Israel to Nuke Iran?

Oh, a third thing. Iran is probably at least a couple years away from actually realizing their nuclear weapons goal.
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An opportunity exists right now, before the NATANZ centrifuges are loaded with radioactive material. The first scheduled delivery of plutonium is due to arrive at the site within the next few weeks from Russia.

Blowing apart the centrifuges while they are not yet in full operation is the preferable option for Israel.

Avigdor Lieberman is the man in charge of making the decision about this planned IAF mission. He is the "Minister for Strategic Threats" and is totally in favor of sending the IAF pilots to act. By keeping track of the statements he makes, you'll have a clearer understanding of how Israel intends to proceed.
 
webfusion said:
An opportunity exists right now, before the NATANZ centrifuges are loaded with radioactive material. The first scheduled delivery of plutonium is due to arrive at the site within the next few weeks from Russia.

Blowing apart the centrifuges while they are not yet in full operation is the preferable option for Israel.

Avigdor Lieberman is the man in charge of making the decision about this planned IAF mission. He is the "Minister for Strategic Threats" and is totally in favor of sending the IAF pilots to act. By keeping track of the statements he makes, you'll have a clearer understanding of how Israel intends to proceed.
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By this reasoning, I think that you would hold the following to be true: the various Arab and Muslim states of the Middle East should have bombed and attacked Israel when Israel was first developing its independent nuclear capability. (OK, so Israeli operational security was pretty good, scenario rather fits.)

I'd like you to think through the problem from the political level, beginning with the moment the various Iranian facilities are hit with a bomb. (I will presume conventional first.)

Do you think it a wise assumption that the current political gameboard looks identical to 1981, when the Osirik raid went down? If not, do you think this raid will be ignored because other nations feel threatened by Iran with nukes? The Saudis have reason to be fretful about Iran with nukes.

Do you think Israel can win the media propaganda war that ensues about a minute after the attacks? If you look at how badly Israel did on the propaganda front during this summer's Lebanon/Hezbollah game, I'd suggest that is a bad assumption. The propaganda war can influence policy in capitals other than Washington, or Jerusalem, and those policies can run counter to Israeli long term interests.

Let's go to nukes now

How fast do you think UNSC sanctions will be applied to Israel if a tactical nuke is used? Do you really think that US public opinion will support nuclear aggression in the year 2006?

I don't. If the US doesn't play along with a veto, Israel is under UNSC sanctions within 72 hours of the attack.

What then, web?

Israel is not an island. At the risk of pulling a Godwin, Gotterdamerung was Hitler's game. I don't see it as Olmert's. Maybe I should use Samson pulling down the house as a more fitting analogy.

DR
 
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...Do you really think that US public opinion will support nuclear aggression in the year 2006?
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US public opinion is not part of Avigdor Lieberman's considerations. He is in charge of eliminating "strategic threats" to Israel, and that is what he will do.
So long as Iran is prevented from proceeding with plutonium enrichment, US public opinion can jump up and down and holler like James Brown.

If the mission to NATANZ is completed as planned, no amount of U.S. "public opinion" is likely to have any effect on Israel.
 
Darth Rotor said:
By this reasoning, I think that you would hold the following to be true: the various Arab and Muslim states of the Middle East should have bombed and attacked Israel when Israel was first developing its independent nuclear capability. (OK, so Israeli operational security was pretty good, scenario rather fits.)
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Seems to me that they did exactly that, but unsuccessfully. Israel is thought to have had a bomb since the early 70's, no state has directly attacked it since.
 
Israel is thought to have had a bomb since the early 70's, no state has directly attacked it since.
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Iraq did. 1991.
Scud_launch_on_Tel_Aviv.jpg
 
Here's a little idle war-gaming scenario. This is not a likely scenario, so don't bother with arguing about why the setup won't happen - I'm proposing it only as an exercise in contemplating consequences IF it happened.

