WarSclerotic

Extraordinary Traffic Between Tel Aviv and Washington – Jeffrey Goldberg – International – The Atlantic.

I’m traveling overseas just now, so blogging will be light, but I couldn’t let this small observation go unmentioned: If you had just emerged from a cave, and had no idea if Israel and Iran were at war, and the only data point you had was the extraordinary traffic between Washington and Tel Aviv — every senior defense official of both Israel and the U.S. more or less continuously in flight to either the Pentagon or the Kirya, the Israeli defense ministry in Tel Aviv — you would probably make the assumption that open warfare had already begun, or that it was about to begin. Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, is now heading, again, to Washington, a few days before his prime minister; the traffic toward Israel has been relentless, as well: Not a week goes by in which the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, or the director of national intelligence, or other figures of equivalent rank, is not heading toward Israel. Presumably, the Israeli message is, We can’t wait any longer. The American message is, please wait, we’ve got this. It definitely feels as if we are reaching a climax in this ongoing drama. I hope not, of course. I believe there is time. But the American reaction to the Israelis suggests that the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu believes there is no time.

Martin Peretz: All Of Western Civilization Could Soon Be Threatened By A Nuclear Iran | The New Republic.

• Martin Peretz
• February 25, 2012 | 12:00 am

Dr. Josef Olmert: Saudi Arabia and Syria — Iran Is in the Background.

Huffington Post

Sheikh Awad Al-Qarni is a prominent and well-respected Saudi cleric. Alongside his well-documented Islamic scholarship he is a fan of offering prize money towards causes dear to him. In the past, he offered $100,000 to the kidnapper and murderer of an Israeli soldier. These days, the benevolent Sheikh offers the same amount of money to the good Muslim who will assassinate Bashar Assad of Syria. Doing that, so the cleric declared, is an obligation more important even than killing an Israeli soldier.

Surely, a collective sigh of relief is heard in Israel, and the opposite in Syria, as the security apparatus around the besieged Syrian dictator must have paid attention to the forms of death that the Sheikh wishes their boss in Damascus. Hanging is the most benign of them…

It is not clear, whether the Sheikh coordinated his new plan with the rulers of his country, but he may still have been inspired by what seems to be a hardening Saudi attitude towards Bashar Assad. The Saudi foreign minister, Saud Al-Faysal, a veteran of many diplomatic conferences about the Middle East, left in disgust, the much-celebrated and little-achieving conference of the “Friends of Syria” in Tunis, initiated by the U.S., and attended by 70 states. The Saudi minister lamented the fact that the conferees referred to the “humanitarian aspect” of the Syrian tragedy, instead of discussing practical ways to help the rebels, including foreign military intervention. Clearly, the Saudis, always so cautious in dealing with Arab regional issues, have a reason why they want decisive action now in order to bring the Assad regime down.

They did not always show their profound resentment towards the Alawite dictatorship in Damascus. In fact, the Wahabbis of Riyad and Mecca flirted with both Hafiz and Bashar Assad when it suited their regional goals. This was not part of any newly-discovered empathy towards the Alawite religion, that much we should never expect from the pious Saudis. This was all about realpolitik, as the Alawites seemed to be entrenched in power in a country that has a major role to play in Middle East politics. So, King Abdallah swallowed his pride and sense of obvious disgust towards the Alawite regime, and paid Bashar Assad a visit, lasting just hours, in July of 2009. Less than a year later, the Saudi monarch, not known to be a frequent flyer, due to his age and illnesses, came to Beirut to confer with the host Lebanese President and Bashar Assad, in the aftermath of the UN report about the assassination of former Lebanese P.M. Rafiq Hariri. This tripartite summit was a diplomatic coup to the Syrian dictator, who was on top of the world, enjoying the Saudi recognition of Syria’s special role in Lebanese affairs, happening just five years after the not so dignified Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon during the “Cedar Revolution.”

