Big Red Car here. Cold and nasty here in the ATX. Stuff happens but in the ATX? Not right.
The front page of the world changes quickly. The Olympics dominates everything. And then what?
Well, then we have to get back to reality.
One of those realities is that the situation with Iran is not healing itself. In fact, the Iranians are crowing about how they’re still centrifuging the Hell out of their stockpile of uranium. Approaching a concentration that can only be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. Unjust enrichment? [Damn good joke, Big Red Car. Haha.]
Stop a second and focus on the following realities:
1. The Iraqis had a nuclear program to develop nuclear weapons until the Israelis took out their nuclear reactor in 1981. Fellow named Saddam Hussein was running the joint in those days. You will remember what happened to him, I am sure.
2. The Syrians had a nuclear program — aided by the North Koreans — until the Israelis objected and sent fighter bombers to reason with them in 2007.
In neither of these strikes did the Israelis ever admit complicity or make any public utterances. They didn’t worry about a bit of nuclear material being released into the atmosphere. The stakes were too high for Israel.
One day a Middle Eastern country hostile to Israel had a nuclear program and then Israel apparently wiped them off the face of the earth. let’s see if we can recognize a pattern here.
Today, the Iranians have negotiated some bogus arrangement with the Obama administration while continuing their uranium enrichment program. The Prime Minister and the chief Ayatollah are both laughing up their sleeves at the US and its peurile efforts to draw them back to civilization.
The Israelis are not going to wait forever. That is reality. They have already taken out at least two Middle Eastern nuclear programs. Third one’s the charm.
But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Keep it real, ya’ll.
Look at the map. https://www.google.com/maps/@27.0821,44.0150557,4z Syria was easy. The Iraq strike was at the ragged edge of the IAFs range (some planes landed with not enough fuel to taxi). Iran is much further away and much larger. Overflying Saudi Arabia is now more difficult (we have sold them AWACs since the Iraqi strike).
It may happen, but it may be beyond Israel’s strategic capability.
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All points well taken. Israel has been planning its re-fueling process for decades. They can do this in their sleep. The expertise and capabilities are quantum orders of magnitude better than even 2007.
Saudi Arabia may let the Israelis use their runways let alone their airspace. The Saudis have the wind in their noses about Iran.
With the US out of Iraq, the Iraqis will never know whether the Israelis overfly their airspace and if they do, the Iraqis cannot do anything meaningful about it.
The BRC favors the northern route coming across the lake. Look it up. There are ‘Stans who would allow the Israelis to use their airspace. Maybe even an airport to two.
From “feet dry” to the bomb sites will be less than 5 minutes. Watch the northern route.
BRC is picking sides and favors the Israelis. The US is going to do nothing.
BRC
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Some of these facilities are several hundred feet underground and there are like a dozen of them. This is no quick hit on a soft target. This is many sorties and likely blue team casualties.
I agree the US will not get involved (nor should they).
IMO Iranian nuclear weapons are inevitable and there is nothing the Israelis or the US can do to stop them short of occupying the country.
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Not to get ahead of ourselves, but there is no reason to actually penetrate to the levels of the facilities themselves though I think there are ways to do just that.
The plan will be to turn off the power to those facilities and to close the entrances permanently with the critical nuclear scientists inside.
If the Israelis can knock out the power plants and seal off the entrances they are then left with the possibility of killing the first responders thereby further degrading the possibilities of rescuing the brains below ground.
It is a brutal calculus but the results speak for themselves.
As to American involvement, we have drawn another red line and we will be involved either at the altar of sacrificing any limited fleeting credibility we currently possess or in the aftermath of the first mushroom cloud over the Middle East.
Whatever the Iranians get will ultimately be used. There will be no nuclear detente. It is only a matter of time.
BRC
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“Whatever the Iranians get will ultimately be used.”
We said that about the Soviets too.
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Big difference was it was the USA v the USSR and we had the hypothesis of MAD (mutual assured destruction), and an intercontinental faceoff.
The Iranians are likely to use nuclear weapons as a theater weapon rather than an intercontinental weapon.
The same potential exists with Pakistan v India once we leave Afghanistan and the Taliban or Al Qaeda gets their hands on Pakistani nukes.
BRC
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Iran is not going to get into a land war with Israel so I’m not seeing a tactical target. I don’t think the Iranians are willing to sacrifice their 10 largest cites to use them in a strategic manner. You’re talking about a minimal credible deterrence (N-deterrence) rather than MAD.
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I don’t mean to imply that the Iranians are going to go to war with the Israelis. They likely may but Israel has nothing much to fear in actual combat. It is the widening of such a war that threatens Israel.
They are likely to spill over into Iraq on a tribal basis — Shia v Sunni.
I don’t think we can count on Iran being rational while in the hands of the Ayatollahs.
BRC
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