Suppose that Netanyahu launches an attack, in an attempt to derail Iran’s atomic bomb project. Iran retaliates with a Shahab missile strike on Tel Aviv-hundreds of thousands are killed and wounded. Israel then retaliates (with nuclear bombs)-now Tehran is destroyed, with millions of casualties.
What would be next? I expect that both nations would harbor fanatics eager to “finish the job”…but what would happen? Both sides lack the strength to prosecute a major war…and with the leadership of both essentially wiped out, who would be in charge?
With Tehran a smoking ruin and Ami-however-you-spell-his-name presumably dead, I don’t think Iran could effectively continue to wage war.
Israel, down but not out, may be in for an attack from Russia, China, Pakistan, N. Korea and/or a number of nations (many of whom have nukes as well). Maybe. A lot will probably depend on the degree of US involvement.
But if Israel starts lobbing nukes, either in response or as an initial attack, the SWHTF hard I think.
The OP overestimates the effectiveness of Iranian missiles by several orders of magnitude. Israel has anti-missile defense systems at least as good as the Patriot system used in Desert Storm, and probably some more recent versions. They will absorb a few missile hits, but they’re probably willing to do that in exchange for doing significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program.
They won’t lob nukes anywhere, unless invaded or attacked with nuke/chem/bio weapons.
If they attack, and I don’t think they will before the election, it will be a limited war. Essentially one large raid into Iranian airspace, using conventional bombs and maybe some missiles, and a few waves of retaliatory missiles incoming from Iran.
My guess would be a wave of solidarity among Middle Eastern countries for Iran. Israel would be seen as the aggressor for having made the first strike (and for being Israel).
But the destruction of Tehran would prevent declarations of open war. Countries wouldn’t want Riyadh, Amman, Baghdad, Damascus, or Cairo getting nuked.
So I think you’d have a wave of sub-conventional attacks: diplomatic, economic, terrorist, street uprisings - stuff that would strike blows against Israel but not give them an easy target they could strike back against.
Your numbers are a little shaky…
The official Israeli estimate of damage is a one-month war with only 500 casualties. This seems way too low to me, but not totally unreasonable.
For comparison:
During the 1990 Gulf War, each scud missile that hit Tel Aviv did less damage than a tornado that hits in, say, Kansas.—typically 2 or 3 deaths,1 building totally destroyed, a dozen others damaged.
Which is why I think Israel would likely be nuked, by some nation like Russia or China or India or Pakistan. The world can’t afford to let Israel get away with such an act; and the threat of being nuked for using nukes has been the longstanding principle that’s prevented general nuclear war. And the news coverage of the millions of dead will be more than enough to give them any political cover they need.
Even this is high – the total number of deaths resulting from SCUD hits was precisely 0 – there were a handful of deaths due to heart attacks, panic injection of Atropin and complications, and one man who was killed by a missile – a Patriot anti-missile missile that went astray…
I think the 500 casualties number reflects the expected number of casualties from short/medium range missiles that may be launched by Hamas and Hizbballah; the Iranians don’t have that many Shihabs, and most of those will be intercepted by Arrow and Patriot anti-missile defenses.
IMO even if the Iranians really do throw the proverbial kitchen sink at us, there is zero chance our counter-retaliation will be nuclear.
And I still believe that it won’t come to an Israeli surprise attack on Iran. Or mostly I hope so because I simply don’t trust Netanyahu to execute it correctly… :rolleyes: :eek:
I largely agree with Noone Special; however, seeing as I live about 500 yards from the Kiryah (the Israeli version of the Pentagon), it’s a reasonable assumption that any of those missiles that manages to get through to Tel Aviv will land on my head. So there’s that.
I also don’t think that Bibi will launch an attack, for the same reason he’ll never make peace with the Palestinians - the man has no moral courage. He’s a natural equivocator, and is terrified of upsetting the status quo, any status quo. The idea of taking risks is antithetical to his nature.
As for nukes - Israeli policy is similar to that of the United States. Nukes are only in response to nukes, or if the country is truly about to be overrun and there’s nothing else left. A conventional attack won’t lead to a nuclear response.
