After months of growing tensions, Iran launches a Shahab II Missile-which carries a 100 kiloton Nuclear warhead. Miraculously, the bomb doesn’t detonate-however, radioactive debris conatminates a large part of the city. What will Israel do?
If retaliation is made, would they hit Tehran with a nuke?
Or would they use a conventional weapon?
Since they would have to assume the NEXT missile might drtonate properly, I imagine there’s be a nuclear response out of sheer self-preservation, assuming nothing else (Iranian government collapses, attack by other nations) intervenes that would make retailiation unnecessary.
Man, I hope this scenario never actually happens, but it is all too realistic given the current state of things in the ME.
I would predict that one of two things would happen: Either Israel would act without rapid counsel from the USA and start WWIII with a massive nuclear counterattack, OR that (and this assumes the OP’s scenario of the nuclear weapon not detonating) the US would advise restraint against a full blown nuclear strike and Israel would engender an unprecedented response of conventional weapons, likely with the help of American airstrikes/logistics.
I pray that governments in the Middle East that have or are pursuing nuclear weapons don’t let their blind hatred for the state of Israel goad them into doing such a thing, if for love of their own children and everyone else’s in the region…it would be a bloodbath.
It is more likely Israel will launch to prevent Iran from getting nukes.
I expect Israel would nuke Iran. Which is why Iran won’t do it. Israel does strike me as being more likely to nuke someone first, under the assumption that we’d protect them.
Does anyone really think the leaders of Iran (and even more importantly, the military personnel who would have to carry it out) are fanatically suicidal enough that their lifelong goal, their dream, is to annihilate Israel at the cost of their own extinction? Call me a cynic, but I think that martyrdom appeals primarily to losers. People who have struggled to get to the top like being there, and like staying alive. I would suppose that 95% or more of Iran’s motivation to acquire nukes is strategic deterrence- to be able to face down anyone who might think of attacking them. Maybe if the Iranians thought they could get away with anonymous nuclear terrorism, they might try it; but it would be a huge gamble that the bomb wouldn’t have a traceable signature, or that the operation wouldn’t be uncovered by Israeli or American intelligence.
Man, you have to tell us that this is theoretical. I saw the title and about had a heart attack. The scenario is plausible enough that I was halfway to packing my bags.
Yeah, I too was shocked until I clicked and realized the OP was posing a hypothetical.
Tehran launches a nuke on “growing tensions”? Could you be a little more specific? 'Cause I just don’t see it, unless Israel/US bombs/invades Iran. Man, it must be terrifying to live in your universe.
That quote looks good on you, Fear Itself.
What will Israel do? That’s pretty much an act of war… especially to be hit with a nuclear warhead. That’s so bad.
Our Dem Senate will probably want to know what Israel did to provoke Iran. :eek:
More likely they’ll wonder who sold it to them, since our own intelligence agencies say they haven’t been doing nuclear weapons research for several years now.
Since it’s unknown if Israel actually has nukes it’s impossible to predict that part. It would be an act of war on Iran’s part regardless (even a conventional bomb would be such an act).
My guess is that the international community would pound Iran into dust conventionally. There really would be no reason to retaliate with nukes IMHO (and several good reasons not to). Treaties alone would bring even the Euro’s in (such as their military response would be…at least on paper they would be behind it). Certainly the US would be brought in whether we wanted to or not (regardless of who the president is at the time)…treaties would bring us in. I believe such a violation of both the charter and various nuclear treaties would pretty much generate an automatic response for either the full surrender of Iranian forces (and probably criminal trials in the dread international courts of the top Iranian brass) or a declaration of war from the UN and all signatory nations (even the Russians and Chinese would probably at least have to pay lip service, even if they didn’t want to…and they probably wouldn’t want to).
