Not so very long ago, open discussions of a possible Israeli or American attacks on Iran’s nuclear military and civilian infrastructure would have seemed beyond the realm of reality. But in today’s super-heated climate of hysteria and fearmongering over Iran’s nuclear program, talk of launching a war that could engulf the region and create an ecological catastrophe is considered matter of fact.
There is still no hard proof that Iran’s nuclear program is designed to produce nuclear arms. Tehran claims its program, the proudest emblem of national modernization, is entirely designed for energy generation as oil reserves are beginning to decline.
U.S. intelligence and UN inspectors report that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. But given that its neighbors possess such weapons, why wouldn’t it? Even Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, wondered aloud why Iran would not seek such arms. The United States has recently aided India’s nuclear-weapons program.
Israeli Capabilities and Targets
Israel, according to former president Jimmy Carter, has some three hundred nuclear devices in its arsenal, capable of being delivered by medium-ranged ballistic missiles, submarine-launched cruise missiles and aircraft with standoff missiles. Two of Israel’s three German-supplied “Dolphin-class” submarines carrying nuclear-armed missiles are reportedly stationed off Iran’s coast, providing an invulnerable second-strike capability for the Jewish state. Any Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would result in Iran being vaporized.
Still, Israel’s right-wing Likud Party may actually intend to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, just as Israel attacked Iraqi and Syrian nuclear facilities to preserve its Mideast nuclear monopoly. Whipping up a crisis over Iran also serves to deflect attention from the unresolved question of Palestine and from Israel’s growing social and economic problems.
Israel’s potential target list in Iran is clear. At least twelve major nuclear or nuclear-related sites would have to be struck to seriously damage Iran’s nuclear program, some of which is buried deep underground. Leading targets include the aboveground heavy-water/reactor facility at Arak; reactors at Bushehr (a civilian power reactor relying on Russian-supplied fuel), the new underground enrichment facility near Qum at Fordow, the ore conversion plants near Isfahan, and other facilities at Qazvin, Damghan, Tabriz, Lavizan, Chalus, Darkhovin and Parchin.
As threats of as Israeli attack have grown in recent years, Iran has dispersed, hardened and buried its newer nuclear facilities. The new plant at Fordow, for example, is believed to be buried 260 feet under granite. This may be too hard and too deep for even a brace of U.S. monster thirty-thousand-pound MOP bombs to penetrate or crush. Israel has no aircraft that can carry such a huge load, which was designed for the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber.
Curiously, as war fever grips the United States and Israel, few have raised the question of the enormous dangers involved in bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The Repercussions of an Attack
Destroying Iran’s many reactors and processing facilities could release large amounts of radiation and create radioactive dust storms. Winds would carry this toxic miasma over Afghanistan and its large U.S. military garrison. Dangerous radiation would also extend to Pakistan, western India, Iraq, Kuwait and to the Gulf, where large numbers of U.S. military personnel are based. Equally ominous, radioactive dust could blanket oil fields in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. High-altitude winds would spread radioactivity around the globe, as occurred at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, but at a factor of twenty times or more.
Israeli attacks by air and commando units could damage or delay development of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but the Jewish state lacks the power to permanently destroy it. Israel also fears some of its pilots will be captured and put on show trial. So Israel is straining every sinew to get Washington to do the job. The Pentagon has estimated it will need to strike at least 3,200 targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities, air and naval bases, military production plants, headquarters, communications hubs, missile bases, Gulf ports, and that reliable catchall, “command-and-control facilities.” And this is just in the first wave of strikes.
Air and missile strikes as well as special forces raids would have to continue for weeks, perhaps months. Air wars generate their own “mission creep” as new targets are discovered or old ones moved around. Power stations and high voltage lines, civilian airports, truck plants, radio and TV stations, intelligence headquarters—all will be added to the hit list.
During the first Iraq war, U.S. forces even destroyed many of Iraq’s sewage-treatment and water-purification plants, leading to epidemics of water-borne diseases. Iran could expect the same punitive treatment.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was a war hero and highly decorated officer of Iran’s special forces during the Iran-Iraq War. He was credited with many successful missions deep behind Iraqi lines. Iran’s tough special forces will launch ground attacks on U.S. units and bases in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Kuwait and down the Gulf to Oman. Such raids may force the United States to send Marines, then regular ground troops into Iran to forestall attacks.