Little did Bashar Assad and King Abdallah know then, that the Sunni population of Syria would rebel against the Alawite yoke just a year later. At the beginning of the uprising, the Saudis adopted their usual model of a reserved attitude, sitting on the fence and watching where the wind blows. But then a change occurred. The Saudis realized that the uprising has the potential of bringing the regime down, and much more so, with that happening, inflicting a devastating blow to Iran’s policy in the Middle East. Here is the key to understanding Saudi motivation regarding Syria. Yes, instinctive sympathy towards the plight of the oppressed Syrian Sunnis is on display, and with it the built-in disdain towards the Alawites. But then, there is the Saudi regional interest and their view of the neighbor from the other side of the straits of Hormuz, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The exposed WikiLeaks documents portrayed a terrified Saudi regime, haunted by the crippling fear from the Ayatollahs, and in particular, their nuclear program. This fear is, of course, common to all the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC], led by Saudi-Arabia. According to unverified reports, this fear has led the Saudis to support, behind close doors, the possibility of Israeli/and or American military strike against Iran. It is not something that the Saudis will say in public, nor will they admit any connection between the Iran issue and the fate of the Assad regime.

However, this connection is here and now. Saudi Arabia wants Assad down and as quickly as possible because they may believe that with that happening, the military option against Iran can become more attractive, if not to the Obama administration, then to Israel. It is well known that the Israeli calculus about Iran takes for granted the possibility of Syrian and Hezbollah counter-strikes against Israel if it attacks Iran. It seems that for the Saudis much more is at stake here than the $100,000 offered by the distinguished Sheikh Al-Qarni to the murderer of Bashar Assad…

The growing U.S.-Israel divide over Iran – Salon.com.

(Surprisingly well reasoned and ideology free analysis from the leftist Salon.com.  – JW )

A flurry of meetings between the two countries reveal disagreements about when and whether to resort to force

JERUSALEM — On Monday, both Israeli President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak head to Washington for separate but urgent meetings, a day after Iran beat Israel at an indisputably benign competition, the Oscars in which the Iranian film, “A Separation,” beat Israel’s “Footnote” for best Foreign Film.

The matter was at the root of wry commentary accompanying a flurry of visits not seen in years.

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

The Iranian Countdown.

The Jews will save the world because they have to defend themselves. And they will receive only condemnation for it

 

How many times does Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have to publicly and loudly say that they intend to “wipe Israel off the map” and otherwise annihilate its Jewish population before the world takes seriously the murderous intent of Iran?

How many negotiations between United Nations Atomic Agency personnel and how much deliberate obfuscation and refusal to cooperate will it take before the world admits it is dealing with raving lunatics when it comes to the leaders of Iran?

In late February Ayatollah Khamenei, at meeting with Iran’s nuclear scientists, said “Pressures, sanctions, and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran’s nuclear work.”

The widow of one assassinated nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Rochan Behdast, was quoted in the Iranian Fars News Agency article saying, “Mostafa’s ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel.”

In the lead-up to World War Two, numerous meetings with the Nazi leadership (plus a secret agreement with the Soviets to divide Poland) did nothing to stop its annexation of Austria and its invasion of Poland, the trigger for the conflagration.

Let us understand something. All the sanctions in the world will not deter the Iranian ayatollahs from a mission that began in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini led the Islamic revolution that ousted the Shah and turned Iran into a prison nation. Among their earliest acts was to take U.S. diplomats hostage and hold them for 444 days.

International law and international sanctions mean nothing to the ayatollahs

To the Iranian leadership—but not to its citizens who went into the streets of Tehran in 2009 to protest Ahmadinjad’s re-election—the whole world revolves around them. Their purpose is to bring back the Twelfth Imam, a mythical Shiite deity, to impose their brand of Islam on the world. Unknown to most is the fact that this can only be accomplished with a worldwide cataclysm of wars and massive death.

To the ever-lasting shame of the great powers, America, England, France, Russia, and China, they are all waiting for tiny Israel to preemptively attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and thus remove or at least delay the inevitable. It is a repeat of the 1930s run-up to World War II. They are running scared. They fear a war, but are failing to take the military action to avoid it a twenty-first century apocalypse..

An Israeli news agency DebkaFile report on February 22 was titled “Iran cuts down to six weeks timeline for weapons-grade uranium.” It reported that “Western and Israeli intelligence experts have concluded that the transfer of 20 percent uranium enrichment to the underground Fordo site near Qom has shortened Iran’s race for the 90 percent (weapons) grade product to six weeks.”

