Remarks of an interested observer.

 Paging through a number of international news outlets concerning the dilemma Israel and Iran are facing, I have summarised what I consider to be the most relevant topics.

I hasten to add that I am no more than an interested observer using open-source information.

Israel is threatening to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack on October 1. Will it bomb Tehran's nuclear sites? Can it?

Israel sees Iran as an existential threat to its existence, and for good reason. Iran's clerical leaders have repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Iran has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, said earlier this year that Iran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make "several" nuclear bombs if it wanted to do so.

Still, on Monday, CIA Director Bill Burns said that while it was clear that Iran has developed the "means of delivery" for a potential nuclear weapon by building up its missile arsenal, "we do not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponisation programme."

Iran, in other words, according to Burns, may have technically halted its explicit work on nuclear weapons in 2003, but it has continued to acquire nuclear technology and expertise that is a requirement for any such programme.

Various reports have circulated as to what Israel might target. Among the options: Iran's military bases, its oil and economic infrastructure, key leaders in the Iranian regime and, perhaps the riskiest of all, nuclear sites.

Still, Israel’s killing Sept. 27 of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah by heavy bombing may be "proof of concept" for Israel to target Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities, according to a former Air Force intelligence officer.

Israel dropped a series of what are believed to have been 2,000-pound bombs on Nasrallah’s bunker in Beirut’s Dahiya neighbourhood. By hitting the same target repeatedly, the Israeli air force succeeded in destroying Nasrallah’s bunker.

It’s a tactic that might work on Iran’s nuclear facilities, hidden deep in mountainous desert areas.

I am inclined to discard the speculation, albeit well-reasoned and stay with an emphatic statement made by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant recently.

“Israel’s strike on Iran will be lethal, precise and especially surprising.

It won’t understand what happened to it, or how.” The statement was made during a visit to IDF Intelligence Unit 9900 — a unit that gathers intelligence in theatres of war. Gallant added, “On the other hand, Iran’s strike last week was aggressive, but it failed because it was inaccurate.”

Destroying those buried facilities would be extremely challenging," said Scott Murray, a retired Air Force colonel with extensive experience targeting U.S. adversaries in the Middle East.

Hypothetically speaking, if tasked with the job, the U.S. Air Force would likely rely on one of its largest conventional weapons to destroy such a site. The GBU-57, or "Massive Ordnance Penetrator," is a 30,000-pound bomb encased in steel that allows it to burrow deep into the earth before exploding.

Israel, as it did to kill Nasrallah in Beirut, would have to rely on a series of smaller bombs striking the same spot.  However, the difference is that Israeli pilots would face surface-to-air missile defences in Iran.

“It will be ten times more difficult,” he said.

Margin note:- Furthermore, Iran’s nuclear  sites are far too  many and too widely dispersed for that option to be seriously considered.

Some analysts say Israel is most likely to respond to Iran's Oct. 1 attack by targeting Iranian military installations, especially those that produce ballistic missiles like the ones used in the attack. It could also seek to destroy Iranian air defence systems and missile-launching facilities.

If Israel does decide to go after Iran's nuclear facilities, which many experts on Iran and current and former officials see as unlikely, it could have impacts that go beyond military ones.

"In the process, Israel risks causing nuclear contamination as some of these facilities are close to population centres," said Ali Vaez, the Iran Project Director at Crisis Group, a Brussels-headquartered think tank. "It also exposes itself to an Iranian attack on Dimona, which could cause an environmental disaster in Israel."

Dimona is an Israeli nuclear installation located in the Negev.

Vaez said that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear programme would also be "bound to push Iran to withdraw" from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which has been in force since 1970, and "dash toward the ultimate deterrent given that its conventional and regional deterrence have clearly proven insufficient to protect its homeland."

Iran has threatened to escalate its attacks against Israel if it comes under attack and it has characterised its nuclear and energy facilities as "red lines," without elaborating.

In fact, according to a 2022 week-long simulation involving 30 leading Iran and Middle East experts, any attempt by Israel to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, regardless of whether it is deemed successful, unsuccessful or even partially successful would only serve as a catalyst to further nuclear proliferation by Iran. It would also likely, according to Wikistrat, the Israel-based security and global risks consultancy that hosted the simulation, spur Iran's regional competitor Saudi Arabia to accelerate its nuclear programme and see Russia and China further drawn into the region to take a more active role in Iran's defence by supplying it with advanced defensive capabilities.

Oren Kesler, Wikistrat's CEO, said he did not think Israel would target Iran's nuclear facilities because hitting them with bombs, no matter how powerful, would not be sufficient to dismantle them. He said any bombing campaign would need to be supplemented with ground operations by special forces and this would require Israel to "reallocate its military power" from other areas such as Lebanon at a time when it forces are being stretched on other fronts.

However, Kesler said there are other things Israel may be considering as it decides what to do next.

"The answer in one word is time,” he said.

