Obstacles to an Attack on Iran

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Israel keeps threatening that it will attack Iran’s nuclear installations, and it constantly repeats that Iran’s nuclear program constitutes a strategic threat to it. According to media reports and officials’ statements, Israel continues carrying out the aerial training exercises it deems appropriate for achieving its aims, and holds numerous maneuvers to prepare for the military conditions that might arise as an Iranian reaction. In any case, the decision to launch an attack is not an easy one, and it is subject to a great many internal and external calculations and cautions, the most important of which I explain below:

Internal Israeli calculations: Israel has its own political and military calculations, which can be summarized as follows:

It is unlikely that Israel’s political forces and public opinion would differ over the question of attacking Iran, because everyone is steeped in the idea of the Iranian danger that, in their telling, threatens Israel’s very existence and incites Arab and Palestinian parties against the negotiating process that has been under way for years. It is certain that any decision to attack would not be taken by the government except after securing the support of the various political forces, foremost among them the forces of the opposition. It has been the Israeli government’s practice to build a national consensus around major military activities and the waging of wars.

It is also certain that Israel will face no difficulty flying its aircraft through Arab airspace, and that it will secure the approval of several Arab regimes to fly through their skies, because these regimes are just as concerned with striking Iran as Israel is. As usual, Israel will not announce where its planes flew from, and the Arab regimes will not mention a thing. Israel has previously used Arab airspace to strike the Iraqi nuclear reactor, and more recently to strike Sudan, not to mention other instances the media never reported. Refueling planes will fly through Arab airspace, and some Israeli planes may well find refuge at certain Arab airports, and will find a waystation at the airports of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Israel, together with the United States, has committed vast intelligence resources to keeping track of the scientific and military-technical developments taking place in Iran. Satellites watch, photograph, and scrutinize; spies on the ground make their attempts; and reconnaissance centers in the regions bordering Iran operate around the clock. These are not idle efforts, and they must surely be yielding important information.

The number of Israeli aircraft available to launch a sudden, simultaneous attack on Iran at a single specified time is not sufficient to achieve the objective, because Iran’s territory is vast (1,600,000 km²) and its nuclear sites are scattered widely, at considerable distances from one another. Israel may have an air force capable of carrying out such a mission numbering some 250–300 fighter-bombers, and that number is not enough for an effective simultaneous strike, particularly when we take into account that Iran has established hundreds of sites, some real and some decoys. Here I would simply cite the 1991 attack on Iraq, in which America and its allies used around 2,000 aircraft in the opening assault — bombers, escorts, tankers, and reconnaissance planes combined — bearing in mind that Iraq’s territory is only about 430,000 km². Perhaps — indeed, it is quite likely — Israel could make up the shortfall using Arab-owned F-16s that had been prepared and pre-painted in advance to appear on radar screens as though they were Israeli.

Israel must also reckon with Iran’s reaction in terms of confrontation within Iranian airspace itself. Does Iran have the air capability to engage in aerial battles and prevent Israeli planes from carrying out their bombing runs? Does Iran have anti-aircraft defense capabilities that would allow it to shoot down the attacking planes? These are two questions to which the Israelis and Americans have no answer, because Iran is extremely secretive about a great many of its military achievements. And so long as the answer remains uncertain, vague, or unknown, that means the attack carries a great gamble within it.

Israel must also reckon with Iran’s reaction in terms of striking Israel with missiles, or by any other means Iran may have prepared. Israel must reckon that Iranian missiles will fall on it, but its calculations will not be precise, because it does not know the true scale of Iran’s missile firepower. Can Iran launch a hundred missiles all at once? Or can it launch a hundred missiles an hour, or a hundred a day? Are the missiles precision-guided or not? Is their explosive payload large or small? How many of the missiles can be intercepted? How many missile launch platforms can be destroyed before the missiles are fired? And are there launch platforms visible to aircraft, or are they hidden underground? Very many questions, and all of them in need of answers.