“The International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said Tuesday night, Feb 21, ‘It is disappointing that Iran did not accept our request to visit Parchin.’ This is the site where Iran conducts experiments in nuclear explosives and triggers.”

Disappointing?! Despite saying it was ready to resume talks with the great powers this is just one more example out of hundreds over the years in which Iran has purposefully stalled its way to still more time to achieve nuclear weapons.

When they get them, they will use them. The first target is going to be Israel and the next will be the United States of America, the Little Satan and the Great Satan, and time is running out.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, on February 17, released a report on a forthcoming March 3-4 Harvard Kennedy School of Government conference devoted to the dismantling of the state of Israel. A “One State Conference: Israel/Palestine and the One State Solution.” The last “solution” Jews faced was the Nazi’s “final solution” that became the Holocaust.

President Obama, busy apologizing to and withdrawing from Afghanistan has been famously hostile to Israel, a signal to the ayatollahs who have rejected every effort he has made to open a dialogue. Harvard’s conference sends the same signal.

The Israelis have twice destroyed nuclear reactors under construction, first in Iraq, and later in Syria.

The Jews will save the world because they have to defend themselves. And they will receive only condemnation for it.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Iran may be struggling with new … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By STR New / Reuters

BBC News – Analysis: How Israel might strike at Iran.

 

 

For all the myriad challenges facing Israel over the past decade it is the potential threat from a nuclear-armed Iran that has pre-occupied the country’s military planners.

 

It is this that in large part has guided the development of the Israeli Air Force (IAF) over recent years.

 

The IAF has purchased 125 advanced F-15I and F-16I warplanes, equipped with Israeli avionics and additional fuel tanks – tailor-made for long-range strike missions.

 

In addition, Israel has bought specialised bunker-busting munitions; developed large, long-endurance, unmanned aircraft; and much of its training has focused on long-range missions.

 

Israel has a track-record of pre-emptive strikes against nuclear targets in the region.

 

 

In June 1981, Israeli jets bombed the Osirak reactor near the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

 

More recently, in September 2007, Israeli warplanes attacked a facility in Syria that Israel, the US and many experts believed was a nuclear reactor under construction.

 

However, a potential strike against Iran would be nothing like the attacks in Iraq and Syria. These were both against single targets, located above ground, and came literally out of the blue.

 

An Israeli attempt to severely damage Iran’s nuclear programme would have to cope with a variety of problems, including range, the multiplicity of targets, and the nature of those targets.

 

Many of these problems are daunting in themselves, but when put together, they only compound the difficulties facing Israeli military planners.

How to get there?

For a start it is a very long way from Israel to Iran. As a rough estimate many of the potential targets are some 1,500km (930 miles) to 1,800km (1,120 miles) from Israeli bases. Israeli warplanes have to get to Iran and, equally important, get back.

 

At least three routes are possible.

 

• There is the northern one where Israeli jets would fly north and then east along the borders between Turkey and Syria, and then Turkey and Iraq
• The central, more likely route would take Israeli warplanes over Iraq. With the US military gone, the Iraqi authorities are far less able to monitor and control their air space, effectively opening a door to an Israeli incursion
• The third, southern route would take Israeli jets over Saudi air space. Would the Saudis turn a blind eye to such a move given their own concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme? Could this route be used by Israeli aircraft on the return leg of their journey? We just do not know

 

What we do know, given the range, is that Israeli aircraft will have to be topped up with fuel en route.

 

Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, says that “air-to-air refuelling will be critical”.

 

 

“Israeli aircraft,” he says, “need not just to get in and out of Iranian air space; they need to have enough fuel to provide time over their targets and they need sufficient fuel to cover any contingencies that might arise during the mission.”

 

The initial tanking, Mr Barrie says, might be done over the Mediterranean or even in Israeli airspace. “One option,” he notes, “would be to take off with a full bomb load and drop tanks containing additional fuel; to climb to cruising altitude and then at this point to replenish their tanks, before setting course for their targets in Iran.”

 

Israel is believed to have between eight to 10 large tankers based on the commercial Boeing 707 airframe, but experts believe that tanking capacity will prove one of the limiting factors in the scope of any operation.

