Why hasn't Israel bombed Iran?

Factual Questions
21

Should Israel decide to launch a strike on Iran, its pilots would have to fly more than 1,000 miles across unfriendly airspace, refuel in the air en route, fight off Iran’s air defenses, attack multiple underground sites simultaneously — and use at least 100 planes.

That is the assessment of American defense officials and military analysts close to the Pentagon, who say that an Israeli attack meant to set back Iran’s nuclear program would be a huge and highly complex operation. They describe it as far different from Israel’s “surgical” strikes on a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981.

Link.

22

Thanks very much for this indian and rbroom, exactly the sort of thing of thing I was looking for.

23

The issue to me is this:

Israel, for all her military abiltiies, has basically two modes of fighting. Short Range, and ballistic nuclear. They have no long range strategic bombers. No B-52’s, No B1-B’s, no B2’s, nor any of the Russian equivalent. This means that their only strike options are ones based around the F-16, which is what they have most of, plus a few F-15’s and their other, short range aircraft. These ARE what they used to bomb Osirak, as a matter of fact. And it took 16 fighter/bombers (8 F-16’s and 8 F-15’s) to do the job on ONE plant.

Now multiply the numbers by five or six to cover all the big sites, plus reserves. That’s the scale we’re talking. They do not have enough aerial refuelers to support this large a strike. Even if they did, they’d have to pre-position them in order to support the aircraft in both directions. One or two they can manage. But enough to refuel about 70-80 planes (you need 80 because they can only carry about two bombs each with the drop tanks)? Umm… no.

The F-16 is their strike aircraft of choice. It has a combat patrol radius of about 350 miles. Sacrificing ordinance for drop tanks, you can probably add 50% to that, or 500mi round trip. Since the out bound and return legs are one way, they can double that distance. Still, they must refuel about once every 1000mi or so. Unless they fly through Iraqi or Syrian airspace, they have to go down the Red Sea, up the coast of Yemen and then up the Persian Gulf. So the 1000mi journey gets them from Israel down to around the border of Yemen and SA. NEITHER OF WHOM WOULD ALLOW ISRAELI MILITARY JETS TO ENTER THEIR AIRSPACE. So the only refueling option is either Sudan/Eritrea/Ethiopia on the other side of the Red Sea, or aerial refueling. That’s really it.

After the first refueling they have to turn the corner at Djibouti and fly the entire length of Yemen. Which is about another 1000mi. Time for more fuel. Assuming they can actually cross Oman (unlikely but allowed for the sake of this discussion) they still have to fly up the Persion Gulf to Bandar e Bushehr to hit the Nuclear Reactor there. Thats another 1000mi or so. THEN, they have to fly an additional 500mi INTO Iran to Hit some of the other sites like Natanz, Arak and Lashkar Ab’ad, then fly back the way they came. If you fly 500mi INTO a country, when you fly back out, you’ve covered… 1000mi again.

It would probably be the single longest fighter bomber mission in the history of mankind. Both in terms of distance travelled there and back, and in terms of mission hours.

I can go on if you like, but the point is that Israel isn’t capable of executing a raid on Iran using this path. It’s not a feasible attack. Which means they have to cross Jordan, Saudi Arabia and/or go around Syria, cross Iraq and go into Iran that way. Which gets very very problematic for the Americans.

In all likelyhood an attack on Iranian nuclear sites will be American. It will be American B2’s and B1-Bs out of Diego Garcia and possibly Incirlik, maybe even Kabul/Bagram. Most likely this will be supported by suppression of Anti-Air by Naval Air assets out of the Gulf, or Air Force assets out of the UAE. 6 B2 bombers can drop 96 2000lb GPS guided bombs. 6 more B1-B’s add another 144 2000lb GPS bombs. I’m thinking 12 Bombers and 250 2000lb GPS guided precision bombs oughta set the Iranians back a few days or so. Of course, if we’re really smart/nasty about it, we’ll make sure a few bombs land on the homes of their top scientists. Killing them, or their russian technical advisers, will set the program back farther, faster and more decisively than any amount of site bombing will.

And there will be much hand wringing in the UN and protests on the streets in Arabia and others will scream about how imperialist we are and what right do we have and so on. And then they all go to bed comforted by the knowledge that the Iranians aren’t going to light off a mushroom cloud for at least a few more weeks.

In the end, all the other states around Iran, you know, the people who LIVE in missle range of them? Yeah those guys. They’ll send the US very quiet thank you notes while playing a different PR spin for internal consumption.

And the world will keep on turning. /shrug

Regards,
-Bouncer-

24

There was a comment in today’s New York Times that made what I thought was a very interesting, and possibly game changing, point about Israel’s ability to take out any Iranian nuclear reactors.

