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Topic: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch? (Read 429 times) |
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Blunderov
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Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?
« on: 2008-06-24 03:59:12 » |
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[Blunderov] Of course we have all been worried that either Israel or the USA (or both) would attack Iran. My chief concern was that this might easily happen because the Bush unregime is not, in my opinion, very rational. No rational person would consider such an attack. The US military is already stretched to breaking point. The global economy would collapse in chaos, perhaps never to recover. The appended article goes some way towards explicating why such an attack would be bootless anyway.
I keep wondering how the Israeli's can possibly imagine that their lives would be any easier after such an attack? They keep going on about an 'existential threat' but Iran would never dare use nuclear weapons even if they had any. Seems the prospect of an Obama White House does not fill the Israelis with much glee. Imagine the rejoicing in Zion if they get McCain for their next president... I mean America's next president...
I wonder why that might be so? Could it be that a person who is sensitive to racism by virtue of his background might be inconveniently allergic to Zionism? Hmm.
www.stratfor.com
Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?
June 23, 2008
By George Friedman
On June 20, The New York Times published a report saying that more than 100 Israeli aircraft carried out an exercise in early June over the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Greece. The article pointed out that the distances covered were roughly the distances from Israel to Iranian nuclear sites and that the exercise was a trial run for a large-scale air strike against Iran. On June 21, the British newspaper The Times quoted Israeli military sources as saying that the exercise was a dress rehearsal for an attack on Iran. The Jerusalem Post, in covering these events, pointedly referred to an article it had published in May saying that Israeli intelligence had changed its forecast for Iran passing a nuclear threshold — whether this was simply the ability to cause an explosion under controlled conditions or the ability to produce an actual weapon was unclear — to 2008 rather than 2009.
The New York Times article, positioned on the front page, captured the attention of everyone from oil traders to Iran, which claimed that this was entirely psychological warfare on the part of the Israelis and that Israel could not carry out such an attack. It was not clear why the Iranians thought an attack was impossible, but they were surely right in saying that the exercise was psychological warfare. The Israelis did everything they could to publicize the exercise, and American officials, who obviously knew about the exercise but had not publicized it, backed them up. What is important to note is that the fact that this was psychological warfare — and fairly effective, given the Iranian response — does not mean that Israel is not going to attack. One has nothing to do with the other. So the question of whether there is going to be an attack must be analyzed carefully.
The first issue, of course, is what might be called the “red line.” It has always been expected that once the Iranians came close to a line at which they would become a capable nuclear power, the Americans or the Israelis would act to stop them, neither being prepared to tolerate a nuclear Iran. What has never been clear is what constitutes that red line. It could simply be having produced sufficient fissionable material to build a bomb, having achieved a nuclear explosion under test conditions in Iran or having approached the point of producing a deliverable nuclear weapon.
Early this month, reports circulated that A.Q. Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear program who is accused of selling nuclear technology to such countries as Libya, North Korea and Iran, had also possessed detailed design specifications and blueprints for constructing a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on missiles available to North Korea and Iran. The blueprints were found on a computer owned by a Swiss businessman, but the reports pointedly said that it was not known whether these documents had been transferred to Iran or any other country. It was interesting that the existence of the blueprints in Switzerland was known to the United States — and, we assume, Israel — in 2006 but that, at this point, there was no claim that they had been transferred.
Clearly, the existence of these documents — if Iran had a copy of them — would have helped the Iranians clear some hurdles. However, as we have pointed out, there is a huge gap between having enriched uranium and having a deliverable weapon, the creation of which requires technologies totally unrelated to each other. Ruggedizing and miniaturizing a nuclear device requires specializations from materials science to advanced electronics. Therefore, having enriched uranium or even triggering an underground nuclear device still leaves you a long way from having a weapon.
That’s why the leak on the nuclear blueprints is so important. From the Israeli and American point of view, those blueprints give the Iranians the knowledge of precisely how to ruggedize and miniaturize a nuclear device. But there are two problems here. First, if we were given blueprints for building a bridge, they would bring us no closer to building one. We would need experts in multiple disciplines just to understand the blueprints and thousands of trained engineers and workers to actually build the bridge. Second, the Israelis and Americans have known about the blueprints for two years. Even if they were certain that they had gotten to the Iranians — which the Israelis or Americans would certainly have announced in order to show the increased pressure at least one of them would be under to justify an attack — it is unclear how much help the blueprints would have been to the Iranians. The Jerusalem Post story implied that the Iranians were supposed to be crossing an undefined line in 2009. It is hard to imagine that they were speeded up to 2008 by a document delivered in 2006, and that the Israelis only just noticed.
