The Israel-Iran confrontation ended this week, not with the anticipated bang but an ignominious whimper! Without firing a single shot the Iranians trounced Israel. As you have probably guessed I'm referring to the showdown in Hollywood between two nominees for the best foreign language film award. The judges awarded the Oscar to the Iranian film "A Separation." The director and cast of the Israeli film "Footnote," the other main contender for the Oscar, returned home empty handed and a little disappointed. In this neck of the woods our neighbours attach a lot of importance to honour. Honour, both in its family and national manifestations is tied to long standing traditions and can't be ignored. However, sometimes face-saving events compensate for perceived affronts. In the case of Iran, our very existence here, our tiny enclave in the area they consider to be exclusively Islamic, is an insufferable affront. The day after our Oscar awards drubbing someone expressed a naïve hope that maybe the Iranian success in Hollywood will help defuse the war rhetoric and help Iran reconsider its nuclear plans. . Not surprisingly the response was an announcement on the Iranian national TV channel hailing the victory of Iran over the Zionist regime in Hollywood. The announcement in itself was quite a compromise. Many Iranian conservatives disapproved of the themes expressed in their award winning film which depicts domestic turmoil, gender inequality, and tells of the desire of many Iranians to leave the country.
Last week the Economist dedicated considerable space to the Iran dilemma. A lead article in that paper reiterated an opinion already expressed by many intelligence agencies, namely that, "The probability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear programme has been increasing. But the chances of it ending the country’s nuclear ambitions are low." The Economist describes the attack route Israel will probably choose and the weapons it will use in its attempt to demolish the Iranian nuclear facilities. The author explains why Israel is tempted to strike now. "Iran’s decreasing vulnerability is not the only reason for thinking that, after talking about it for many years, Israel might actually be about to strike. It has been building up its in-air refuelling capacity, and thus its ability to get a lot of planes over targets well inside Iran. And the Arab spring has reduced Iran’s scope for retaliation. The plight of the beleaguered Assad regime in Syria removes Iran’s only significant Arab ally from the fray. A year ago both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza might have been relied on to rain missiles on Israeli targets after a strike against Iran. Now Hamas is realigning itself away from Iran and towards Egypt, and the situation in Syria means that Hezbollah cannot be certain that, if it fires at Israel, its Iranian-supplied arsenal will be replenished."
| The Economist believes Israel’s main attack force would consist of two dozen F-15Is and 100 F-16Is, variants of American fighter bombers that have been adapted for long-range missions, along with tankers for aerial refuelling, perhaps supplemented by armed drones and submarine-launched cruise missiles. The planes’ most likely route would be over Jordan and then Iraq, which has almost no air defences. Iran is defended, but mainly by Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles of a kind the IAF has dealt with before. Iran has fighter aircraft, too, but the IAF isn’t too concerned about them. According to a number of news media sources WikiLeaks has released an email exchange between employees of Stratfor, the US-based global intelligence company, which reveals that Israel and Russia made a deal to swap access codes for unmanned aerial vehicles that Israel sold to Georgia, and in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Tor-M1 missile defence systems that Russia sold to Iran. Such an attack would be a far more complex undertaking than the Israeli strikes against Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and Syria’s reactor near al-Kibar in 2007. Permit me a brief digression concerning the attack on the Osirak reactor Trita Parsi, author of "Treacherous Alliance": subtitled “The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States," claims that a senior Israeli official met with a representative of the Khomeini regime in France one month prior to the Israeli attack at Osirak. The source of the assertion is Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee. At the alleged meeting, the Iranians explained details of their 1980 attack on the site, and agreed to let Israeli planes land at an Iranian airfield in Tabriz if an emergency arose during the attack. Ari Ben-Menashe’s is a controversial figure. Time Magazine has called him a "spinner of tangled yarns." Maybe his story has an element of truth in it. What can I say? "The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war." Despite the meticulous preparations and fine honing of logistic capabilities some observers think the targets are too far away and one target in particular, the Fordow underground facility is too impregnable. A comment that brings to mind "Operation Market Garden" During WW2. When Field Marshal Montgomery outlined the plan to capture the bridge at Arnhem. The doubting Thomas in Montgomery's planning team, Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning said, “I think we might be going a bridge too far.” A remark chosen by historian Cornelius Ryan for the title of his book "A bridge too far," which in turn was used for the script of a film by the same name The Economist quotes Austin Long, an academic who used to work for the RAND Corporation, who argues that, "If every one of the F-15Is aimed the GBU-28 it was carrying, along with both its