I thought you guys wouldn’t say whether or not you have them. Am I out of date? The second part was that “Israel would not be the first to use them” as I recall.
I’m not seeing that happening. As far as I know, no country has announced any open-ended doctrine that it will use nuclear weapons against a country that uses nuclear weapons against a third neutral country. And the doctrines governing the use of nuclear weapons is not spontaneous - every country having nuclear weapons has been very careful to outline the situations in which it will use them. It’s in everyone’s self-interest - nobody likes nuclear surprises. And the possibility that a country might unexpectedly use nuclear weapons would prompt other countries to pre-emptive strikes.
I’m not convinced Israel retaliates with nuclear weapons. As others have mentioned, the results of the counter-attack are misoverestimated. I think every country in the area wants a very quick cease fire, with these exceptions; Syria, because who knows what’s going to happen there, and Saudi Arabia who wants to see more destruction in both Israel and Iran.
Which is actually an argument for my position, since that’s exactly what Israel using nukes in retaliation for a conventional attack would be; an unexpected nuclear attack. The rest of the world would destroy it in panic and self defense.
Someone on another forum pointed out that it would likely look to the rest of the world like America is engaging in nuclear attacks by proxy; Israel nukes people America doesn’t like, depending on US protection to avoid retaliation, while the US uses Israel as a a tool to nuke its enemies while pretending it has no responsibility.
Nor do I. The results of doing so would be disastrous, and I’m sure they’d realize that.
Iran is vulnerable to conventional attacks, cutting off water and electrical power to the metropole, Tehran. (In much the same way, Egypt can be devastated by destroying the Aswan dam.) Israel is far from invulnerable, but is a little more decentralized and has a few more redundancies. Nuclear war isn’t in anyone’s interest.
I’d consider an Israeli nuclear attack unlikely for the reasons I gave. But it’s the premise of the thread so I’ll accept it for the sake of argument.
And I do feel there’s a significant difference. The OP said that Israel’s nuclear attack on Tehran was in response to an Iranian conventional attack on Tel Aviv that killed or wounded “hundreds of thousands”. So Israel could argue it had some justification for its attack.
What would the justification be for Russia or China? There was no Israeli attack against a Russian or Chinese city. Is the justification for their nuclear attack supposed to be that Israel made a nuclear attack? There’s an obvious flaw in that logic.
Day 1: Israel nukes Tehran.
Day 2: Russia announces its new policy: any country which nukes a city in another country will have one of its own cities nuked.
Day 3: China says it agrees with the Russian policy.
Day 4: Russia nukes Jerusalem.
Day 5: China nukes Moscow.
Day 6: Russia asks China: “WTF? You said you agreed with our policy!”
Day 7: China responds: “We do agree with your policy. So when you nuked a city in another country, we nuked one of your cities.”
Absolutely not. Israel has U.S. backing, and any nation nuking Israel has about an hour to prepare for incoming U.S. nukes. Every nuke power knows and understands this. They aren’t going to commit suicide and/or commence WWIII over Israel nuking Iran.
Nobody’s mentioned Palestine’s reaction? I thought they’d jump on the opportunity of a weakened Israel.
Nope, Noone did:
Which Palestine?
If you’re taking about Gaza, then sure, Hamas will probably launch missile attacks on southern Israel. That was mentioned above. If you mean the West Bank, I doubt the PA will do anything. They have virtually no military capabilities, and they know that any Israeli reaction during a time of war will be much more disproportionate than usual. They could try mass demonstrations and protests, but these will probably be ignored by the international community, which will be focusing on things going boom in Israel and Iran.
Palestine, the country? The one that’s constantly bickering with Israel?
Aren’t those groups not officially supported by the government?
Except they’ll be committing suicide if they don’t. They can’t afford to let Israel go around nuking nations just because America is defending it, any more than they could afford to let California go around nuking nations because the rest of the US protects it. In this scenario, the nuclear war has already started. At the very least, you’d see every nuclear power handing over nukes to their own proxies and doing the same thing we are.