LiveWire

A post by Maynard

On her radio program, Tammy spoke of the Sunday Times report that Israel is planning a nuclear strike on Iran.

What does this report mean? Nobody can say for sure. Of course Israel has plans to strike Iran. Everybody has contingency plans to strike every hostile state. Having a plan doesn’t mean a thing. The real question is whether the plan has been given a go-ahead.

The aftermath of an Israeli nuclear strike would be global and severe. It’s not a step that would be taken lightly. The Israelis would only strike Iran after deciding this was the only option to prevent a nuclear Iran, which would be the death of Israel. And they would strike with tactical nuclear weapons only if they concluded that it was the only way to assure the destruction of the targeted facilities. This might be necessary because those facilities are buried in hardened bunkers, and precise targeting data is not available. Conventional bombs couldn’t do the job.

If Israel were to strike, we would all face difficult consequences. The neighboring states fear Iran’s rising belligerence, and they would be secretly happy to see the Iranians get a bloody nose. But as a political matter, the Muslim Mid-East would show solidarity against Israel. The language, both from the diplomats and the street, would be blood-curdling. The entire world would go on high alert.

And then there’s the question of oil flow, which would likely be disrupted. Note that Iran borders the Persian Gulf. If that region gets closed by hostilities (for example, Iran might try to seal off the Strait of Hormuz), then most of the oil flowing out of the Mid-East would be impacted. This would create an instant global crisis that would take some time to smooth out. In the meantime, oil prices would jump through the roof, and the world economy would suddenly slow.

The US would probably start aggressive patrols to protect the Persian Gulf commerce. We would be officially neutral, acting merely to protect our non-Iranian “friends”. There would be a real risk of us getting drawn into a hot war with Iran. It’s a war we would win, but it’s not a situation we would step into lightly.

Even if the situation did not spread beyond Iran, the threats would loom large. It would be nice to think that the Iranians would recognize that Ahmadinejad had led them into the disaster with his aggressive warmongering. But don’t count on cooler heads prevailing. More realistically, the opposite would be the case, at least in the short term. The Iranians would rally around their insane leadership, and dissent would be violently silenced.

You can see why a strike on Iran should be avoided if possible. But it may not be possible. The world cannot reasonably expect Israel to lie down and die for our convenience. Nor will the holocaust be limited to Israel. When Iran goes nuclear, a major nuclear exchange is sure to follow, and the dead will number in the millions or tens of millions. That scenario makes the pre-emptive strike look like child’s play.

The Jerusalem Post has published a broad assessment of the possibility of an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran. This will give you a picture of the logistics involved. Note the difficulty in flying a mission between Israel and Iran, with neutral nations (including Iraq) standing in between. It would simplify the politics but amplify the logistics if Israel could plan flight routes through the Indian Ocean instead of flying over land.

There’s no straightforward pathway. But then, there never is.