Can Israel be confident that Hezbollah will remain silent if it launches the attack?

Israel is a state built on security; the very philosophy of its existence rests on security; its propaganda for attracting Jewish immigration rests on security; and the security of the home front remains at the top of its list of priorities. An Israeli attack on Iran places the security of Jewish population centers within the circle of danger, and Israeli failure to achieve quick objectives would lead to major disarray within Israel, with consequences bearing directly on Israel’s continued existence as a state. A miscalculation has military repercussions, but its repercussions on the people themselves could be far graver.

At the external level:

Iran poses a challenge to the West because of its focus on scientific and technical development, and on developing the means and methods of self-reliance. Iran remained under siege for a long stretch of time, was denied a great deal of the materials and equipment necessary for development, and was subjected over the years to incitement and defamation by many and varied parties on both the Arab and the world stage, and attempts to drain its strength continue to this day. Iran has held firm across time, has managed to achieve a great many accomplishments, and has traveled a long way toward self-reliance. It appears that all the Western and Arab policies directed at Iran have ended up producing the opposite of their intended effect, insofar as Iran is now considered a key player in the movement of the Arab-Islamic region. My assessment is that Iran is not seeking merely to be a regional power, but is looking toward a global presence.

The people of the West feel challenged, particularly since Iran has moved beyond the matter of conventional armament to the possible development of nuclear weapons. The people of the West know that dozens of countries enrich uranium and possess civilian nuclear technology, but they fear Iran’s nuclear program because they are almost certain that Iran will not stop at producing electricity, and that whoever seeks a global role must possess a deterrent force capable of speaking at the tables of dialogue and negotiation, and within the international corridors of power.

…nuclear and missile capability. The United States is capable of inflicting severe losses on Iran, should it decide to attack it, but it calculates Iran’s reaction, which could deal a heavy blow to American prestige, and calculates that Iran might well remain capable of carrying out successful military operations, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz, striking oil facilities on the western coast of the Gulf, and creating security problems for America in both Iraq and Afghanistan — not to mention the possibility of scrambling the cards in the region by striking Israel, or inciting Hezbollah to do so.

I do not see America being enthusiastic about Israel carrying out air and missile strikes against Iran, given its bleeding wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, the severe financial crisis it caused the world, and the domestic dimension, which appears to have learned a harsh lesson from military adventures and now prefers military calm over flexing its muscles. America is wounded; it has lost its ambition to globalize the world according to its own vision, and its vision for a “New Middle East”; and it has taken several blows in the Arab-Islamic region that have negatively affected its Arab allies and placed the Arab regimes in a deeply embarrassing position before the Arab peoples and before a number of the world’s states. Several of these blows bore Iran’s clear fingerprints.

America will not agree to Israeli strikes on Iran under the current circumstances, and it is quite plausible that it will exert considerable pressure on Israel to hold back. And should Israel go ahead with an action of this kind, America would be reluctant to take part, or to commit a number of its aircraft and ships stationed in the region to the war effort. This is an important factor restraining Israel’s desire. Europe, too, is not currently interested in igniting wars, being preoccupied with its own financial crisis, and is not prepared to support an attack that would have negative repercussions for the global economy and make the financial crisis even more severe.

At the Iranian level

Iran continues its quiet defiance of the West, its clamor against Israel’s existence, and its open support for certain resistance movements, particularly in Lebanon and Palestine. Iran pays no heed to accusations of terrorism measured by American standards, and insists on continuing to provide financial, military, and intelligence support to Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front–General Command alike. Iran is aware that what it is doing constitutes a threat to the traditional balance of power in the region, and that there is enough risk in it to prompt Iran to take the appropriate precautions needed to maintain a balance between what it says and its ability to protect it.

