Israel Matzav

Israel's bad options on Iran

At National Review Online, Michael Rubin argues that Israel's options on Iran are poor and that any delay that an Israeli strike on Iran could achieve would not be sufficient to prevent a nuclear Iran.

Many in Europe and the U.S. argue that Israel’s fear of a nuclear Iran is paranoid. The Islamic Republic knows that any nuclear strike against Israel would result in massive retaliation. Because the Iranian regime is not suicidal, they say, it would never risk a first strike. This summer’s unrest, however, raises another possibility, one that Israeli policymakers understand too well. Should public protest spin out of control with regime collapse inevitable, the supreme leader or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hierarchy might decide to launch a strike on Israel — fulfilling an ideological goal, in the knowledge that the chance of international retaliation would be slim with the Islamic Republic already having become an artifact of history.

It is for these reasons that Israeli officials across their political spectrum — from Meretz and Labor on the left to Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu on the right — consider a nuclear-weapons-capable Islamic Republic of Iran an existential threat.

...

Not surprisingly, therefore, the Osirak strike is often voiced as the model should Israel decide to launch a similar attack on Iran’s nuclear program. The two situations, however, are not analogous. Iran is further away from Israel, and almost four times the size of Iraq. Iraq’s nuclear program was concentrated in Osirak, and the nuclear reactor itself above ground and vulnerable. Iran’s nuclear sites, by contrast, are scattered across the country, heavily fortified, and sometimes buried below mountains. Israeli planes would need to fly more than a thousand miles across hostile lands and require refueling only to reach Iran. Even if Israeli bombers penetrated Iran with surprise, they would need to fly several hundred miles over Iranian territory after dropping their payloads. This might require additional targeting of the Islamic Republic’s air-defense and communications infrastructure. To destroy just the physical aspects of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program would require at least 1,400 sorties, the sheer scope of which Israel is incapable of executing by itself.

To cripple Iran’s nuclear program, however, would require less. Israeli officials need not destroy the entire program, but only certain components — such as the centrifuge cascades — in order to delay the program by one, two, or three years. Furthermore, Israeli fighters do not have to destroy a facility to render it useless. The Islamic Republic may feel its facilities invulnerable if buried under mountains, but the Israeli military must only destroy the entrances to such facilities, entombing the scientists and engineers inside, to meet their objectives. Such a strike would not be ideal: Iran’s retaliation, whether direct or by proxy, would be ferocious. What too many American pundits and analysts do not understand, however, is that if Israel feels itself facing an existential threat, then, by definition, it has no choice but to at least try to eliminate that threat.

...

Israeli officials may believe that, as with Iraq, even a temporary delay would enable the Jewish state to outlive the Islamic Republic. This too would also be a miscalculation. The Islamic Republic has long made tenuous arguments about its own defensive needs. Should there be any attack on Iran, however, Tehran would have an excuse to develop a military nuclear capacity with an international community less willing to intervene than it is now.

But would a delay not achieve Jerusalem’s aims? Likely not: With regard to Iraq, Israel benefited from Saddam Hussein’s stupidity. Had the Iraqi leader not invaded Kuwait, then he could have quickly reconstituted his nuclear program with the help of France or Russia. Iran will not be so constrained. Indeed, not only in China and Russia, but also in Europe and in the U.S., politicians and diplomats cite the Iraqi sanctions regime as something never to be replicated. Israel might push back completion of an Iranian bomb by a year or two, but the factors that prevented Iraq from reconstituting its bomb program simply do not exist in Iran. Nor could Israel then simply remain vigilant and hope that the international community would prevent Iranian access to uranium, as the Islamic Republic is able to mine enough uranium locally to enable it to develop enough bomb-grade material for several bombs.

Whether or not a strike is sufficient to stop Iran's nuclear program, Israel has no choice but to try. The one thing this country will not do is go like sheep to the slaughter.

Given that neither Iraq nor Syria retaliated for Israel's destruction of their nuclear reactors, I wonder whether Iran will either. Perhaps that's being overly optimistic. But any retaliation against Israel is likely to come via Hezbullah or Hamas. Iran's air force is likely in disrepair due to lack of spare parts. Several incidents over the last few months have shown that, most notably the AWACS crash a couple of weeks ago.

The weakest point in Rubin's argument is that he assumes that the United States and other powers will take Iran's side after an Israeli attack and will allow it unlimited space to damage the world economy and inflict revenge on Israel, followed by an unlimited buildup in nuclear weapons. While that may be the Russian and Chinese reaction, I have my doubts that Europe will be so complacent at an Iranian buildup given the range of Iran's missiles. And while the Obama administration may be inclined to go soft on Iran, I doubt that Congress - which could be controlled by Republicans in January 2011 - will be so hostile to Israel.

Rubin also does not discuss the possibility that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran without thousands of air sorties - using Jericho ground to ground missiles and submarine-based missiles.

And then there is the possibility of an EMP attack, which several commenters raise every time I post about this issue, but which few 'experts' seem to be discussing. Yes, an EMP attack is possible, and assuming Israel has perfected a way to defend itself against an EMP attack in response (which is possible) then yes, it may well unleash an EMP attack on Iran. If we have no choice, you can bet that we will go down fighting.

Let's hope it doesn't happen, but at this point, I see little chance of stopping Iran short of a military attack. While none of our options are perfect, there's another option the rest of the world doesn't usually take into account: God has promised the Jewish people that they will never be wiped out. And while there would still be a Jewish people even if every Jew in Israel were God forbid killed, it is hard to believe that God would allow His name to be desecrated by the perpetration of such a massacre by the likes of Ahmadinejad.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:44 AM