Suppose the Iranians are further ahead than suspected, and acquire a nuke before anyone thinks they have one, but they don't have a reliable delivery method. Suppose the Israelis get tipped that they are close, and so try a preventive air strike with conventional bombs. Suppose the Iranians blow up their own nuke during the raid (which is too big and clunky to deliver via ballistic missile, and cannot be delivered safely by any other means and is therefore of limited strategic use), and claim that the Israelis nuked their "peaceful" nuclear program. What happens then? Since this could be done at an out-of-the-way location, the cost to Iran might not be too high, but if they could get sanctions placed on Israel, it might be worth it. How would we know (other than that we trust the Israelis more than the Iranians) that it was an Iranian nuke and not Israeli? Who could we convince, and who could they convince? Most of the muslim world would likely swallow the Iranian version, but what about Europe? Who would they believe, and would they be willing to stand up to the muslim world in defense of Israel?
 
webfusion said:
US public opinion is not part of Avigdor Lieberman's considerations. He is in charge of eliminating "strategic threats" to Israel, and that is what he will do. So long as Iran is prevented from proceeding with plutonium enrichment, US public opinion can jump up and down and holler like James Brown.
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And take their $5-9 billion a year in aid and forgiven loans with them. Sure. I think that you overestimate the simplicity of this interaction, as well as Lieberman's stupidity. In short, I don't think he is as stupid as you think he is.

DR
 
Ziggurat said:
Here's a little idle war-gaming scenario. This is not a likely scenario, so don't bother with arguing about why the setup won't happen - I'm proposing it only as an exercise in contemplating consequences IF it happened.

Suppose the Iranians are further ahead than suspected, and acquire a nuke before anyone thinks they have one, but they don't have a reliable delivery method. Suppose the Israelis get tipped that they are close, and so try a preventive air strike with conventional bombs. Suppose the Iranians blow up their own nuke during the raid (which is too big and clunky to deliver via ballistic missile, and cannot be delivered safely by any other means and is therefore of limited strategic use), and claim that the Israelis nuked their "peaceful" nuclear program. What happens then? Since this could be done at an out-of-the-way location, the cost to Iran might not be too high, but if they could get sanctions placed on Israel, it might be worth it. How would we know (other than that we trust the Israelis more than the Iranians) that it was an Iranian nuke and not Israeli? Who could we convince, and who could they convince? Most of the muslim world would likely swallow the Iranian version, but what about Europe? Who would they believe, and would they be willing to stand up to the muslim world in defense of Israel?
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That is one of a number of problems of Israel being outside the NPT, and being one of the independent "nuclear posture" crowd.

DR
 
Ziggurat said:
Here's a little idle war-gaming scenario. This is not a likely scenario, so don't bother with arguing about why the setup won't happen - I'm proposing it only as an exercise in contemplating consequences IF it happened.

Suppose the Iranians are further ahead than suspected, and acquire a nuke before anyone thinks they have one, but they don't have a reliable delivery method. Suppose the Israelis get tipped that they are close, and so try a preventive air strike with conventional bombs. Suppose the Iranians blow up their own nuke during the raid (which is too big and clunky to deliver via ballistic missile, and cannot be delivered safely by any other means and is therefore of limited strategic use), and claim that the Israelis nuked their "peaceful" nuclear program. What happens then? Since this could be done at an out-of-the-way location, the cost to Iran might not be too high, but if they could get sanctions placed on Israel, it might be worth it. How would we know (other than that we trust the Israelis more than the Iranians) that it was an Iranian nuke and not Israeli? Who could we convince, and who could they convince? Most of the muslim world would likely swallow the Iranian version, but what about Europe? Who would they believe, and would they be willing to stand up to the muslim world in defense of Israel?
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Let's assume Superman existed and was a true, blue neocon. What might be the reaction of the EU when he demanded that the World bow down to the New Neocon World Order or face the consequences?

You seem to have an enormous chip on your shoulder regarding the EU, Zig. Seek help, dude.
 
Ziggurat said:
Here's a little idle war-gaming scenario. This is not a likely scenario, so don't bother with arguing about why the setup won't happen - I'm proposing it only as an exercise in contemplating consequences IF it happened.

Suppose the Iranians are further ahead than suspected, and acquire a nuke before anyone thinks they have one, but they don't have a reliable delivery method. Suppose the Israelis get tipped that they are close, and so try a preventive air strike with conventional bombs. Suppose the Iranians blow up their own nuke during the raid (which is too big and clunky to deliver via ballistic missile, and cannot be delivered safely by any other means and is therefore of limited strategic use), and claim that the Israelis nuked their "peaceful" nuclear program. What happens then? Since this could be done at an out-of-the-way location, the cost to Iran might not be too high, but if they could get sanctions placed on Israel, it might be worth it. How would we know (other than that we trust the Israelis more than the Iranians) that it was an Iranian nuke and not Israeli? Who could we convince, and who could they convince? Most of the muslim world would likely swallow the Iranian version, but what about Europe? Who would they believe, and would they be willing to stand up to the muslim world in defense of Israel?
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Clever thinking. I suspect that an attack on Iraq by Israel or the USA will certainly have more than enough unintended fallout ;) - most of it bad.

