The Israeli Airstrike On Iran

Over at The National Review's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg has a number of posts and email responses from readers about the odds for a successful Israeli preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Some of the emails posted are from people with a military background.

For instance, a reader with background in military research claims:

The Israelis have a deep strike capability with their Dolphin-class (Germany Type 212) submarines. They have a demonstrated land-attack capability with cruise missiles. Of course, they are pretty secretive, but you can bet they have some sort of deep-strike capability that hasn’t been broadly announced yet.

This is rebutted by Airforce Pundit who counters:

Unfortunately, as a military planner for Air Force tactical and strategic strikes the effects of an Israeli attack will not be conducive to success.

Can they actually send a squadron or two of F-16 I and F-15 E over Iran? Probably they can. But they have to deal with the Iranian air defense system, the Iranian Air Force, and a round trip covering 3,000 miles. They would have to ingress and egress over at least three Arab countries- including one which is occupied by Americans (meaning they would need IFF codes to avoid being shot down by OUR aircraft). They would have to strike over 40 WMD targets- carrying extra fuel in drop tanks.

At the same time, the Iranian WMD encompasses dozens of production facilities, with buildings underground heavily protected (probably our Bunker Buster or JDAM ammunition will not suffice in one strike). A pinprick attack on Iran will lead to Hezbollah firing of ten thousand katyushas, terror attacks by Hamas/Islamic Jihad, and Iranian terror attacks on Jewish facilities around the world.

Unfortunately, ONLY the US Air Force has the number of appropriate strike craft as well as advantageous airfields to seriously degrade the Iranian WMD program.

According to Goldberg, the majority of readers who emailed in response to Airforce Pundit's point agree with him. However there were some who did not. On the one hand, Confederate Yankee refers to a post where he researched the issue of Israel's military capabilities and comes to the conclusion that Israel has the capability to take out the reactors--though his post was written in December last year and anticipated an Israeli response by March.

The other response is from someone with first-hand knowledge of the Israeli pilots themselves. He writes:

It was my privilege in the 70’s to help train the first pilots for the Israeli AF in the F-15. In the mid 60’s I had some Iranian pilots in my Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) Class. The contrast between the Arab and Israeli was more than dramatic. The Israeli’s were in a class by themselves. One of the conversations I had in a debriefing with an Israeli pilot was illuminating. He had used up all of his airspeed/energy trying to get a shot on me (I was the Instructor) and I was able to reverse the tables and get a shot on him. I remarked in the debrief that he just needed to be a bit more patient, maintain his energy and he would have been able to get a shot in a minute or two. As it was, he had pissed away his energy and I was able to take advantage. His response was illuminating and a light bulb came on. He said: “George, you must understand we fight the man, not the machine and the Arab isn’t capable of doing what you did!” A light bulb went on and I have never forgotten that mission. The Israeli’s fly two to three times a day. They are young, aggressive and extremely skilled. They are smart and they will not be beaten by the Iranian Air Force, as they have also never been beaten by the Syrian/Egyptian/Iraqi Air Forces. The Iranian’s don’t fly often and their aviating skills are less than stellar!

As far as can the Israelis attack Iran with success the answer is yes. There are significant obstacles but if the survival of Israel is at stake, they will find a way, and I do not believe any weapon the Israelis have will be off limits!

Even assuming that Israel has the potential to carry something like this off, the longer the delay in doing it, the more time Iran has to fortify it's nuclear facilities. Iran has already established fortified control towers for Hizbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border less than 100 yards from Israeli positions and has provided them with heavy mortars and rockets--effectively openning a second front with Israel.

With the element of surprise long gone and the tension building, if Israeli was going to do something--wouldn't they have done it already?

Update:
Soccer Dad points out 2 interesting posts on the subject:

VolkaPundit has a post back in February pointing to a post at The Officer's Club that examines how daunting a task would face Israel in terms of the logistics vis-a-vis Israel's assumed capabilities.

Professor Bainbridge has a post from December on the limitations on what even a successful Israeli--or American--strike could accomplish. He quotes American Thinker on reports that Israel actually has bases in northern Iraq, and on the possible repurcussions.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Iran and Hizbollah.