobile
Strategic Reserve headquarters Isfahan; Army
Command headquarters Tehran; and the Republican
Guard (IRGC Pasdaran inqilab) of more than
130,000.
The IRGC also has a small but
effective naval force of at least 10 Chinese
Houdong-class missile boats with C802 missiles and
more than 100 small fast craft for suicide
missions against large warships or merchant
vessels, shore-based anti-ship missile batteries,
and a large combat swimmer special warfare force.
These are based at al-Farsiyah, Sirri, Abu Musa
and Larak and on the Halul oil platform.
Equipment Between the army and
the IRGC the Iranians can probably field about
1,600 battle tanks (including 157 M47/M48, 150
M60A1, 200 Chieftain, 540 T-55 and T-59, 75 T-62,
480 T-72 and at least 20 Iranian-built Zulfikar);
some 1,500 BMP-1, BMP-2, M113 and other armored
personnel carriers; more than 300 self-propelled
and 2,100 towed artillery; 900 mobile multiple
rocket launchers; more than 7,000 mortars,
anti-tank weapons and man-portable SAMs
(surface-to-air missiles). To this can be added
more than 550 helicopters, including some 85 US
AH-1J combat helicopters. Missile force Iran's missile programs are among the regime's
top priorities and it has succeeded in producing a
number of effective ballistic-missile systems,
including: Shahab-1 missile is a
minor variant of the Scud-B, which Iran initially
acquired from Libya and Syria between 1985 and
1986. The Scud-B's 300-kilometer range allowed
Iran to strike Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq War of
the 1980s. There are probably about 350 in
service.
Shahab-2 missile is
a variant of the Scud-C, built from 1990 with the
assistance of North Korea. It has a range
500-700km, and is therefore capable of striking
targets in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Iraq. About 450
are probably now in service.
Shahab-3 is a genuine
medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) developed
indigenously by Iran. It had an original range of
1,300km; recent modifications have increased this
to nearly 2,100km. It can thus easily reach Israel
and US bases throughout the region. The missile,
based on the Nodong-1, was first tested in 1998
and became operational on July 7, 2003. On
November 9, 2004, it was claimed that Iran now had
the capability of mass-producing this missile.
Significantly, Iran, with North Korean
assistance, is also actively pursuing the
development of a genuine intercontinental
ballistic missile capability, a missile capable of
threatening not only the whole of the Middle East
but Europe, Africa and Asia as well.
Many
other systems have been acquired, modified or
developed by Iran in recent years. These include
SAMs, anti-tank missiles, coast-defense missiles,
battlefield missiles and highly sophisticated
anti-ship missiles reportedly capable of
threatening US aircraft carriers operating outside
of the immediate Gulf area.
Weapons of
mass destruction Iran has an advanced
chemical and biological warfare program and is
believed to have stockpiled several hundred tons
of chemical agents in bulk and weaponized form,
including nerve, blister, choking and blood
agents. It has the capability to actually deploy
artillery shells, bombs and missile warheads
filled with chemical agents in significant
numbers. Whether it can deploy biological weapons
effectively remains in doubt.
However,
international interest remains firmly fixed on
Iran's nuclear program, one that is widely
considered by Western powers to be aimed largely
at the production of deployable weapons. Iran now
has several dozen nuclear-research facilities,
mostly well hidden and some buried deep in
bunkers, mountain caverns and heavily fortified
tunnel systems.
Unless the Pentagon's
intelligence on these locations is of top quality
and extremely precise, it is doubtful whether any
significant long-term damage can be assured by the
use of conventional weapons alone.
The
air force While Iran is aware that a
low-tech defense may prove highly effective in
deterring a ground invasion, the defense of its
strategic targets requires an increasingly
sophisticated and advanced high-tech air defense.
The key target in any future US or Israeli
air strike, regardless of its scope or duration,
would undoubtedly be Iran's nuclear industry.
Attacks on Iran's air defenses would seek to cause
long-term degradation and any large-scale
operation would require a broader range of air
defense targets to be struck.
The initial
intention would be to blind Iran's air-defense
command by destroying its radar coverage and
paralyzing its command and control infrastructure.
Iran faces the possibility of attack by
either the US or Israel. The Israeli Air Force,
with its limited strategic assets, would only be
able to strike at a very small number of the main
Iranian targets using F-15Is and rather risky
in-flight refueling somewhere over Iraq.
Additional strike capability would only be
available from the F-16I squadrons using the
buddy-refueling system. Recent deliveries of
advanced weapons by the US have markedly increased
the ability of the Israel Defense Force to attack
hardened targets, but the number of sites would
still remain limited to a few high-value targets,
such as the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex.