Specifically, someone said that it is not necessary to destroy or even target the reactors in order to prevent Iran from manufacturing nuclear weapons. Rather, if Israel were to knock out the electrical power facilities that supply the reactors, the latter would be rendered inoperative. More specifically, the thousands of centrifuges that are used to isolate the fissile U235 require huge amounts of power. Presumably that power is supplied by generators and generating stations that are more readily destroyed than deeply buried and reinforced nuclear reactors. Or, if the generating stations are hydro-electric in nature, then it would suffice to simply knock out the damns (or whatever else) drives them.

Is that so? Is it truly the case that all Israel (or any other nation) needs to do to disable an Iranian nuclear reactor is eliminate its power source? If it is true it would seem to make military options much more viable.

25

Knocking out dams would flood thousand of Iranian people downriver, and knocking out other power stations would kill the electricity to much of the civilian population. Thus creating much more ill-will toward Israel.

And the leadership of Iran is likely to allocate any remaining electrical power toward the centrifuges, depriving the civilian population, while blaming it all on Israel (and the US). Besides, they could replace those with diesel generators deeply buried near the centrifuges; they’d just have to find someone to supply oil for those (which is not in short supply in the Arab countries).

Also, long term, it’s the most desperate and impoverished people who are most anti-Israel (or can be propagandized into anti-Israel mobs) – a stable middle-class population is much less involved with such radicalism. So an attack like this, which would disrupt the economy of Iran, is bad for Israel in the long term.

26

You are right - I didn’t think through the implications on the populace of destroying the dams. Fair enough.

But how about bombing the generators that supply the nuclear plant(s)? Or the lines going into or out of them? (much of generator and power lines must be in the open, or at least key parts of them). Doing so wouldn’t have the same effect on the Iranian hoi polloi and would relatively “easy” (again, relatively).

27

It’s unlikely that these generators supply only the nuclear plants. (A big benefit of an electrical grid is that it is all an interconnected grid, so that all the generator plants work together and can backup each other.) I expect Iranian electrical engineers are aware of this.

And bombing the power lines going in to them would be useful, but only short-term. Such things are pretty easily repaired after bomb damage. [The Allies discovered this in WWII: bombing of power lines, railroads, etc. proved to be rather ineffective, because bombs often didn’t do much damage (it was pretty hard to hit a small target like this with their WWII bombs), and the damage could often be repaired quickly. So they switched to concentrating on railroad bridges, plants building war materials, etc.]

28

Israel’s leaders, even those on the Right, MAY look at the Assad regime in Syria and the mullahs running Iran, and conclude, “They’re treacherous, brutal, and always a potential danger… but MAYBE they’re not the worst-case scenario for us.”

Syria and Iran launch a lot of vile, threatening rhetoric against Israel, but they generally DON’T engage in direct hostilities toward Israel. The Assads and the mullahs are bad guys, but they’re generally rational and opportunistic bad guys, NOT the reckless maniacs they’re often perceived to be.

Israel MAY see that war against those guys could lead to the rise of other rulers who MIGHT be much more reckless.

29

There was a commentary (NY Times?) by one of the Israeli pilots who raided Iraq’s reactor back in the early 80’s. Basically, he said that all the same things are said today as were said then - it will only delay the program a short time, they will retaliate, we can’t do an effective job, etc. The implication being, people who raise these objections about hitting Iran are being equally negative and pessimistic and incorrect.

But as others have pointed out, the job is an order of magnitude bigger and against an order of magnitude stronger opponent. Plus they have the infrastructure - missiles and Hezbollah - to more effectively retaliate.

The question everyone would like an answer to is, how crazy are the Iranian leadership? Like most arabs, they seem to talk a big game (think “mother of all battles”) but a lot of this is likely just talk, and a form of domestic boastfulness rather than real threat. Nobody in the arab world gets brownie points for saying, “you know, really, the Israelis are not that bad…” They are big on talk but short on action. The fanatics, whether Hezbollah or al Qaida are just a convenient tool the leaders know how to play from time to time for maximum PR result. The economic pressures internally are such that whipping up public opinion against the regional bogey man is a convenient way to deflect pressure. Amedinajahd likes to talk holocaust denial probably mainly because he knows it’s the best way to stir up the USA and Europe.

If this interpretation is correct, then the goal of a nuclear weapon is not to take out Israel, but the usual - prestige, respect, and protection in a messy neighbourhood. Besides, it works really well for North Korea and Iraq was a good demonstration why not having one was a bad idea.

The problem is, the USA can afford to wait and see what Iran does, and retaliate with back-to-the-stone-age force afterwards if they are a bunch of suicidal genocidal nutbars. Israel is currently debating whether they have to luxury to wait and see, or if it prudent to strike first.