But back to the original question of whether Israel is planning on nuking Iran. I ran across the following comment linking the upcoming 'surge' with an attack on Iran.


Indeed, one source familiar with high-level thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv said an unstated reason for Bush's troop "surge" is to bolster the defenses of Baghdad's Green Zone if a possible Israeli attack on Iran prompts an uprising among Iraqi Shiites.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010807R.shtml
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Something to think about since the surge (escalation) seems to make little sense for the reasons publicly given (leaked) so far. If want to be cheered up even more on the surge, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski has another stinging editorial.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski169.html
 
richardm said:
Quick (hopefully) question: Could you drop a series of smallish ones in the same spot to achieve the same effect? Sort of chiselling your way through rather than getting through in one go. I'm guessing that GPS controlled bombs are good enough to get close enough to the same spot as would make no odds.
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If you are useing that method you don't bother with nukes. It is a theoretical tactic for convetional weapons although I don't think it has been used in practice yet.
 
Luke T. said:
Also, even small nukes require a certain quantity of radioactive material which you cannot drop below for the necessary critical mass. So the more nukes, the more radioactive crap you are throwing around.
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Israel has at most carried out one nuclear test. Unless they have stolen US or perhaps russian data they do not have mini nukes.
 
Ziggurat said:
Here's a little idle war-gaming scenario. This is not a likely scenario, so don't bother with arguing about why the setup won't happen - I'm proposing it only as an exercise in contemplating consequences IF it happened.

Suppose the Iranians are further ahead than suspected, and acquire a nuke before anyone thinks they have one, but they don't have a reliable delivery method. Suppose the Israelis get tipped that they are close, and so try a preventive air strike with conventional bombs. Suppose the Iranians blow up their own nuke during the raid (which is too big and clunky to deliver via ballistic missile, and cannot be delivered safely by any other means and is therefore of limited strategic use), and claim that the Israelis nuked their "peaceful" nuclear program. What happens then? Since this could be done at an out-of-the-way location, the cost to Iran might not be too high, but if they could get sanctions placed on Israel, it might be worth it. How would we know (other than that we trust the Israelis more than the Iranians) that it was an Iranian nuke and not Israeli? Who could we convince, and who could they convince? Most of the muslim world would likely swallow the Iranian version, but what about Europe? Who would they believe, and would they be willing to stand up to the muslim world in defense of Israel?
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Israel's weapons are probably plutonium based. Iran appears to be going the uranium root. IT would be posible to tell the difference.
 
webfusion said:
US public opinion is not part of Avigdor Lieberman's considerations. He is in charge of eliminating "strategic threats" to Israel, and that is what he will do.
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Loss of US support is a strategic threat.
 
DanishDynamite said:
You seem to have an enormous chip on your shoulder regarding the EU, Zig. Seek help, dude.
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You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder about me, "dude". I'm speculating here, and I thought I made that much rather explicit. I did not even make a claim regarding what I thought Europe would do: I asked a question. If you think it is obvious that Europe would tell Iran to take a flying leap, then that's all you needed to say.
 
Ziggurat said:
You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder about me, "dude". I'm speculating here, and I thought I made that much rather explicit. I did not even make a claim regarding what I thought Europe would do: I asked a question. If you think it is obvious that Europe would tell Iran to take a flying leap, then that's all you needed to say.
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Have a look at your own sig, Ziggy. This camouflaged attack out of nowhere was just the proverbial straw.
 
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geni said:
Israel's weapons are probably plutonium based. Iran appears to be going the uranium root. IT would be posible to tell the difference.
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In a clean environment, telling the difference between a plutonium and uranium bomb should be easy. Would that analysis be complicated if the explosion took place on top of a uranium processing facility, though? I can't say I know enough about the specific decay products you'd look for in the two cases. And how certain can we be that they do not have any uranium bombs in their stockpile? As DR pointed out, that's one drawback they face because of their status outside the NPT.

Furthermore, I'm not sure how much of an impediment that would be in terms of putting the blame on Israel in muslim countries, where conspiracy theories are the norm. What happens if the governments of the west know it was Iran, but everyone in the middle east thinks it was Israel?
 
Ziggurat said:
Oh, please. Not that again. Get in line behind Dr. Inadequate.
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Oh please, indeed.

Tell me, why did you wonder particularly about what the EU might think in your scenario? Why not ponder what the US might think?
 
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