So are you seriously trying to say that Israel's subs, which they can easily park right off iran's coast, don't have the range to hit Iran? You really are getting further and further from facts and the truth with every post. Also how do you figure that iran could do anything about Israel refueling their planes? Are you actually trying to say that iran would attempt to invade US controlled airspace in Iraq to attack US refueling planes? Their antiquated planes iran has wouldn't make it 10 miles into US controlled space before we splashed them with great ease. Plus Israel's planes, and pilots are years more advanced then what iran has. Keep believing the hype and propaganda, but if/when the balloon goes up, it will be you hiding in a bomb shelter going, damn I should have listeined to Scarecrow and bugged out of my country cause our military sucks when compared to a modern one like the US and Israel. Oh I wouldn't go touting anything about iran's missiles. The crap you guys gave hezbollah proved to be quite inaccurate and pathetic. LOL!!!
I am suggesting the Israeli subs don't carry much of a payload. This is from Jane's Defense Weekly, but I will note that the US military itself has done a study and issued a report indicating Israel does not have the capability to launch a successful operation against Iran. http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jir/jir060120_2_n.shtml Iran's conventional forces remain key to deterring potential threats
I agree that they do not carry much of a payload, I would say though that any Israeli missiles that are fired and hit their targets would provide a different kind of effect then just damage caused. As for what Israel could or could no do really boils down to the type of attack that they try to carry out. As we all know there is nothing to stop Israeli planes from safely flying into Iraq, there I have no doubts that they could obtain refueling from US sources. From there you would have quite a few questions raised. The most important of which would be what kind of attack would Israel launch. Honestly the most effective attack would be a nuclear attack and I nor anyone else wants to see that kind of attack. Anything else would be more of a look we can hit you approach and any damage done would be a moral victory for Israel.
While Israel's policy is to ultimately drag the US into a fight with Iran, let me note that the US has its own vulnerabilities in the event of such a conflict. I have discussed those before but, regardless of how you approach the issue, there is no doubt that a war with Iran is not something the US would entertan willy nilly or at someone else's timetable. At a minimum, the US would have to prepare itself and its forces for such a fight, which would then indirectly take away the 'element of surprise' from any US/Israeli operation. Incidentally, yesterday an Arabic television station operated by Iran showed footage of an Iranian spy drone taking video of a US air craft carrier operating around the Persian Gulf. Besides the host of bases and other targets, including oil facilities and shipping, that is vulnerable to Iranian strikes, Iran has repeatedly insinuated that the US air craft carriers and naval fleet in the area would not be safe in any war with Iran. http://www.pakistantimes.net/2006/11/13/top8.htm
While everything else I have said here so far is based on analysis of the issues by military experts, mostly American ones, let me say something that I believe is possible but I can't 'prove' by providing a link for it. Lets just say this is my hunch. In the event that Israel ever decides to brandish its 'nuclear card' (i.e, threaten Iran with nukes), I believe Iran might detonate a nuclear devise around the Israeli coast or even possibly smuggle something into the Negev desert and detonate it there. Once it does, Iran will claim that Israel has engaged in a nuclear test and try to rally international opinion against the Israelis for it. The Israelis, on the other hand, knowing they weren't the ones who conducted the 'test', would be faced with a quandry. They will as a result have to either acknowledge the situation, which will have severe repercussions for them, including leading to a possible exodus from Israel and total collapse of the Israeli economy. Or they will have to bite the bullet, take the blame for the test, while afterwards changing their tune and not engaging in any more threats against Iran. All this, of course, assumes Iran already has a working nuclear devise. Something that I would not rule out.
you make it sound like it's a walk in the park to pull something off like that. For all we know, there are Mossad agents operating in Iran everyday. While I can't prove this, as you can't prove most of the stuff you say, the likelihood of what i said is about 1000 times more believable than your "weird" scenario.