GBU-27s (laser-guided "bunker busting" bombs), at a single point, there would be a 35-90% chance of over half the weapons arriving at just the right place and at least one bomb would penetrate the facility. So if carried through with impeccable precision an attack on Fordow would have a reasonable chance of inflicting a bomb’s worth of damage." Cognisant of the IAF's precision bombing record Long reasons that the Iranians will probably clear away the debris and repair their installations. However if Israel continues targeting Iran's technical leadership in civilian research centres and universities the substantial nuclear know-how that Iran has gained over the past decades would be seriously impaired. Some observers believe that if the USAF carried out the attack with newer heavier bunker busting bombs the Iranian nuclear programme would be set back five to ten years. An IAF attack using the lighter 5000 lb. GBU-28 bombs would delay the programme by three or four years. The Washington Post quoted unnamed U.S. officials who claim that U.S. military planners are increasingly confident that sustained attacks with the Air Force's 30,000-pound (13,608 kilograms) "bunker-buster" bombs could put Iran's deeply buried uranium-enrichment plant at Fordow out of commission. The time factor is an additional consideration. Ehud Barak is sure time is running out. Once the centrifuges in Furdow are spinning at full capacity the Iranians will be safe inside the so-called “zone of immunity” well before any bombs are built. Not all Israeli intelligence and security experts agree with Barak. Some think that the time may already have passed when Israel on its own could carry out such a strike; others reject the idea that Fordow is a uniquely difficult target. Many of their American counterparts see a focus on Fordow as too narrow. There are less well defended facilities that are also critical to Iranian nuclear ambitions: sites that make centrifuges and missiles, for example. Shifting the focus to Prime Minister Netanyahu the Economist says, "Although Mr. Netanyahu is a more cautious character than some suppose, it would be a mistake to think he is bluffing when he says privately that on his watch Iran will not be allowed to take an irreversible step towards the possession of nuclear weapons."…" But it worries that the consequences of an attack on Iran, whether by Israel or America, are unpredictable and scary: oil prices would rocket—at least for a while—endangering the economic recovery; allies in the Gulf already shaken by the Arab spring could be further destabilised; jihadist terrorism could be re-energised." Weighing up the pros and cons of bombing Iran the Economist said, “Nobody should welcome the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. But bombing the place is not the answer That does not mean the world should just let Iran get the bomb. The government will soon be starved of revenues, because of an oil embargo. Sanctions are biting, the financial system is increasingly isolated and the currency has plunged in value. Proponents of an attack argue that military humiliation would finish the regime off. But it is as likely to rally Iranians around their leaders. Meanwhile, political change is sweeping across the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is divided and it has lost the faith of its people. Eventually, popular resistance will spring up as it did in 2009. A new regime brought about by the Iranians themselves is more likely to renounce the bomb than one that has just witnessed an American assault. Is there a danger that Iran will get a nuclear weapon before that happens?” Disregarding Barak's " zone of immunity" the Americans estimate they still have time to explore diplomatic alternatives and employ more stringent sanctions before they adopt the attack option. They believe they still have time to vacillate : "And time yet for a hundred indecisions, |
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| And for a hundred visions and revisions, |
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| Before the taking of a toast and tea."
Perhaps they are right. If North Korea doesn't renege on its announcement to suspend its nuclear activities and ballistic missiles production in return for food aid from the U.S. the repercussions of this move could affect Iran. Four days before Prime Minister Netanyahu is scheduled to arrive in Washington, U.S Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told reporters the Joint Chiefs of Staff have prepared military options to strike Iranian nuclear sites in the event of a conflict. Bloomberg quoted Pentagon officials who said, “Military options being prepared start with providing aerial refueling for Israeli planes and include attacking the pillars of the clerical regime, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its elite Qods Force, regular Iranian military bases and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security.” The Globes financial daily citing a survey conducted by the Washington-based Brookings Institute said,“ Most Israelis oppose a unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear facilities if it doesn't have U.S. support. Only 19 percent of Israelis support their country striking Iran without U.S. backing.” A cold spell with rain and some snow is predicted for the weekend. Snow has fallen in the Mt Hermon area and the Golan Heights. According to our meteorologists snow will fall in Jerusalem tomorrow. Maybe this weekend we will visit friends in the north and see some of the snow. Our long range plans include preparations for Purim, Pesach and considering options for the summer holidays. Attacking Iran right now seems quite surreal.
Have a good weekend.
Beni 1st of March, 2012.
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