"In the Middle East, you cannot deny the impact time has. Sometimes it's the best result you can get. Israel's not going to destroy Iran's nuclear programme. It may be able to postpone it, though. And with time, you can build capabilities. You can make new alliances. You need to ask yourself, what happens if tomorrow the leadership changes in Iran? Who's to say Iran later on won't decide to move away from a policy of brinkmanship?"

In the meantime, let’s wait and see if Yoav Gallant’s surprise option produces the desired effect.

 

G'mar Chatima Tova.

Beni,

10th of October, 2024.

Safe and sound.

 

 

 It has been a hectic week! Far more than usual in this hyperactive region.

 David Daoud is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), focusing on Hezbollah, Israel, and Lebanon issues.

I am quoting from an op-ed he wrote for the Atlantic Council think tank

“On September 27, the unimaginable happened. At approximately 5:22 p.m. local time, reports emerged of a massive Israeli strike on the predominantly Shia southern suburbs of Beirut, known colloquially as Dahiyeh. Six buildings had been flattened, throwing up pillars of thick reddish smoke against Beirut’s skyline. Later in the day Hezbollah’s Al-Manar news outlet said the Israeli explosives had ‘terraformed’ the area. “The first comments from the Israelis were uncharacteristically cryptic, even for them, about the strike’s target. But clearly, it had been someone of high value, someone they wanted to ensure didn’t survive. Then the news started to trickle in on Hebrew media: Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had been targeted, and there was a growing assessment that he was killed.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s media outlets refused to deny Nasrallah’s presence at the strike’s location, exponentially increasing the likelihood of his death with each passing hour. Confirmation—from Hezbollah and Israel—would only come the next day on September 28. Nasrallah had died, leaving behind an organisation virtually synonymous with his name.

Replacing Nasrallah—not just the man, but the cultish icon—will be a heavy lift whose chances of success are improbable at best, leaving his death as perhaps the one obstacle Hezbollah may not be able to overcome. If, in time, Nasrallah’s demise contributes to the dissolution of the organization that had become so identified with his person during his lifetime, the world will be better off for it.”

Jonathan Panikoff (The Atlantic Council) opines that Iran is split internally about how hard to respond to Israel. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and other hard-liners are likely advocating for a more aggressive response to restore deterrence and shore up Hezbollah. They are almost certainly the factions that pushed for Friday’s ballistic missile strike on Israel.

However, Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s reformist president who took office in July, has spoken of Israel’s escalation as “a trap” to draw Tehran into a wider war that it cannot win. Avoiding direct conflict with Israel is crucial to Iran’s desire to repair its ailing economy and ease Western sanctions against it.

Israel has put Iran in a no-win situation. If it fails to escalate and strike Israel, it loses credibility with its proxies, which believe it hasn’t done enough to help them. Yet escalation could result in retaliatory strikes from Israel on Iran itself, up to and including its nuclear facilities.

Last Friday’s strike looks like something of a compromise, enough of an attack to assuage hard-liners and buy Iran’s leadership time without going so far as to trigger a wider war with Israel or, even worse, with the United States.   

Importantly, Israel’s recent actions have restored the aura of its intelligence capability and strengthened its ability to deter its enemies. Both had been called into question following Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.

It has been the remarkable quality and depth of Israeli intelligence, and probably also its vast mining of data, that has allowed its change of course with Hezbollah.

Accurate and precise intelligence is what allowed Israel to take out Fuad Shukr, one of Nasrallah’s most crucial lieutenants, in late July and to sabotage thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in September. It was necessary to pinpoint the location of Nasrallah and it will be a valuable asset in any future confrontation.

Unnamed sources told Reuters that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been taken to a secure location inside Iran. The move was made amid heightened security concerns for his safety, a day after the IDF assassinated Nasrallah.

The move to safeguard Iran's top decision-maker is the latest show of nervousness by the Iranian authorities as Israel launched a series of devastating attacks on Hezbollah. Nonetheless, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been urging to settle the score with the “Zionist entity.” Some Middle East affairs analysts claim that Ali Khamenei overruling his aides and advisers ordered the recent missile attack.

In a lead article that appeared in the Economist this week the authors cautioned, “Ever since Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis on October 7th 2023, violence has been spreading. One year on, the Middle East is an inch away from an all-out war between Israel and Iran. Israel’s skilful decapitation of Hezbollah, prompted the Islamic Republic to rain missiles on Israel on October 1st. Israel may retaliate, perhaps striking Iran’s industrial, military or nuclear facilities, hoping to end once and for all the threat it poses to the Jewish state.

Kill or be killed is the region’s new logic. Deterrence and diplomacy would be better.”     I doubt if we will accept their advice.

I want thank friends and family concerned for my safety and wellbeing.

I am safe and sound. The last time I checked all the family were ‘present and accounted for.’

Shana Tova.

 

We live in interesting times.

 

Beni, 

4th of October, 2024.