There are those who say that Iran is nothing but a horn or a hollow drum, just as certain Arab regimes were in their political and military rhetoric. They say Iran is repeating the experience of regimes that sold the Arabs a great many hopes and wishes, manufacturing illusions among ordinary citizens that ended in severe frustrations and bitter defeats, with the citizen never more than mere prey or a beast of burden. Iran, according to them, is manufacturing for its own people those same traditional Arab illusions, which will end the same way the Arabs’ did. Perhaps what they say is true, but below I set out the most important signs of Iranian seriousness:

The Iranian regime is a secretive one, and it prefers to press ahead with its policies and its steps aimed at building up Iran with the least possible amount of media noise and fanfare. It is a regime that prefers quiet, and relies on secrecy to get its business done. And if it does announce, from time to time, certain scientific and technical achievements, this is usually after it has already achieved a more advanced accomplishment that remains sealed in secrecy. My assessment is that the regime does not announce anything until a considerable period has passed since the achievement was reached, or does so with the aim of informing the enemy of Iran’s deterrent strength, in order to push the possibility of war further away.

The Iranian regime enjoys ideological and faith-based support from a large segment of the Iranian people. I do not know exactly what proportion this is, but it is a proportion sufficient to defend the regime, driven by a sense of belonging and by conviction — not by a paid loyalty that cannot hold up under pressure. This is a fundamental difference between the Iranian regime and those Arab regimes that appeared revolutionary yet remained rejected by the very Arab people they governed, while being admired only by the Arab people who never experienced their rule.

The Iranian regime deploys the people’s money with a high degree of efficiency; there is good exploitation of resources according to impersonal standards, all directed toward the goal of raising Iran up in various fields. Here, some may disagree with the regime over its policies, but the regime nonetheless remains the holder of an overall vision that it works to realize.

Iran has developed its agricultural capacities to the point where it can feed itself even if subjected to a food blockade. It does currently import certain food items, but it could easily do without them without this affecting the public’s standard of living.

Iran’s military technology became apparent in the July 2006 war, when Hezbollah foiled the Israeli military campaign. If Hezbollah — a small party with very limited human and geographic resources — possesses the weapons that were seen with our own eyes, then what does Iran possess, being the primary source of those weapons? Iran has launched a satellite aboard an Iranian rocket, and this was tracked by several countries, the United States foremost among them. This is not to mention the progress made in the nuclear field, which robs the people of the West and Israel of their sleep.

Iran has not left its installations exposed to easy bombardment, nor an easy prey to missile strikes, and for this reason it has focused on fortification and camouflage. Iran has dug into the mountains, erected massive steel walls capable of withstanding the most powerful destructive bombs, and set up numerous decoy sites to mislead the enemy. At the same time, it has arranged the sites housing its offensive capabilities in a manner that keeps them, to a great extent, safe from the enemy’s acts of war.

Israel’s Predicament

Israel wants to strike Iran even if the Iranian regime were a friendly one, and the reason is that Israel regards the power of any Arab or Muslim state as a danger to itself, if not now then in the future. Israel’s security doctrine holds that Israel must remain the militarily superior power over the states of the region, singly and collectively, and that it must not permit military superiority to any state, even a friendly one or one that maintains diplomatic relations with it. It holds that there is no trusting Arabs and Muslims, and popular sentiment there holds that a Jew must remain wary of them even forty years after death. It holds that the Arab and Muslim regimes are despotic regimes that do not represent their own peoples, that these are politically unstable states, and that there is a fear the regime might fall, and with it the fear that weapons might fall into the hands of enemies bent on destroying Israel. So if Israel cannot feel secure even with friendly Arab states, will it feel secure with Iran?

Israel wants to strike Iran — indeed, its security interests require it to — but it cannot guarantee the results. The alternative of holding back from striking may be worse than the gamble itself, because Iran will only grow stronger and more resilient with time, and it is entirely possible that the Western states will come to recognize its power, consider sharing influence with it, or grant it a certain sphere of influence in the region. At that point, where would Israel stand within the new equation?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “عقبات أمام الهجوم على إيران” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.