Hi there readers, just
a quick warning, this is going to be a long one. So make a cup of tea
or something and settle in.
OK lets get a few
things out the way first, when it comes to the whole Israeli-Arab
conflict, I fall on neither side, sometimes one actor is right,
sometimes the other is, at the end of the day its all hidden behind a
mask of religion and so as a result, is at its very core, stupid.
Which as you might have realised by now, is something I don't have
any time for. So I will be skirting around the issue of Israel's
right to exist and if anyone should choose to comment, I will not
respond to any rhetoric leaning one way or the other. This might also
venture into TL:DR territory for some of you but please, if you can,
stick with it.
(Deep breath). Right,
now that's out of the way lets get on with this. As anyone that has
paid any attention to any sort of international news over the past 8
years or so, you will have noticed that Iran is not exactly in the
western world's good books, nor has it been for a while. Not only
have there been some very questionable election results of late, but
more pressingly (and distressingly) it has quite publicly been
developing a nuclear programme. I'm not going to write a complete
history here, it's far too complex, but needless to say there has
been round after round of talks, negotiations and most recently, U.N.
Mandated economic sanctions levied at Iran in attempts to deter it
from further developing nuclear capability. Iran has of course
maintained that it's intentions are peaceful and only for providing
energy, thus far there hasn't been any concrete evidence to suggest
otherwise either, radiological monitoring equipment hasn't managed to
pick up any sort of test explosions as of yet, so perhaps they are
telling the truth.
Perhaps not, Iran has
frequently decried Israel's (undeclared, unacknowledged but
essentially universally known) nuclear status and it's president is
well known for his 'anti-zionist' rhetoric, including some very
inflammatory comments made in 2005 at a summit against 'Zionism'.
Additionally, as mentioned before Iran's nuclear programme is no
secret and as recently as last November the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report detailing the fact that Iran
had in fact begun undertaking experiments geared towards gaining
nuclear weapons capability, Iran rejected this report (obviously) and
accused the IAEA of having a 'western bias' (there's a turn up for
the books). Thus the war of words continues. “But where's the
stupidity in this?” I hear you ask, excellent question.
Iran is a signatory of
the Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international treaty recognising the
5 official nuclear weapons states, USA, UK, France, Russia (formerly
the USSR) and the People's Republic of China ( and imploring all of
them to disarm, eventually) and making the other signatories promise
not to make any of the big bad bombs themselves. It hasn't worked,
not really, both India and Pakistan successfully
developed their own weapons in the mid 20th
century and North Korea (a country that
continously delights in diplomatic... insanity) is also believed to
be in posession of several small(ish) devices in the kiloton range (
each enough to turn a decent sized city to ash and glass) although
their capability to deliver such devices accurately is suspect (at
least over long distances.) The whole thing is one giant
international headache and very, very irritating.
But
wait, didn't you say that Israel had nukes earlier? Also, how come
India, Pakistan and North Korea get away with it? Why is everyone so
het up about Iran? Why yes I did say
those things didn't I, and once again an excellent question! It's
here we stumble onto yet more idiocy and several snags to boot. See,
what with the whole issue of national soverignty, and the lack of any
real enforcement of the NPT there's not much anyone can do. Except
maybe America, prize to who can guess why that is! (Hint: it's not
because everyone else said they could). Except India is an allied nation and Pakistan is...
well again I'm not going to write an entire history book about that
but lets just say no one wants to come down on either side of that
particular equation. Add to that the United States less than stellar
reputation with the Pakistani authorities right now and with their
internal troubles... that's definitely a story for another time.
North Korea, while undoubtedly utterly mental not only has
significant potential to do damage to its Southern neighbour which
again, happens to be a staunch U.S. Ally, but also has the PRC (kind
of) behind it, so again, not really much anyone can do. Although just
in the last few days North Korea has agreed to freeze its nuclear
programme in return for food aid. (Not that it's citizens are told
that, incidentally this news came shortly after it threatened
military action in response to joint U.S.-ROK exercises...Aaah
diplomacy).
So why Iran? Well,
there are various reasons for other nations to be nervous, for
starters Iran has been linked to the funding, equipping and possible
training of various terrorist and insurgent movements both in the
region and outside. The majority of the population
of Iran are followers of the Shia branch of Islam and the government
often speaks out against the Sunni ruling classes of various states
to its south, not least of which, Saudi Arabia. In fact defence
spending in the southern gulf states has increased exponentially over
the past few years as a result of the potential threat from Iran.
