United States President Barack Obama reportedly told representatives of the
Chinese government recently that the US may not be able to restrain the
Israelis from launching a massive military strike on Iran's nuclear and missile
facilities for much longer.
According to the Israeli Newspaper Ha'aretz on December 17:
President
Barack Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would
not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for
much longer, senior officials in Jerusalem told Ha'aretz. They said Obama
warned President Hu Jintao during the American's visit to Beijing a month ago
as part of the US attempt to convince the Chinese to support strict sanctions
on Tehran if it does not accept Western proposals for its nuclear program.
The Israeli officials, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of
the matter, said the United States had informed Israel on Obama's meetings in
Beijing on Iran. They said Obama made it clear to Hu that at some point the
United States would no longer be able to prevent Israel from acting as it saw
fit in response to the perceived Iranian threat.
However, Iran
appears to be in denial of the danger and continues
to be its own worst enemy with a constant campaign of bluster, hyperbole and
threats.
As with a number of well-known Middle Eastern leaders, including the late and
largely unlamented Saddam Hussein, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad continues to
put what purports to be national pride before common sense or a rational
approach to international relations.
The Iranian government, its military and intelligence services go out of their
way to needle the West in a manner that suggests that they still harbor the
illusion of surviving such a military confrontation.
Iran incapable of defending its strategic targets
The truth is that Iran is quite incapable of defending its air space and
strategic targets against a determined Israeli attack, let alone one that
involved US air assets.
Iran's air force and air defense forces are a generation or more behind its
potential foes. According to the US Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) in Washington in May 2009, "Without Russian air defense systems,
Iran is a sitting duck."
CSIS said, "Iran's current air defense umbrella is antiquated and could not
stop an Israeli or US strike. Iran's air defense network could be easily
penetrated by the air forces of Israel and the United States."
The CSIS report continued, "Iran's aging US and Russian-origin assets could not
intercept Israeli F-15 and F-16 fighters ... Iran lacks the modern weapon
systems, integration and C4I battle management to reduce the potential
destructive effectiveness of any offensive interdiction missions by Israel."
The report, titled "Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran's Nuclear
Development Facilities", said: "One can predict a very low attrition rate to an
Israeli strike."
Indeed, there are so far unconfirmed reports that the five-day Iranian air
defense exercise held in late November to test the defense of its strategic
nuclear sites was an abject failure. Middle East sources have reported, "From
the word go on Sunday, November 22, Iran's five-day drill demonstrated that its
air force and air defense units were unequal to their mission of keeping the
skies over its nuclear sites clear of incoming strike aircraft."
The Iranian navy is limited to counter-attacking allied naval forces in the
Gulf in the event of a major conflict, while the Iranian army has no one to
attack directly, with Iraq, Syria and Jordan between its armored forces and the
borders of Israel.
It goes almost without saying that any serious attempt by Iran to launch a
military strike on US or allied forces based in Iraq, the Gulf, Pakistan or
Afghanistan, or indeed the strategically vital oilfields of Kuwait, northern
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, could be expected to bring an immediate Western
military response with catastrophic consequences for Tehran.
A growing missile threat
This leaves just Iran's growing missile capability for Israel and the West to
ponder.
It is fair to say that Iran has made considerable strides in such technology
with the overt help of North Korea and covert assistance by Pakistan, China and
very probably a number of renegade Western commercial companies.
Iran does now have a limited ability to strike at Israel and Western targets
throughout a wide area of the Middle East.
It was widely reported on December 16 that Iran test-fired an upgraded version
of an advanced missile system believed to be capable of hitting Israel and even
parts of Europe in an apparent show of strength aimed at discouraging attacks
on its nuclear facilities. The test of the medium-range Sajjil-2 was reportedly
a success and encouraged Iran to claim that it could retaliate effectively
against a future US or Israeli military strike.
The Foreign Office in London said Iran has the "clear intention to extend the
range of its missiles", calling the launch "the wrong signal to send when the
international community is trying to find a diplomatic solution" to its growing
nuclear program.
James Lewis, a senior defense expert at CSIS, said that Iran probably has up to
300 shorter-range Shahab missiles, while the Sajjil remains in the test phase
and currently "it's not a sophisticated program". But, Lewis added, "they've
been putting a lot of money and effort into this program for more than a
decade, and we have to take their claims seriously."
Wednesday’s test was the third for the Sajjil-2 since it was unveiled in May.
The missile has the longest range of any in Iran's arsenal, about 1,200 miles
(1,900 kilometers) - putting Israel, Iran's sworn enemy, and US bases in the
Gulf region well within reach. It could also reach parts of southeastern and
eastern Europe.
Nuclear capability still years away
However, while Iran may have recently tested a "nuclear trigger" under
laboratory conditions - if unconfirmed reports coming out of London are to be
believed - and have enough enriched uranium for a single crude nuclear bomb, it
still remains likely that Iran is at least five years away from having a
genuine nuclear first-strike capability against Israel, even assuming that this
is the path it is taking - something Tehran consistently denies.
Before that stage is reached, a considerable amount of weapons-grade material
would have to be produced; the bomb and its trigger tested, probably more than
once and then the advanced technology developed to build a significant number
of miniaturized nuclear weapons to fit the nose cones of its missile force.
Iran is highly unlikely to be able to develop or procure in the foreseeable
future the type of advanced strike aircraft capable of delivering an
air-dropped nuclear weapon over the required distance and which would have
undoubtedly provided a quicker option for developing a nuclear strike force.
Therefore, the Iranian threat in the immediate future will rest on a relatively
small number of missiles with conventional warheads, for if Tehran was to use
any of its known stocks of chemical or biological weapons in missile attacks on
Israel, the response would quite certainly be that which would have followed a
nuclear attack; the total devastation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
If Iran continues to be at odds with the United States, the European Union and
the United Nations, then it must be a distinct possibility that Israel will
indeed launch a massive air assault, feasibly backed up by cruise missiles
launched from submarines in the Arabian Sea sometime next year.
Even a successful Israeli attack will still hold grave dangers for Washington,
however.
A very significant proportion of the munitions that the Israeli Defense Forces
would drop on Iran would be "Made in the USA". It remains a valid point that
Iran may reasonably not be too concerned with who actually drops the bombs and
be far more vengeful against those who made the weapons, trained the pilots,
built the aircraft and who Tehran ultimately blames for sponsoring and
protecting its attacker.
Nor could the Iranian military be 100% certain that any such attack would not
include covert US involvement and particularly satellite targeting intelligence
and electronic warfare assets. Iran's response may therefore be to blindly
strike back at any and all available targets, whether Israeli or Western, and
by any means left to it, including missile strikes and attacks by its worldwide
network of supporters, including Hezbollah and Hamas.
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