In the end, the Israelis may have intelligence indicating that the blueprints did speed things up, and that the Iranians might acquire nuclear weapons in 2008. We doubt that. But given the statements Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made over the years, the Israelis have to be planning based on worst-case scenarios. What the sum total of their leaks adds up to is an attempt to communicate widely that there is an increased urgency in dealing with Iran, based on intelligence that the Iranian program is farther along than previously thought.
The problem is the fact that the Israelis are communicating. In fact, they are going out of their way to communicate. That is extremely odd. If the Israelis were intending to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, they would want to be absolutely certain that as much of the equipment in the facilities was destroyed as possible. But the hard truth is that the heart of Iran’s capability, such as it is, does not reside in its facilities but in its scientists, engineers and technicians who collectively constitute the knowledge base of Iran’s nuclear program. Facilities can be replaced. It would take at least a generation to replace what we already regard as an insufficient cadre of expertise.
Therefore, if Israel wanted not simply to take out current facilities but to take Iran out of the nuclear game for a very long time, killing these people would have to be a major strategic goal. The Israelis would want to strike in the middle of the workday, without any warning whatever. If they strike Iran, they will be condemned widely for their actions. The additional criticism that would come from killing the workforce would not be a large price to pay for really destroying the Iranian capabilities. Unlike the Iraqi reactor strike in 1981, when the Israelis struck at night to minimize casualties, this strike against a more sophisticated program could not afford to be squeamish.
There are obviously parts of Iran’s nuclear capability that cannot be moved. There is other equipment that can be, with enough warning and with more or less difficulty, moved to unknown locations. But nothing would be easier to disperse than the heart of the program — the people. They could be moved out of harm’s way with only an hour’s notice. Therefore, providing warning that an attack was coming makes very little sense. It runs counter to basic principles of warfare. The Israelis struck the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 with not the slightest hint of the attack’s imminence. That was one of the reasons it was successful. Telegraphing your punch is not very smart in these circumstances.
The Israelis have done more than raise the possibility that an attack might be launched in 2008. They have publicized how they plan to do it. Based on the number and type of aircraft involved in the exercise — more than 100 F-15 and F-16 fighter jets — one Israeli attack scenario could involve a third of Israel’s inventory of fourth-generation strike aircraft, including most of its latest-model F-15I Ra’am and F-16I Sufa fighter bombers. If Greece were the target in this exercise, then the equivalent distance would mean that the Israelis are planning to cross Jordanian airspace, transit through Iraq and strike Iran from that direction. A strike through Turkey — and there is no indication that the Turks would permit it — would take much longer.
The most complex part of the operation’s logistics would be the refueling of aircraft. They would have to be orbiting in Iraqi airspace. One of the points discussed about the Mediterranean exercise was the role of Israeli helicopters in rescuing downed flyers. Rescue helicopters would be involved, but we doubt very much they would be entering Iranian airspace from Israel. They are a lot slower than the jets, and they would have to be moving hours ahead of time. The Iranians might not spot them but the Russians would, and there is no guarantee that they wouldn’t pass it on to the Iranians. That means that the Israeli helicopters would have to move quietly into Iraq and be based there.
And that means that this would have to be a joint American-Israeli operation. The United States controls Iraqi airspace, meaning that the Americans would have to permit Israeli tankers to orbit in Iraqi airspace. The search-and-rescue helicopters would have to be based there. And we strongly suspect that rescued pilots would not be ferried back to Israel by helicopter but would either be sent to U.S. hospitals in Iraq or transferred to Israeli aircraft in Iraq.
The point here is that, given the exercise the Israelis carried out and the distances involved, there is no way Israel could do this without the direct cooperation of the United States. From a political standpoint in the region, it is actually easier for the United States to take out Iran’s facilities than for it to help the Israelis do so. There are many Sunni states that might formally protest but be quite pleased to see the United States do the job. But if the Israelis were to do it, Sunni states would have to be much more serious in their protestations. In having the United States play the role of handmaiden in the Israeli operation, it would appear that the basic charge against the United States — that it is the handmaiden of the Israelis — is quite true. If the Americans are going to be involved in a strike against Iran’s nuclear program, they are far better off doing it themselves than playing a supporting role to Israel.