What targets to hit?

The problems of range, the nature of some of the targets, and the availability of tanker aircraft will determine the nature and scope of any Israeli operation.

 

 

Douglas Barrie, of the IISS, says that “Israeli planners will be looking for where they can do most damage with the limited number of platforms at their disposal”.

 

“They’ll be asking where the main choke points are in the Iranian programme. Clearly, striking enrichment facilities makes a lot of sense from a military point of view,” he adds.

 

So the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, south of Tehran, and Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, would almost certainly be prominent on the target list.

 

The heavy-water production plant and heavy-water reactor under construction at Arak, in the west, might also figure, as would the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.

 

It is unclear whether Israel would have the capacity to strike a range of other targets associated with Iran’s missile programmes and explosives testing.

 

But this target list raises another set of problems. The enrichment facilities at Natanz are underground and the new plant at Fordo is buried deeply into the side of a mountain.

Can Israel destroy buried targets?

For an attack like this, says Douglas Barrie, you need good intelligence information. “You need to know”, he says, “about the geography of the target site; its geology; the nature of the earth; and the details of the design and construction of any buried reinforced concrete chambers.”

 

“You can assume,” he asserts, “that the Americans and the Israelis have been watching these sites closely over time.”

To reach buried targets you need special kinds of munitions. Deeply-buried facilities are not exclusive to the Middle East. There is a kind of race between the diggers and the weapons designers and it is one where the Americans have considerable experience.

 

The main weapon in Israel’s arsenal is the US-supplied GBU-28. This is a 5,000lb (2,268kg) laser-guided weapon with a special penetrating warhead. For an assessment of its capabilities I turned to Robert Hewson, the editor of IHS Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons.

 

“The GBU-28,” he told me, “is the largest penetrating weapon available for a tactical aircraft and, since it was first used by the US in 1991, it has been improved with better warheads and more accurate guidance.

 

“However, Israel’s use of this weapon would be hindered by several key operational factors. Realistically, the F-15I – the only delivery platform – can carry only one bomb, so a sizeable attack force would be required – demanding tanker and other support assets that Israel does not have in large numbers.

 

“The target would have to be attacked from relatively close range, meaning any attacking force will have to fight its way in and out of heavily-contested airspace.”

 

Furthermore, he says that “very accurate targeting data is required to use a weapon like GBU-28 to best effect”.

 

“The potential for success of a GBU-28 attack is not determined by the ‘book’ performance of the weapon alone.”

 

Of course, the great unknown question is how capable these weapons would be against buried Iranian enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordo.

 

Mr Hewson says that the GBU-28 is “effective against any hardened or deeply buried target – up to a point”.

 

“For a weapon like the GBU-28, velocity and angle of impact determine the penetrating effect, so the ideal drop is made from high altitude at maximum speed and hits the target at a near vertical angle,” he explains.

 

“This is less easy to do against a cave or mountainside, so the weapon will be less effective – but still more effective than pretty much any other available munitions.”

 

Indeed, as Douglas Barrie notes, one weapon might be insufficient.

 

“You could”, he says, “attempt to ‘dig your way in’ using several weapons on the same impact area to try to get through the soil, rock and concrete. Or you could try to block access to the facility by destroying tunnel entrances.

 

“In addition,” he says, “all of these facilities are power hungry, so you could attempt to destroy power supplies and any buried cabling.

 

“The aim would be to present the Iranians with a compound problem of blocked entrances, no power and collapsed underground chambers.”

Does Israel have other military options?

So far we have discussed only the known elements of Israel’s capabilities, mainly US-supplied aircraft and munitions. But Israel has a hugely advanced aerospace and electronics industry of its own and this may well have produced systems relevant for an attack against Iran.

 

 

Douglas Barrie says that there is much about Israel’s capabilities, especially its home-grown technology, that we do not know.

 

“Israel’s long-range Heron or Eitan drone could be used to gather an assessment of the damage done by any strikes, but perhaps could also be put to use helping to spoof air defences,” he adds.

 

“Indeed, this kind of deception or cyber-operation will likely be an integral part of the mission with the aim of blinding radars or generating a false picture of what was going on.”