Comments
There's only one thing wrong with this otherwise fantastic piece and that is Margolis' call for America's use of "forceful diplomacy" to "resolve" the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The U.S. has no vital nor even important national interest in that conflict other than staying out of it. If Israel, the West Bank and Gaza disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't make one iota of difference to the U.S. No different than if the Ivory Coast disappeared. And what Margolis misses is that making it our business is what has formed the noose that has dragged us into so much of the rest of the Mideast mess, as Osama bin Laden himself said, not to mention many other friendlier observers. We can't help favoring Israel in that conflict, and thus can't help engendering the kind of hatred and terrorism that we are getting from the rest of the Middle East. And it's our knowledge of that which leads us essentially be pawns of both the Israelis and the Palestinians: They know how desperately we'd like to "resolve" their conflict, so that they are also well aware of their ability extort all different kinds of things from us in payment for their promises of moving towards resolving it, except that they keep extorting, and they never get to the resolving part. We shouldn't be telling either the Israelis nor the Palestinians how to resolve their conflict, nor subsidizing either of them with one penny in their continuation of same. It constitutes the very noose that has gotten us to the point we are at now, and instead of constantly trying to limit the damage that does to ourselves—a fruitless effort if for no other reason than time will always find new ways to damage us, and it's been costing us 40+ years already—we ought to cut that noose completely.
This is an excellent article but there is one error. The Iranians only care about the Pal-Is conflict as a tertiary issue. They simply use the issue to gain popularity and power among the Arabs.
Speaking for the Iranian nation seems quite 'ambitious' at best and _____at worst. If Jewish terrorim 'turns you on,' keep it to yourself. Personally as an ex- fighter pilot (A-3A, F-4E, F-104C, F-15E and F-16C. 4,300 combat hours logged, 17 MiG's <17's, 21's and 3 Mig-25's 'fastest fighter in the world in those dayze> destroyed and 7 air medals later) that was in Israel in the late 70's to teach their pilots how to 'fly-fight and win.' To then see Israel go into Lebanon, summer of 1982 and slaughter some 20,000 civilains, destroy hospitals, clinics, orphanages, Sabra & Shatilla' included and leave 500,000 homeless was where I drew the line, I have hated those ZioNazi's ever since..
It will be a pleasure to see that glistening kosher confetti cloud high up in the stratospher at angel's 90 (90,000') in the near future. The world is sick of Jewish terorism and intransigence. The athiest Zionist has no G-d (except money) or shame of the distruction and loss of life they have visited on all of their surrounding neighbors and especially the Palestinians that they have savaged, murdered, maimed and abused for 63 years.
The claim that Israel has two Dolphin-class submarines stationed off of Iran's coast is highly questionable. Israel has only three operational Dolphin-class submarines and is currently accepting delivery of a fourth in Germany. The distance is about 2,500 miles by sea from Israel's closest port, Eilat, to Iran. These submarines are of limited endurance. This would make it difficult, if not impossible for Israel to maintain two submarines off the coast of Iran.The locations of Israel's submarines are top-secret when they are cruising submerged at sea. No one but the commanders and the Isreali Defence Force know exactly where the submarines are located at any given time. Margolis' claim to know the whereabouts of these submarines is irresponsible.The difficulty that Israel faces in attacking the buried facilities in Iran, heightens the possibility that Israel will use its nuclear devices, although nuclear devices have not been used in warfare since Nagasaki. This would be a good reason for the United States to intervene with its bunker-busting bombs.
Roland Day wrote:
With the principle behind this being ... that the U.S. has some positive *obligation* to commit some terrible crime and cost and maim itself ... to restrain Israel from committing some huge crime? Or is it just to prevent Israel from incurring its own costs and maiming? And with the lesson of same being that ... all Israel has to do in the future to avoid costing and maiming itself is to threaten to create some huge crime so that the U.S. commits some lesser crime itself and further costs and maims itself? It's like some utterly alien, upside-down regime of logic suddenly appears and is argued whenever the discussion turns to what the U.S. should do that relates to Israel, and now we get this topper: The U.S. not only has an obligation to *fund* Israel's behavior, but we then have the added obligation to relieve it from the consequences of that behavior as well. Sweet....
Here are some links and excerpts for why Iranian nuclear sites should not be bombed: ."Fallout from the use of RNEP against the Esfahan nuclear facility in Iran would spread for thousands of miles across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. It would kill 3 million people within 2 weeks of the explosion and expose 35 million to cancer causing radiation." .http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_weapons_and_global_s... ."Reactors and enrichment facilities are built of extra strong concrete, often with multiple layers of containment domes, often built underground. Bombing such facilities will require powerful explosives, earth penetrator war heads, maybe nuclear warheads. The explosions will blow the contamination high into the atmosphere. Where will it go is a question that is difficult to predict." ."The nuclear fallout from bombing Iran will have a half life of 700 million years." .http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=... .“My calculations are that up to 9 or 10 million people could be killed with that type bomb.” .http://www.ananuclear.org/Senatelowyield.html .“However, the number of deaths could exceed a million, and the number of people with increased cancer risks could exceed 10 million.” .http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weap... .Even though some of these studies refer to RNEP's modern "bunker busters" that have been sold to Israel will have a similar outcome but with less fallout.