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Preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities?

Should Israel strike a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities? Can it do so with jets ala Iraq '82, will it have to use ICBMs? What options are at Israel's disposal?

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Well, regarding your question on Israel's military options against Iran's nuclear program, most analysts believe that the situation is much different than it was in Iraq in '82 and a few others (such as Yitzhak Ben Israel for example) differ.

About the ICBM option, I don't know if Israel has ICBMs that cover the whole territory of Iran up to its border with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan. You also have an accuracy problem, and the only solution might be an Israeli nuclear war head ICBMs (which I don't claim Israel has...), and that's a different story, so ICBMs don't seem as a good option.

now let's examine the air-strike option:

Iran learnt a lesson from the Iraqi case, and has its nuclear program all over the country in many many sites, opposite to Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor which was the sole main facility in their nuclear project. That means that you have to know about ALL the Iranian sites and strike them simultaneously.

Another problem is that Iran's nuclear facilities are mostly underground, which makes it more difficult to ensure a bull's eye hit that will cause the desired damage, and of course makes it difficult to gather sufficient intelligence to make sure that Israel knows about all the relevant sites.

The third problem is Iran's size and its distance from Israel. Iraq is much closer to Israel than Iran, and to my knowledge a fully armed F-16's range is about 3000km (Tehran is about 2000km from Israel, and some of the nuclear sites are probably located in the east of the country). That has two implications - Israel will have to fly over hostile countries in order to get there (in 82 they flew over Saudi Arabia which at the time had no ability to stop her - and probably today they won't do anything as they oppose to the Iranian A-bomb as much as Israel). The other is that you'll need some sort of aerial fueling mechanism as part of the operation.

As I said, there are other analysts claiming the opposite. They say that the profusion of sites isn't a problem, because they believe that the many facilities are part of a production chain, and that there's only one or two reactors, and the other places are just for earlier parts of the production - hence you hit the chain in one spot, and you successfully halted the nuclear program.

They also say that the Osirak reactor was actually 36m. under the ground, so this shouldn't be much of a problem now.

And finally, who said the jets must lift off from Israel, and not from, let's say, an American carrier in the gulf...

They all agree that if Israel decides to do something, it has to be soon enough.

However, a military strike might halt the project but not necessarily eliminate the threat for good - they can always resume the project (and they have the money for it), and they can also buy a ready made bomb from North Korea or some other country (as I said, they have the money for it).

For other, non-military options, you are welcome to read the relevant post in my Hebrew blog.


Posted 2 years ago ( permalink )
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Israel should not strike Iran by convetional means because the trgets are too far and too spread around.

Israel should make all the efforts to create international and American presure o Iran to stop their nuclear project. This effort suffered a big set-back by the last American inteligent report but it should not be abandonded.

If diplomatic efforts will eventually be useless, Israel should use unconventual means like sabotage and other means. Israel cannot accept the Iranien nuclear project.


Posted 9 months ago ( permalink )
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a combined substained air campagian by nato no isralie action.


Posted 4 months ago ( permalink )
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