Thirdly, despite having an elected legislature and President, true
power lies with the 'Supreme Leader' of Iran, an unelected religious
figurehead who (apparently) has sole control over the countries armed
forces and intelligence agencies. Finally, in response to recent U.N.
Sanctions, Iran has conducted several large scale, live-fire naval
exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane through the
Persian Gulf, that could potentially severely hamper, if not cripple
trade both regionally and globally if blockaded.
So
this seems like a simple decision, Iran is a dangerous state,
developing the most deadly weapons ever known to mankind, controlled
by a religious demagogue with no checks against his absolute power
and is threatening global commerce? We must stop this madness! Right?
Well no, the truth of the matter is, that would be a very, very VERY
dumb idea for a multitude of reasons, and there isn't a great deal of
stomach for such a campaign amongst western military leaders. The
Chief of the defence staff in the United States was recently quoted
as saying that he personally, believes that Iran is a 'Rational
Actor'. i.e. they aren't going to launch a load of nukes at Israel,
or anyone else for that matter, just because they say nasty things at
international summits. Unfortunately there are (reportedly) certain
elements of both the Israeli and American governments that won't take
the expert's word on this. In fact Israel is (allegedly) preparing a
variety of strategies involving airstrikes, to cripple Iran's nuclear
infrastructure (because apparently endless cyber-attacks and other
'subversive' methods haven't been effective enough) and hey, it
worked against Syria's (alleged) facility back in '07!
Yeah,
it did, with two very key differences: 1. Syria is a lot closer to Israel than Iran . 2. There was only one facility, half built in the middle of nowhere. Iran's facilities on the other hand are
everywhere.
The BBC recently published their own article discussing such plans
including a map of the facilities identified thus far, along with
potential routes for Israeli aircraft. (Which I will link to at the
bottom of this post.) OK, time to get
really
technical. These factors present multiple hurdles for any military
operation, Israel would have to use the longest range aircraft they
have in their inventory, the F-15I, a locally adapted version of
America's most successful fighter aircraft ever, an extremely capable
piece of equipment. But given the distance to the targets and the
number of targets, a lot of aircraft would have to be involved in the
operation in order to have a decent chance of destroying/damaging
them sufficiently. These aircraft would then themselves have to be
escorted by yet more fighters,
so that assuming the strike craft manage to actually get past Iran's
relatively sophisticated air defence mechanisms, they don't then get
shot down by Iran's rather large fighter inventory, consisting of
F-14s (as made famous in top gun, yeah that one, sold to Iran prior
to the revolution) MiG-29s (a highly capable Soviet design from the
early 80's created to compete with the very aircraft Israel will be
using) and potentially an undisclosed number of Sukhoi-30 MKI's a
modern update of another much
larger Russian fighter, designed to compete with contemporary
American updates to their own designs. Much like the latest version
of the... yup, the F-15I (and you thought the cold war was over). So
an Airstrike alone is out of the question, and even if by some
miracle all the aircraft made it to their targets, there's absolutely
no guarantee all the hits would be effective, and then the planes
still have to make it back, light on fuel, and presumably on ammo.
So
what else could they do? Well there's always the option of a
Submarine strike, except Iran's navy isn't anything to be sniffed at,
and launching cruise missiles at multiple targets is even less subtle
than a bombing raid, compounding the issue is the fact that all these
facilities are full of staff, and mostly operational, unlike the
Syrian facility that was purportedly deserted (a fact disputed by the
North Korean authorities). Additionally, the targets are a mix of
civilian and military targets, an attack on this scale would be
nothing less than an act of war. Not a smart move against a nation
with a military numbering at over half a million troops, not
including police or paramilitary units.
So
by now, you might see where this is headed, a big old mess
essentially. Iran has already publicly stated that they will, if
threatened launch a pre-emptive strike (which given their recent
developments in medium and long range missile technology is more than
an idle threat). America, having already fought a costly war in the
region and still in the middle of fighting another further east,
would inevitably be sucked in, as would the rest of NATO, then who
knows? Iran happens to have observer status with the Collective
Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO, the successor to the Warsaw Pact
and for all intents and purposes, Russia's version of NATO,) and is a
large consumer of both Russian and Chinese military hardware,
basically, if this ball starts rolling, its headed nowhere good.
Thanks
for reading,
Wheelchairman2
(to
be continued)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17115643 - BBC article on potential strike plans
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