It is considered unlikely by some
observers that Israel would be prepared to use its
Jericho missile force to attack Iranian targets,
except in retaliation.
The United States,
however, is not restricted by such limitations and
if the political will is present, then a truly
exotic and quite remarkable variety of weaponry is
available for use by the US Air Force, Navy and
Marine Corps. Ranging from ship- and
submarine-launched to air-launched Tomahawk cruise
missiles, stand-off weapons would be guided to
their targets by satellite and deep-penetration
bombs.
Highly sophisticated precision
delivery of traditional and specialized bombs
would come from strike aircraft ranging from B-2
Spirit and F-117 stealth aircraft and B-52 heavy
bombers to the F-18, F-16, F-15 and F-14 fighters.
These devastating air strikes would be delivered
from a range of air bases established in friendly
countries on all sides of Iran and from aircraft
carriers, missile cruisers, destroyers and
submarines in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian
Ocean and Persian Gulf.
Air
defense In consequence of the threat to
Iran's strategic targets, the armed forces have
sought constantly to upgrade, modify and enlarge
their air defenses. New radars, missiles and
control equipment have been acquired from Russia
and numerous other countries in Europe and Asia.
The Iranian Air Defense Command appears to
have rejected the old Soviet-style layered and
inflexible national system that so obviously
failed Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Iran, however, has
sought to learn valuable lessons from the US and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing
campaign in Serbia and US tactics against Iraq.
Every attempt is being made to improve the
survivability of the radar, command and control
networks as Iran is painfully aware that these
would be the United States' first target and would
be an essential part of any realistic chance of
Iran proving more resilient than its Iraqi
neighbor was in 2003.
The Iranians appear
to be pinning their hopes not on stopping the
strikes, but simply on making them rather costly
to the attacker, by developing an air-defense
system based on a number of highly integrated
local networks of interceptor aircraft.
Ground-based SAMs and radar-controlled
anti-aircraft artillery will provide a flexible
layered protection for specific areas.
This will be backed up by a mobile defense
system involving the unexpected movement of highly
mobile SAMs linked to numerous small formations of
low-flying fighters screened by mountain ranges
and teamed with F-14A "controllers" operating at
higher altitudes and deeper within Iranian
airspace.
It has been assumed by some
sources that this is part of an Iranian air force
plan to ambush US strike aircraft, their
electronic support aircraft, AWACS (Airborne
Warning and Control System) and refueling tankers
with surprise attacks using salvos of very
long-range missiles. It remains to be seen whether
these are to be Iran's tactics or indeed whether
they would stand any serious chance of success.
The air force has struggled hard to
rebuild the fighting force that existed under the
shah. Sophisticated aircraft and weapons and
superbly trained combat pilots were lost to
attrition in the eight-year war with Iraq or
through poor maintenance, lack of flying hours and
a chronic shortage of spare parts.
However, it is widely believed that the
air force has done a remarkable job in recent
years with limited resources and a shortage of
advanced equipment. There is no doubt that the air
force remains determined and committed and, while
no match for the US or Israel, would still prove a
tough opponent.
Air defense
There are reportedly some 16 battalions
with more than 100 US I-Hawk, and five squadrons
with 30 British Rapier and 15 Tigercat. There are
many other air-defense units, with 60 Chinese
HQ-2J(SA2), 10 or more Russian SA5, 30 Russian
SA-6, Chinese FM80 (based on French Crotale),
thousands of Russian and Iranian modified SA7s and
later-model man-portable SAMs, as well as some
remaining US Stingers.
Iran also recently
signed a major deal to buy at least 29 advanced
Russian tactical SAM systems, known as the TOR-M1,
which is designed to bring down cruise missiles
and aircraft at low altitudes.
The
navy The Iranian naval forces could turn
out to be a rather unpleasant surprise for the
United States, very much the war of the flea
versus the elephant, but still capable of giving a
nasty bite or two.
The main surface
combatants include three light missile patrol
frigates and two corvettes, along with at least 20
fast missile craft armed with C802 anti-ship
missiles. To these surface warships must be added
three Russian Kilo-class ultra-quiet conventional
submarines armed with long-range wake-homing
torpedoes. Iran also has the significant
capability to lay thousands of advanced Russian
and Chinese naval mines in the Gulf and
particularly in the narrow entrance formed by the
Strait of Hormuz.
It has bases at Bandar
Abbas (fleet headquarters), Bushehr, Kharg,
Bandar-e-Anzelli, Bandar-e-Khomeini and Chah
Bahar.
AFI
Researchprovides expert information
on the world's intelligence services, armed forces
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(Copyright 2006 AFI Research. Used
with permission.)