There is something not quite right in this whole story. The sudden urgency — replete with tales of complete blueprints that might be in Iranian hands — doesn’t make sense. We may be wrong, but we have no indication that Iran is that close to producing nuclear weapons. Second, the extreme publicity given the exercise in the Mediterranean, coming from both Israel and the United States, runs counter to the logic of the mission. Third, an attack on Iran through Iraqi airspace would create a political nightmare for the United States. If this is the Israeli attack plan, the Americans would appear to be far better off doing it themselves.
There are a number of possible explanations. On the question of urgency, the Israelis might have two things in mind. One is the rumored transfer of S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Russia to Iran. This transfer has been rumored for quite a while, but by all accounts has yet to happen. The S-300 is a very capable system, depending on the variety (and it is unclear which variety is being transferred), and it would increase the cost and complexity of any airstrike against Iran. Israel may have heard that the Russians are planning to begin transferring the missiles sometime in 2008.
Second, there is obviously the U.S. presidential election. George W. Bush will be out of office in early 2009, and it is possible that Barack Obama will be replacing him. The Israelis have made no secret of their discomfort with an Obama presidency. Obviously, Israel cannot attack Iran without U.S. cooperation. The Israelis’ timetable may be moved up because they are not certain that Obama will permit an attack later on.
There are also explanations for the extreme publicity surrounding the exercise. The first might be that the Israelis have absolutely no intention of trying to stage long-range attacks but are planning some other type of attack altogether. The possibilities range from commando raids to cruise missiles fired from Israeli submarines in the Arabian Sea — or something else entirely. The Mediterranean exercise might have been designed to divert attention.
Alternatively, the Israelis could be engaged in exhausting Iranian defenders. During the first Gulf War, U.S. aircraft rushed toward the Iraqi border night after night for weeks, pulling away and landing each time. The purpose was to get the Iraqis to see these feints as routine and slow down their reactions when U.S. aircraft finally attacked. The Israelis could be engaged in a version of this, tiring out the Iranians with a series of “emergencies” so they are less responsive in the event of a real strike.
Finally, the Israelis and Americans might not be intending an attack at all. Rather, they are — as the Iranians have said — engaged in psychological warfare for political reasons. The Iranians appear to be split now between those who think that Ahmadinejad has led Iran into an extremely dangerous situation and those who think Ahmadinejad has done a fine job. The prospect of an imminent and massive attack on Iran could give his opponents ammunition against him. This would explain the Iranian government response to the reports of a possible attack — which was that such an attack was just psychological warfare and could not happen. That clearly was directed more for internal consumption than it was for the Israelis or Americans.
We tend toward this latter theory. Frankly, the Bush administration has been talking about an attack on Iran for years. It is hard for us to see that the situation has changed materially over the past months. But if it has, then either Israel or the United States would have attacked — and not with front-page spreads in The New York Times before the attack was launched. In the end, we tend toward the view that this is psychological warfare for the simple reason that you don’t launch a surprise attack of the kind necessary to take out Iran’s nuclear program with a media blitz beforehand. It just doesn’t work that way.
Tell Stratfor What You Think
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com
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Hermit
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Re:Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?
« Reply #1 on: 2008-06-24 13:02:45 » |
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This is so wrong at many levels:
Firstly Urs Tinner, one of the 4 supposed "blueprint proliferators," arrested by Germany in 2004 and transferred to Switzerland at US insistence, was reported by Der Spiegal (in May 2005!) to be a CIA operative. Presumably the blueprints were supposed to end up in the hands of the IAEA having passed through Iranian hands.
Secondly the Pakistani device has a removable pit. We know this because Pakistan has repeatedly assured the world that the pits are stored securely separately from their devices and the US has validated this assertion. No current Iranian missile could carry a removable pit weapon for the same reason that Fatman was named as it was. Diameter and mass.
Thirdly the Iranians have no Pu239. Rather they have a low-grade Uranium enrichment process, fully monitored by the IAEA. When they establish a reactor, it too will be monitored - so they won't be extracting Pu239 from that unless they withdraw from the non-proliferation agreement - which they won't do unless forced. So a design for a Pu239 device as was alleged to be contained in the Tinner Blueprints wouldn't change Iran's situation an iota.
