Iran 'to keep enrichment program'

[CurtSibling]

Yawn - Why can't we break out the Israeli F-16s and be done with it?

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Yawn - Why can't we break out the Israeli F-16s and be done with it?

My totally unsubstantiated WAG would be that you are exactly correct in that if there is a military response it will be by Israel similar to their 1981 raid on Iraq's nuclear facilities.

A Newsweek story on this topic.

 

[boarder]

@ boarder -

We seem to be in complete agreement as to why they would want to have nuclear weapons.


My concerns would be:

1. A terrorist group may gain access to a weapon without the Iranian government's approval or permission.

2. Radical elements in the current government claim a weapon was stolen and let some terrorist organization have one to set off somewhere without the government being held responsible.

3. The situation in Iran destabilizes to the point where the current government, on the verge of losing their grip on power, decides to allow the use as a distraction for their domestic problems. They could claim the weapon was not theirs and any response against them would only serve to unite the Muslim world and thus prop up the embattled government.

4. The current government falls and in the ensuing chaos a terrorist organization gains access to a weapon.

All excellant and valid points, I dont really have a answer to them individually because they are all very possible, my only comment on that is that judging by history as it hasnt happened, and in Russia there is a lot more of a chance of nuclear weapons being stolen then there could be in Iran,
In Pakistan there is more chance of a coup de tat(spelling?) happening then in Iran. And as we know there is a huge terrorist backing in Pakistan.
So all valid points and i guess they have to be weighed up against the paranoia surrounding Iran at present as to there true stability and intentions.
And imo they are actually pretty stable.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

All excellant and valid points, I dont really have a answer to them individually because they are all very possible, my only comment on that is that judging by history as it hasnt happened, and in Russia there is a lot more of a chance of nuclear weapons being stolen then there could be in Iran,
In Pakistan there is more chance of a coup de tat(spelling?) happening then in Iran. And as we know there is a huge terrorist backing in Pakistan.
So all valid points and i guess they have to be weighed up against the paranoia surrounding Iran at present as to there true stability and intentions.
And imo they are actually pretty stable.

To be honest I worry about Russia and Pakistan sometimes too.

 

[boarder]

My totally unsubstantiated WAG would be that you are exactly correct in that if there is a military response it will be by Israel similar to their 1981 raid on Iraq's nuclear facilities.

A Newsweek story on this topic.

A few points on that story, they fail to say that some of the facilities are buried so deep underground that bunker buster bombs wont be able to reach them, they will need to use nuclear bunker busters to do this, are they willing to do that?
Also Iran's air defence's especially around these sites would be very hard to destroy, At the end of this year they will have deployed 29 Tor M1 ground to air missile defence systems, (from Russia) from what I have read they are more accurate than that of the Patriot missile system, I have no idea if this is true or not but looking at data from tests it would appear to be the case.
But lets say that they did manage to destroy there facilities, this initself would only set Iran back a short time, they would also have to target the sceintists involved to try and destroy the knowledge they have already gained.
Ok so now they have done that, Iran would (it has stated so on numerous occasions) retaliate, they have a huge arsenal of missiles more than capable of reaching anywhere on Israel, they have stated that they would go for all of Israels nuclear testing and weapons sites. I do not know how much damage Iran could cause to them. If they targeted Israels citys though it would do a lot of damage.
After Iran tested there latest Shohab Israel bought a lot of Patriot missile systems which where incidentally tested recently with American missiles being fired towards them, it was a huge failure and the missiles got through.
There is also the Hizbollah along the border with Israel which as we know is controlled by Iran, they could mount various terrorist attacks in Israel proper.
Also missile attacks.
It is unclear in my mind what Syria would do,as they have recently signed a defense agrement with Iran im unclear exactly what this entails though.
But they do have the largest arsenal of biological weapons in the middle east, as they are not signatories and are allowed them by law, to counter Israels nuclear aresonal.
But then if a lot of civilians had been killed in the initial strikes, Iran would probably be more pissed off and (as has been stated) they would also attack American facilities, as Israeli jets would have to fly through Iraq air space and they wouldnt do that without the knowledge of America.
So there goes the closing down of the straight of (sorry i forget the name) anyway closing this down will interupt all oil exports that flow through there from Saudi Arabia and various other places.
The Iraq goverment is closely aligned with Iran especially the people in the SOuth, they may be told to make life a lot harder for the british and American, they can strike American bases throughout the middle east, imagine if say they launched 10 or so scuds against the green zone, say 2 got shot down, the rest could kill a lot of americans there.
Then if they got really crazy they can send thousands of Mujahideen streaming across the border into Iraq to attack the American military.
Iran could (pure speculation) have sleeper groups in America proper that could cause a lot of damage.
I think if Israel was going to attack they would have done this by now but are to worried by the consequences of what would happen if they did, this is in no way like Iraq when they simply flew over there and dropped a couple of bombs.
The story in newsweek makes it sound easy but the reality of it is they have no idea of how suuccessful or not they would be.
Kinda vague overview of what I think will happen if Israel strikes Iran.
Or maybe I am reading to much thought into Irans capabilities?

 

[Sahkuhnder]

@ boarder -

You have brought up some interesting points. I'll try to address them as best I can.

I agree that the logistics would be very difficult, both in the penetration of Iranian airspace and achieving satisfactory results with targets that deeply buried.

I would strongly doubt any nuclear weapons would be used as the political repercussions for any nation would simply be too great.

The US would be better equipped militarily to carry out the attack, but Israel would be better able to deal with the political consequences.

The actual physical damage may only set the weapons program back a short time, but any delay may be considered worth the effort especially if it buys time for an actual US invasion or as you suggested perhaps the targeting of the scientists involved in the program. We can only guess what steps may in action along these lines already. If I was an Iranian nuclear scientist working on a weapons program I would worry about not waking up again, and perhaps a strike on the facility may encourage some of their scientists to look for other employment somewhere safer.

My guess, which admittedly is not that great, would be that Iran would be hesitant to respond militarily so as to not draw the full wrath of the US by way of military escalation. Having one facility bombed would be bad, but drawing a full military response and possible invasion from the US would be far worst. I would suspect Syria to stay out of the fight for similar reasons.

I would not expect Syria to be stupid enough to use biological weapons as they would surely know the consequences of such an action.

I would not expect many civilian casualties. Modern guided bombs are fairly accurate.

I would dismiss the additional terrorist attacks as being a factor. Any strike to prevent nuclear weapons development would rank as more important than the fear of making the terrorists even more angry.

If Israel did decide to strike I see no problem obtaining US permission to overfly Iraq.

Closing The Strait of Hormuz could be a big problem, but Iran relies on oil revenue for its economy too. This would hurt Europe, Japan, other Arab nations, etc. as well. If Israel led the strike by themselves Iran wouldn't have any great justification for closing the strait.

I would suspect that Iran has sleeper agents in the US as well. The value of delaying any nuclear weapons program would probably outweigh the fear from such agents.

The Newsweek article wasn't very in-depth, but it did at least bring the topic up for consideration.


Once again, all of this is at best only my highly speculative and hard-data lacking opinion. Those in power would have much better info on which to base their decisions.

 

[boarder]

Thank you for your feedback. Interesting, unfortunelty i agree with you so dont have anything more to add.