-XT
The ideas that a) Iran could somehow get the to the point of having a deliverable nuclear weapon without Israel detecting this and carrying out some sort of conventional pre-emptive strike, and b) that Iran would launch a single nuke against a country that by most reports has about 200, make the whole scenario somewhat implausible, but I’ll go ahead and assume things happen the way the OP says they do. Anything following is pure speculation on my part; I have no special expertise in this field.
Firstly, I cannot conceive of a single current nuclear-armed power that would condone or come to the defense of an Iranian first strike on Israel (except, maybe, Pakistan). If Iran ever does such a thing, they will surely be walking down that road pretty much on their own.
Secondly, although it seems popular to assume that an Iran-Israel nuclear conflict would automatically result in a world war, I sincerely doubt this would be the case. Given that a major nuclear conflict in the region would take a significant fraction of the world’s energy supplies out of action for perhaps decades, there would be a large incentive for the European and North American powers to do whatever they could to broker deals reining in both parties, much as the US apparently did during Gulf War I when Iraq launched ballistic missiles against Israel.
If Iran did somehow manage an unanticipated (by Israel) launch of a nuclear-tipped missile, and the warhead does not hit its target or deliver full yield, a key point may be in what way the attempted attack fails.
If the warhead simply broke up and rained debris on ‘the city’ (Tel Aviv?), I don’t see that much likelihood of an immediate nuclear retaliation by Israel, as long as the debris remains in large chunks and has not been atomised by, say, explosion of the conventional explosives used to activate the fission weapon. The debris, while posing some danger to the public, would result in relatively minor physical damage and (I’m guessing here) would not be as difficult to clean up as a ‘dirty’ conventional weapon. At that point, Israel could simply come out of the closet concerning their possession of nukes, and advise Tehran that the slightest hint of additional launch preparations would result in multiple nuclear strikes in retaliation. I find it highly unlikely that even the maddest of Iranian governments would fail to heed this warning.
If the warhead hits the target but ‘fizzles’, resulting in some, but not full, nuclear yield, or misses but achieves full yield, the situation is more dangerous, but as xtisme says, in both cases there are number of treaties that would bring other parties into the fray and overall there would be a strong incentive to pledge conventional military assistance in dealing with Iran, to prevent Israel from carrying out a nuclear response.
In the unlikely event that Israel did carry out a nuclear retaliatory strike, it would surely amount to no more than one or two weapons initially. As to the target, it seems more likely to be specific military installations than Tehran itself, although there would certainly be large numbers of civilian casualties no matter what the target. That, frankly, would be more than enough to end any enthusiasm Iran may have for continuing the conflict.
Following that, a long, painful period of cleanup, fitful negotiations, belligerent blustering and deal-making by the aggrieved parties. In other words, pretty much what has happened after the many previous wars in the region.
A dud hundred kiloton nuclear weapon would be hard pressed to contaminate an area half the size of a football field, let alone “a large part of the city”.
That aside, the most sensible course of action for Israel would be to immediately take out, using small yield precision nuclear missiles, every Iranian launching site and missile storage area that it knows about.
As an aside, I doubt that Israel has a mere 200 nuclear missiles. That 200 figure has been bouncing around unchanged since the 1980’s.
Same here. I had time to think that the fan would look like it had been positively clean up until now, before I realised it was a hypothetical.
That’s pretty much the biggest understatement possible.
I realized it was a hypothetical right away, largely because of me not being dead.
(I live around three blocks away from the Kirya, Israel’s version of the Pentagon - AKA ground zero).
I don’t think that there would be a chance for Israel to find out that the warhead is a dud – the minute they track an incoming missile from Iran they’re going to immediately launch a full-out strike in hopes of catching at least some of the remaining missiles in their launchers.
With what? What do you suppose Israel has that can launch such an immediate strike that could catch the remaining launchers on the ground?? AFAIK, their only option would be an air strike that would have to be put together (i.e. I seriously doubt Israel has fighter bombers and strike packages sitting on run ways fueled up and ready to launch at a moments notice, with the pilots sitting around playing cards and waiting for the horn to blare, calling them to arms).
-XT