Interesting comment. While you might be wrong as far as the specifics go, you are entirely correct in the larger sense that it is Israel, not Iran, which represents a nuclear threat to international peace and security. Anyway, let me mention that Israel is right now on a full court propaganda press, with Olmert in Washington trying to make sure the recent US election result (and the sacking of Rumsfeld and his replacement with Gates, who favors dialogue with Iran) does not interfere with Israeli plans to drag the US into a conflict with Iran down the line. At the same time, the Israel's foreign minister is reading off the same lines, mouthing off on how Ahmadinejad is the new "Hitler" and how the 'international community' has an 'obligation' to stop Iran! Israel has already paid for its foolish policies viz a viz Iran and will play more dearly in the coming weeks, months, and years. Truly, even though Iran has an interest in seeing Israel exist (albeit in altered shape and form), Israel is making that proposition less tenable every day.
My friend, the IDF has an air force that has the complete capability to fly rings around Iran and drop ordinance. Iran's air force is less than that of Iraq's pre-Desert Storm. The coalition lost very few plans to that air force/air defense. The IDF is at least as powerful and competent. Whether they should or will are other issues.
Wait a minute: seriously, is English your first language? This reads like something that came out of a fifth rate translation engine.
you entirely missed the point. Nobody in the world, not even Iran (unfortunately, or fortunately, depends on how you see it) thinks Israel "represents a nuclear threat to international peace and security,"as you so eloquently put. That is something Iran wants the world to see, but unfortunately for Iran, the world is a lot smarter.
It's obvious that Iran wants a conflict with Israel for it's own twisted purposes: According to the Iranian media Monday, Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was destined to ‘disappearance and destruction’ at a council meeting with Iranian ministers. “The western powers created the Zionist regime in order to expand their control of the area. This regime massacres Palestinians everyday, but since this regime is against nature, we will soon witness its disappearance and destruction,” Ahmadinejad said. (AFP) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L- 3327439,00.html
Will Israel attack Iran? This was the point which I was initially trying to make: any Israeli action IMO is likely to be a surprise attack against perceived nuclear research or production facilities. This would piss off Iran in general without targeting the Iranian population in particular. The next issue would then be Iran's response. Would it decry the sneak attack, publicize the civilian casualities at the facilities & continue on with its programs, either overtly or covertly? It would now be obvious that Israel could reach into Iran, but had not chosen to strike cities. Would there also be an Iranian military response? Would that be direct, such as missiles or planes from Iran, or indirect, via suicide attacks within Israel & rockets lauched from Palestine & Lebanon, to provoke ground response by Israel? I would think that any US assistance would be unlikely or extremely covert. The USA would want plausible deniability: to be able to claim that Israel acted unilaterally without notification to, approval by or assistance from the USA. Refueling would refute all of these arguments & add claims that Israel was acting on behalf of the USA. Of course, the opposite theory is possible as well.
well then, the Israelis better get to it and attack already, it seems to me that they don't have much time left
Are sure no one considers a nuclear Israel not a threat to international peace & security? Have you ever considered why Israel hid its program and still refuses to acknowledge having nuclear weapons? Nuclear deterrence only works if others know about it, unless Israel has a Doomsday Device and Barak/Sharon/Olmert/etc... love suprises. JBigjake, even attacking nuclear facilities will result in significant deaths of civilians (unless those research projects are conducted entirely by military personnel!) Also, any use of force is considered as declaration of war and Iran has by international law a right to use any force necessary to prevent future attacks.
answer: nuclear deterrence works regardless of other countries' knowledge about the program. But give me a country, outside Iran and Syria, who at any point in time explicitly said they feel threaten by Israel's nuke program?
Even the Soviets understood that nothing less then a tactical nuke would destroy or endanger a Carrier fleet. Our carriers are quite safe. As for the drones, just because the US didn't react to them doesn't mean anything.