Fourthly while the US has transferred "bunker busters" and long range F-15s to the Israelis, the Israelis simply do not have the capacity to attack sufficient targets in Iran to disable their nuclear program. The US may have sufficient capacity, but the sheer volume of death and destruction that an attack on the necessary scale, on what is unmistakably a civilian program, would cause, would imply that the US would automatically be regarded a pariah state by the rest of the world. Once an attack has been launched by the USA or by Israel (with the complicity of the USA), the likelihood is that with the exception of the centrifuge halls and the Russian built reactor, that major elements (including Stage-3 centrifuge production capability) of the Iranian programs would survive as Iran has been careful to separate the monitored nuclear related elements of their work from their unmonitored industrial production facilities which are almost certainly at least as hardened and inevitably much better hidden than those exposed to an inspectorate thoroughly penetrated by multiple intelligence agencies. This would allow a rapid restarting of their programs, and a practically guaranteed withdrawal from the NPT.
Fifthly, if the Israelis or Americans were to use missiles against Iran, Iran would respond against both of them and the response need not be measured, as both of the potential opponents have nuclear weapons and thus pose a serious threat to Iran. This gives Iran total escalation dominance in any battle. Should an Iranian response cause major damage to either party or their allies (i.e. Iran has observed that all countries hosting US facilities would be regarded as legitimate targets in the event of reprisals), there would be a nearly irresistible compulsion for Israel or the US to resort to nuclear weapons. The potential for this to turn into a region wide - or even global conflict - is such as to give any rational actor pause for thought.
Finally, if Israel or the US were to attack Iran, it is all but guaranteed that Iran - and likely many other countries - will withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty; and were anyone to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, Iran's leaders will likely lose their objections to nuclear weapons and they and others would then have the best possible incentive to develop a nuclear response capability - survival. The potential for havoc implicit in this should give even irrational actors pause for thought.
It is important to realize that for a technically competent country with Uranium (such as Iran), the production of a missile fieldable, non removable pit, Pu239 device is no longer the major challenge it once was. The widely disseminated knowledge and technical theory behind the creation of explosive lenses, the availability of high powered computers and clusters capable of modeling reactions, together with computer timing and synchronization chips and potentially optical firing by laser strobe of the compression sphere removes the major challenges and thus years from the design process, and any second year nuclear physics student could establish a breeder reactor pile suitable for Pu239 production if they had access to fuel. Separating Pu240 is a much easier process than purifying Uranium, and the use of a compression core - with or without segmentation - allows much higher Pu240 contaminant levels than any gun device can tolerate. I would estimate that a crash development program by any country such as Iran could field a functional 20-60 kT device in under 18 months and possibly under 6 months if the requisite non-nuclear research had already been performed. Notice that such research is not something dealt with by the NPT or monitored by the IAEA as these only deal with fissile materials. Given the current level of threats by the USA against Iran, it would be irresponsible had they not performed the requisite research - or bought it - in case it is needed. Strangely Iran's vociferous protests that it considers all nuclear devices anathema and their repeated appeal to law in the face of blatant bypassing of International law by the US suggests that they have likely not as yet taken this path; but we may still push them to this point and possibly beyond.
In my opinion, this really is the danger of attacking Iran's well monitored industrial facilities. That it would nearly inevitably trigger the establishment of a worldwide industry of nuclear weapon production. The establishment of small, well hidden and better protected, device production plants is relatively easy for any industrial government. The only thing that prevented massive proliferation prior to the Bush maladministration was the lack of motivation due to the NPT, and through that, the doctrine of no-first-use. All effectively voided by the Bush unregime. What has saved us since then is inertia, but should the NPT and no-first-use doctrine be voided, the inertia would be irreparably disposed of too.
All of the above is conventional thinking. Whatever Iran's flaws, thinking conventionally is not one of them. Given some Iranian research directions, I strongly suspect that the elimination of other countries' oil production, storage and delivery facilities, probably employing biological agents, would take precedence over any nuclear reprisal. This would have the effect of making Iran's oil still more valuable, while destroying the economies of those dependent on oil - and who might be interested in attacking her. Should Iran perceive herself of being in danger of falling into enemy hands, the destruction of her own oil fields might also figure into the equation. Either event would undoubtedly cause the collapse of so called Western Civilization, and there probably is insufficient reasonably available fossil fuels to see any recovery.
Using the same kind of reflexive response as dominates Neocon, Zionist and Christian fundamentalists' words and actions, this might be seen by some fanatics on the Iranian side as a victory - or at least the prevention of defeat. I think it would be rather a pity and am sure that it is completely unnecessary - or would be if Bush and Cheney were impeached and on trial for war crimes - and perhaps most of the House hanged for treason.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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