What about Iran’s air defences?

Iran’s air defences are largely Russian-supplied systems familiar to Israeli pilots, though Iran also deploys the US-built Hawk system dating back to the days of the Shah.

 

 

Some of its most capable defences are Russian SA-5 missiles intended to target high-altitude threats, while it also deploys the mobile Tor-M1/SA-15 Gauntlet system optimised to engage targets at lower level.

 

Russia has consistently refused to supply Iran with the much more capable S-300 long-range system, though the Iranians claim to have procured some batteries elsewhere.

 

Iran’s surface-to-air missile force may be old but still represents a threat. Look at how much effort Nato and the US put into taking down Libya’s similar vintage air defences last year.

 

Israel will not have the time or the resources to embark upon this kind of protracted air campaign and thus the electronic element of any strike to suppress Iranian defences is likely to be as important as the actual dropping of weapons.

 

Israel’s small submarine force could potentially play a role here too. Douglas Barrie says that “there must be a reasonable assumption that Israel has an operational sea-launched cruise missile capability based upon their German-built Dolphin submarines”.

 

 

“These could be used to go after older but capable SA-5 air defence sites and big search and surveillance radars.”

 

But, he notes: “Adding a naval dimension complicates the co-ordination of any attack.”

 

Iran’s air force is seen by experts as being totally outclassed by its Israeli counterpart.

 

It has a small number of US-built F-14 Tomcat fighters and a significant number of relatively more modern Russian-supplied MiG-29s.

 

But the potential threat from Iranian aircraft again complicates Israeli planning and any air-to-air combat might place additional strains on the limited fuel supplies carried by the attacking aircraft.

Would an Israeli strike succeed?

Most experts agree that Israel could hit multiple targets in Iran and do considerable damage to its nuclear programme. They would, however, do much less damage than a full-scale US attack using all of the resources at Washington’s disposal.

 

The Israelis would be operating at the very limits of their capabilities. “If they pulled it off,” says Douglas Barrie, “it would be an impressive display of power projection against a difficult and dispersed set of targets.”

 

Only a small number of air forces in the world, he notes, could mount such an operation. But, Mr Barrie stresses: “Even if successful, it would only delay Iran’s nuclear programme.”

 

It is a point echoed by IHS Jane’s Robert Hewson.

 

“Israel does not have the mass of forces and will not be given the operational freedom [by Iran] required to destroy Iran’s nuclear complex,” he says. “If you bury enough stuff deep enough, enough of it will survive. Any Israeli attack can only damage and possibly not even slow the Iranian effort.

 

“The consequences of such an attack would be dire and global. It is impossible to see any up-side to this venture.”

 

That’s a view shared for now by Israel’s most important ally.

 

Only a few days ago, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, said that an Israeli attack would not be prudent.

 

Such a strike, he said, “would be destabilising and would not achieve their long-term objectives”.

 

However Israel’s calculus is very different. Knowing all their operational limitations, might they launch such an operation anyway?

Israel, Kurdish fighters destroyed Iran nuclear facility, email released by WikiLeaks claims – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In exchange released by website, worker at Stratfor intelligence firm doubts validity of a source claiming an Israeli ground force had already wiped out Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report February 27, 2012, 11:09 AM (GMT+02:00)

Iran’s Gamble – The Proliferation Sprint – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

 

Iran stands at the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability as the world watches in indecision.

Sanctions, covert action, and diplomacy have failed to alter Iran’s nuclear policy. Nor have they had a visible effect Iran’s the enrichment program – including Tehran’s growing stockpile of 19.75% low-enriched uranium (LEU).

Obtaining weapons-grade high-enriched uranium (HEU) is the most difficult and technically challenging obstacle to acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Assessing the “breakout” time – the time required to convert LEU to weapons-grade HEU – is therefore a critical component of determining progress toward a nuclear weapons capability.

Iran’s bank of rapidly spinning centrifuges has produced a growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium, able to fuel nuclear reactors, but able also to fuel nuclear weapons if further enriched. Enrichment raises the concentration of the uranium isotope U-235, which fissions in first-generation nuclear weapons.

As Iran increases its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, and its stockpile of uranium is enriched to 20 percent U-235, it will consolidate its status as a “virtual” nuclear weapon state.

