Israeli Options to Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program
The Vienna deal has been signed and will likely be ratified soon, which raises the question: What is the next main issue in the Iranian nuclear front?
I believe it to be this: whether any government will intervene militarily to stop the nearly inevitable Iranian nuclear buildup.
Obviously, it will not be the U.S. or Russian governments or any of the other four signatories. Practically speaking, the question comes down to Israel, where there is a consensus that the Vienna deal makes an attack more likely. Indeed, a poll by the Panels Politics Polling Institute finds 47% of Israelis supporting a unilateral strike on Iran (suggesting about 60% support among Jewish Israelis).
That no one outside the Israeli security apparatus, including me, knows the government’s intentions leaves me free to speculate (I cannot be passing information to the Iranians), so that’s what I shall do.
Three scenarios of attack seem possible:
Aerial: Airplanes crossed international boundaries and dropped bombs in the 1981 Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear installation and in the 2007 attack on a Syrian one, making this the default assumption for Iran. Studies show this to be difficult but attainable. Alternatively, bombs can be delivered via rockets.
Special operations: These are already underway, with computer virus attacks on Iranian systems unconnected to the Internet that should be immune, assassinations of top-ranking Iranian nuclear scientists, and explosions at nuclear installations. Presumably, Israelis had a hand in at least some of these attacks and, presumably, their size and scope could be increased, possibly disrupting the entire nuclear program.
Unlike dispatching planes across several countries, special operations have the advantage of reaching places far away from Israel, like Fordo, and of leaving little or no signature.
Nuclear weapons: These doomsday weapons, which tend to be little discussed, would probably be launched from submarines. They hugely raise the stakes and so would only be resorted to if the Israelis were desperate, in the spirit of “never again.”
Of these alternatives, I predict the Netanyahu government will most likely opt for the second, which is also the most challenging to pull off (especially now that the great powers promised to help the Iranians protect their nuclear infrastructure). If this proves unsuccessful, Israel will turn to planes, with nuclear weapons as a last resort.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Israel Hayom
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45685/israeli-options-to-destroy-irans-nuclear-program-opinion/#MWB0D74MSkMDkBR7.99
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