The trouble is, a preemptive strike guarantees that the leadership in Iran now has a valid and legitimate reason and incentive to strike back in any manner they can. (“I’m taking an awful risk, Vader. You had better be right…”)

IMHO the USA needs to state that any use of WMD against Israel or anywhere in the middle east will result in massive retailaition aginst the offending country; and that the only way to escape being slagged would be to surrender to occupation, give up the top 50,000 of the ruling class to war crimes trials and gulag time, and become a colony of the USA, Europe, and Turkey. I’d give Turkey the job of deciding how to dispose of prisoners’ printed material.

30

Iran is Arab?

After all is not like they are people or even human beings, just swarthy ARAB automatons. No biggie.

31

So Pakistanis think that Indians are subhumans? After all, you’re willing to fight wars with them; in fact, you’d even use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances.

32

When there is an Iranan mechanized corps sitting literally opposite many of the US’s major cities, the US is outnumbered 3 to 1 by the Iranian military then maybe the analogy would be correct. Right now you are talking about a theoretical threat, which frankly exists only in the minds of those with a prior agenda. Re Israel, when was the last time Iran attacked Israel?

And in any case Ahmadineajad and the Ayatollahs are no Cyrus, Xerxes, Shapur, Shah Abass or Nadir Shah.

33

Summer of 2006. Israel considers Hizballah a direct agent of the Iranian government.

Maybe, but the Persians are an ancient and powerful nation, and deserving of our respect. When they make threats, we take them seriously.

34

I really doubt the Israeli government is that stupid to mix support for Hizb as being a direct agent (outside of rhetoric). And you and I know that the while the 2006 events were a bloody nose or perhaps a bruised lip for Israel, Hiz is no threat to Israel in the grand scheme of things.

The Persians are an ancient and powerful nation. Iran is a rump state of previous empires and which has spent most of the last 200 years being dominated by outside powers, Its about as much of a threat that the East RomanEmpire was in its last few centuries, a bloody nose to anyone who attacks, but no threat otherwise.

35

And I think you don’t appreciate how small Israel Is - a population one third that of Karachi in an area so small that a single nuclear weapon can effectively ruin our entire economy. Sure, we have the U.S. on our side, for now, but that won’t last forever - nothing does. And while Iran may not be what it once was, to us, it’s a huge country with abundant natural resources and a population ten times our own. By any objective measure, they’re far more powerful than we are. We may have a better army with better gadgets, but history tells us that that’s not always enough.

So excuse me if I can’t downplay the threat Iran poses to us. Not all of us live in gigantic countries.

36

What you have said is as true of the Sudan or DR Congo. By that measure you should be terrified of the possible intentions of Khartom and Kinchasa. Paranoia is pretty counterproductive. If history has shown one thing, it’s that small nations have not survived, very long, by being paranoid and aggressive. I am pretty sure the Iranisna dream about ruling the land that is Israel. I am also pretty sure theta do the same about Karachi or Lahore, and in the not so recent past they did just that. If tbe Iranians ever try to do anything to act on either of those impulses, they will at the very least see most of their major cities flattened. And, contrary to what you might think, they really don’t hate Israel that much to accept that as a price. No one does. earlier leaders of Israel recognized this.I hope the present leadership does as well.

Pakistan is gigantic? Thats a new one.

37

Did I say they were “Arab”? What the fuck are you going on about?

38

Reread my post. It was a general statement which came before the your quoted text.

And I take it as you have raised no objection to the rest of the post, you agree with the observation raised therein.

39

Your use of the term “Arab” came after my quoted text as well. So, again I will ask, 'What the fuck are you going on about"?

As for your keen observation and even sharper inference that because I didn’t raise an objection to the rest of your post that therefore I agree with it, I can only say, bwahahaha!

40

In 2004 the Atlantic Magazine gamed out the consequences of an attack on nuclear Iran. They recruited Sam Gardiner, who had “conducted war games at the National War College and many other military institutions,” for 2 decades. It was a Principles Committee exercise: Kevin Pollack of Brookings and Reuel Marc Gerecht of AEI played the role of Secretary of State; other blue ribbon individuals represented the White House chief of staff and the Secretary of Defense.

We could bomb Iran. But it would only delay creation of the nuke: it could not stop it outright. And Iran would be expected to re-double its efforts. Domestic opposition would disappear. "Iran would rebuild after a strike, and from that point on it would be much more reluctant to be talked or bargained out of pursuing its goals—and it would have far more reason, once armed, to use nuclear weapons to America’s detriment. "

Then again, the US could attempt regime change and occupation. Except that we really didn’t have the resources:

The article is long, but worth reading.