Iran’s enrichment activities occur at its facilities in Natanz and Fordow. The Natanz facility is above ground and – despite Iran’s attempts to protect it with anti-aircraft defenses and a fighter screen – remains vulnerable to attack.

As a result, Iran has accelerated its uranium enrichment activities at the Fordow facility. The site – once covert and grossly mischaracterized by US officials as a façade – is buried in the side of a small mountain outside Qom.

Considered a “hard target” by military analysts, Fordow is the focus of intense scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the subject of the nuclear watchdog’s detailed analysis of Tehran’s weaponization work.

According the IAEA, Fordow began producing uranium enriched to 20 percent earlier this year and has recently seen an expansion of its advanced centrifuges – the key and difficult-to-obtain component in enrichment activities.

These developments reduce the time Iran needs to produce fuel for a nuclear weapon and accelerate the stockpiling of weapons grade uranium. Should Iran choose to make a dash for a nuclear weapon, the world will be faced with a narrow window in which both to discover the move and take action to stop it.

The most recent IAEA report published earlier this month predicts Iran will possess enough 19.75% LEU for a 15 kiloton nuclear bomb – sufficiently large to be strategically useful – by 1 June 2012.

The worst case scenario is that Iran could reach the 90% HEU threshold for weapons grade uranium within one month of beginning its proliferation sprint. However, this scenario is considered highly unlikely and relies on contested technical assumptions about Iran’s enrichment capabilities.

Proliferation experts say the most likely scenario would be Iran’s reaching 90% HEU within 2.5 to 3 months of beginning its break-out.

A second concern is Iran’s attempts to render its critical centrifuge operations both more diffuse and impenetrable, which would take Iran into Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s “immunity zone.”

At present the destruction of the Fordow and Natanz sites could set Tehran’s enrichment program back years, giving sanctions time to have their desired effect. While the Natanz site is vulnerable to attack, US officials have recently said neither Washington nor Jerusalem have the ability to penetrate the Fordow facility.

Simply destroying the Natanz facility while Fordow remains operational would only extend the window for an Iranian nuclear break out – to perhaps one year – rather than stopping it. According to Air Force officials, its current 20.5 foot-long Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) carries over 5,300 pounds of explosive material and is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding.

The mountain above the Iranian enrichment site at Fordow is estimated to be at least 200 feet tall, which has raised doubts about the MOPs ability to effectively destroy Fordow. Those doubts have prompted Pentagon officials this month to secretly submit a request to Congress for funding to enhance the bomb’s ability to penetrate deeper into rock, concrete and steel before exploding.

The push to boost the power of the MOP is part of stepped-up contingency planning for a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear program, say U.S. officials. US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said the current generation of MOPs could cause “a lot of damage” to the Fordow facility, but wouldn’t necessarily destroy it outright.

“We’re developing it. I think we’re pretty close, let’s put it that way. But we’re still working at it because these things are not easy to be able to make sure that they will do what we want them to.” he said. Panetta added: “But I’m confident, frankly, that we’re going to have that capability and have it soon.”

As a result, Tehran finds itself facing a ticking clock of its own and will have to time its nuclear sprint – should it choose to make one – to beat Washington’s own rush for a bigger and better bunker-buster. The Air Force has so far contracted to buy 20 of the new bombs and more deliveries are expected in early 2013.

Israel has large bunker-buster bombs, but the US hasn’t provided the MOP to Jerusalem. Nor is Washington likely to provide Israel with its replacement in 2013. Analysts believe it is highly unlikely repeated strikes with Israel’s current bunker-busters would prove effective in destroying Fordow. Those doubts render an Israeli strike on Iran fraught with difficulty and potential failure.

This stark reality that Israel’s leaders must confront is rendered even more complicated and dangerous by the Obama administration’s diffident posture vis-a-vis taking direct military action against Iran. Washington has declared an Iranian nuclear bomb is “unacceptable,” but refuses to commit to a strike on Natanz and Fordow should Iran choose to make a nuclear sprint.

That leaves leaders in all three capitals – Jerusalem, Tehran, and Washington – watching the clock and waiting for the starter’s gun to fire.