Re: Will Israel attack Iran? The minute there is an Israeli strike on Iran, the following is what Iran has said will happen. Within seconds, Iranian missiles will be launched at the following Israeli targets: Israel's nuclear reactor at Dinamo; Israel's political leadership, including the knesset; Israeli military bases; and major Israeli economic and industrial infrastracture targets. Iran is unlikely to initiate a direct attack at civilian population centers in Israel initially. This is especially true since Israel's ability to pack a serious punch is limited and any Israeli attack is not going to truly hurt Iran's nuclear program. Indeed, the only truly vulnerable site is the Bushehr nuclear reactor, which incidentally is being built by Russians with Russian workers. The latter adds its own complications for any Israeli operation against Bushehr, while the other sites which are being built by Iran (and which are far more significant from a proliferation standpoint) are well protected against any such strikes. Israel will not be able to do much damage to Iran's enrichment facilities at Natanz, for instance, as the core of that program is built in underground bunkers. Without direct US involvement, Israel will not be able to launch any attacks period. Israeli warplanes would have to overfly either Saudi, Turkish, or Iraqi airspace. As they will need to refuel after their mission, they will be sitting ducks at the refueling points in any country that is not actively protecting them against hot pursuit by Iran. That means either Turkey or Saudi Arabia would have to protect the Israeli refueling tankers and planes by preventing Iran from approaching them, or the US would have to do so in Iraq. Turkey and Saudi Arabia will not want to be involved whatsoever, which then only leaves Iraq and the US air force for that role. There is a big difference. It would not be in Israel's interest to pretend that Iran has detonated a nuclear devise. The minute that happens, many people will be flocking out of Israel and Israel/US will suffer geopolitically as well, even if the story is bogus, as long as other states believe it to be true. Indeed, even if Iran had nuclear capability, both Israel and the US would go at lengths to deny it. The 'interests' of both is to claim Iran is 'seeking' nukes, is close enough to build them, but never to admit that it is in position to build them already. The scenario I outlined works for Iran, on the other hand, because Israel is already assumed to be a nuclear power with nuclear weapons. An "Israeli nuclear test", carried out in reality by Iran, would merely put Israel in the position I mentioned. Anyway, the point I posited is hypothetical and based on Iran being under any direct or explicit nuclear threat.
The reports suggest that the Russians resisted pressure to cancel the deal, but actual delivery has not been made yet. Let me add that Iran has likely obtained from other sources the Russian version of the Patriot anti-aircraft/anti-missile system, known as the S-300. There are reports that a couple of S-300 batteries are deployed around sensitive sites in Iran.
There military literature is full of reports suggesting how US aircraft carriers can be sunk by the Russian 'sunburn' anti-ship missile with no nukes employed. While Russia has never officially supplied Iran with the 'sunburn', Iran might have a local varient or Iran might have obtained the missile from other sources. Before the "Velvet Revolution" in the Ukraine, Iran had close ties with the Ukrainian government and military. Indeed, that is how Iran obtained the long range ex-Soviet cruise missiles known as the Kh-55, which were supposed to be destroyed based on US-Soviet arms control agreements. Revelations about the delivery of those systems to Iran were quite accidental, following the change in government in Ukraine, and what other systems (including up to 200 nukes claimed to be missing from the Ukraining stockpiles) might have been delivered to Iran is subject to persistent rumors. I doubt the US navy likes to see other forces taking surveillance video on the operation of their carrier and fleet. Indeed, one of the biggest obstacles in hitting a carrier has always been the fact that only a few countries are able to reliably detect their precise location, as that has usually required real time satellite information.
Re: Will Israel attack Iran? The Israeli airforce is superior to the Iranian airforce in a hypothetical regular engagement. But refueling tankers, and planes being refueled, are sitting ducks. They can be shot down by air to air missiles, and no plane in the world is better for that kind of operation than Iran's F-14s. You would not want such an 'engagement'. That issue is discussed in reports that speak to the 'obstacles' to an Israeli strike against Iran.
Iran has now had so many years to prepare for this and Israel is not going to want an all-out war that likely will only exacerbate its security concerns. Israel should focus on nuclear deterrence instead of playing along with Iran's diversionary tactics. Iranians might want to consider what would happen if Arab terrorists nuked Israel. Iran could possibly become destroyed in a nuclear war by mistake.