F
or the United states, the islamic republic of iran has been an enemy for 30 years, one that has sought to thwart U.s. policies in the Middle east, such as advancing the arab-israeli peace process and creating stable regional security ar- rangements. crisis after crisis has arisen between iran and the United states but iran has never been and almost certainly never will be an existential threat to the United states. it harbors no territo- rial designs on the United states, has never con- ducted a terrorist operation aimed at the ameri- can homeland, and, even should it acquire nuclear weapons, lacks the delivery systems to threaten the United states directly. Further, its economy is anemic, and even if substantially reformed, will probably never provide the base for iran to make itself a challenger to the United states on par with Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, the soviet Union, or communist china.But for israel, iran is a much more dangerous opponent—it is close and threatening. There is a virtual consensus in israel that iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. From left to right across the political spectrum, a great many israelis see a threat to their very survival from a
nuclear iran. Former Prime Minister ehud ol- mert said, “israel will not tolerate a nuclear weap- on in the hands of people who say openly, explic- itly and publicly that they want to wipe israel off the map.”36 in his first speech to the Knesset af-
ter being sworn in as prime minister, Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu said, “We cannot afford to take lightly megalomaniac tyrants who threaten to annihilate us.”37 other israeli leaders are more
reasoned but also are determined to prevent ira- nian acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. ephraim sneh, former deputy defense minister and a much-decorated retired general of the isra- el Defense Forces (iDF), notes that “the most sa- lient strategic threat to israel’s existence is iran.”38
These leaders fear that israel’s strategic room for maneuver in the region would be constrained by an iranian nuclear deterrent. The success of irani- an-backed terrorist groups, hizballah in Lebanon and hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, in the last few years has only added to israel’s concern. even relatively dovish analysts like the historian Benny Morris write about an iranian bomb in apocalyptic terms: “The iranians are driven by a higher logic. and they will launch their rockets.
36 Lally Weymouth, “a conversation with ehud olmert,” Washington Post, May 11, 2008, p. B3.
37 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Knesset swearing in ceremony, March 31, 2009, available at <http://www.pmo.gov.il/
PMoeng/communication/PMspeaks/speechnetankness310309.htm>.
Yitzhak rabin highlighted the danger iran posed to israel in his first visit to the United states in 1992 after his election. israeli intelligence opera- tions against iran were stepped up even earlier and have included use of third parties to publicize the iranian threat without revealing the israeli hand. iran’s secret enrichment and heavy-water reactor programs were publicly exposed in august 2002 by an iranian dissident group (the Mujahedin-e Khalq), which reportedly was unwittingly fed the information by israeli intelligence.42
in short, there is considerable reason to believe that under the right (or wrong) set of circum- stances, israel would launch an attack—principal- ly airstrikes, but possibly backed by special forces operations—to destroy iran’s nuclear program. This could create either an opportunity for or a threat to american interests with regard to iran and the broader Middle east. it could constitute an opportunity, and thus a possible policy option, if the United states would like to see iran’s nuclear program destroyed but prefers not to do it itself. it could be a threat if the United states believes that an israeli attack would destabilize the region and would not advance (or would harm) ameri- can interests in relation to iran.
Not surprisingly, some americans have ex- pressed the hope that israel would strike iran— that Jerusalem would have the “guts” to do what Washington does not. other americans regard the prospect with horror, believing that an is- raeli attack would have all the disadvantages of american airstrikes (as well as some unique ones) and none of their advantages. ameri- can decisionmakers need to have a clear sense of what such an israeli operation would look and, as with the first holocaust, the international
community will do nothing. it will all be over, for israel, in a few minutes—not like in the 1940s, when the world had five long years in which to wring its hands and do nothing.”39
only a few israeli commentators have suggested the threat may be exaggerated or that it actually serves israeli interests to have a threat from iran. Former Mossad chief ephraim halevy argues that “ahmadinejad is our greatest gift. We couldn’t carry out a better operation in the Mossad than to put a guy like ahmadinejad in power in iran.”40
But even halevy believes iran is a serious threat to israel’s interests.
it is clear from discussions with israeli military and intelligence officials, and from numerous press leaks and reports that israel is well under way in planning for a military operation to pre- vent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. is- rael’s defense minister, ehud Barak, said in 2007 that “the things that we do behind the scenes, far from the public eye, are far more important than the slogan charade,” implying that israeli covert capabilities are already hard at work trying to cope with the iranian threat and preparing to attack it if they must.41 it is impossible to know
what those plans entail in detail without access to the iDF’s secret planning, but israelis say the mission is “not impossible.” The iDF’s september 6, 2007 attack on the syrian nuclear facility at Dayr az-Zawr is widely believed in israel to have been in part a message to tehran that iran may be next.
israeli leaders have been warning about the ira- nian threat since the early 1990s. Prime Minister
39 Quoted in David remnick, “Blood and sand,” New Yorker, May 5, 2008, p. 76.
40 Quoted in “ex-Mossad chief: ahmadinejad is israel’s Greatest Gift,” Haaretz, august 20, 2008.
41 shahar ilan, “Defense Min. to Knesset Panel: talks Won’t Make iran Nukes Go away,” Haaretz, November 6, 2007.
42 That the iranian dissidents got the information from israeli intelligence, who fed it to them via a cutout, is according to former iDF chief of
makes no effort to change the iranian regime or otherwise reshape its character.
Time Frame
if the United states decided to encourage israel to mount airstrikes against iran, the entire operation could happen very quickly, probably much faster than a similar american campaign. israel appears to have done extensive planning and practice for such a strike already, and its aircraft are probably already based as close to iran as possible. as such, israel might be able to launch the strike in a matter of weeks or even days, depending on what weather and intelligence conditions it felt it needed. More- over, since israel would have much less of a need (or even interest) in securing regional support for the operation, Jerusalem probably would feel less motivated to wait for an iranian provocation before attacking. in short, israel could move very fast to implement this option if both israeli and american leaders wanted it to happen.
however, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. again, the iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against israel, and they might retaliate against the United states, too (which might cre- ate a pretext for american airstrikes or even an invasion). and it seems unlikely that they would cease their support for violent extremist groups or efforts to overturn the regional status quo in the aftermath of israeli airstrikes. Their opposi- tion to an arab-israeli peace treaty would likely be redoubled. hence the United states would still need a strategy to handle iran after comple- tion of the israeli airstrikes, and this could mean a much longer time frame to achieve all of amer- ica’s goals.
like, as well as the pros and cons for the United states, to decide whether to try to encourage or discourage it.43
Goal
as in the case of american airstrikes against iran, the goal of this policy option would be to destroy key iranian nuclear facilities in the hope that do- ing so would significantly delay iran’s acquisition of an indigenous nuclear weapons capability. however, in this case, an added element could be that the United states would encourage—and perhaps even assist—the israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and iranian retali- ation would be deflected away from the United states and onto israel. The logic behind this ap- proach is that allowing israel to mount the air- strikes, rather than the United states, provides a way out of the dilemma described in the previ- ous chapter, whereby american airstrikes against iran could become self-defeating because they would undermine every other american initia- tive in the Middle east, an outcome exactly the opposite of what a new iran policy is meant to accomplish.
as with american airstrikes against the iranian nuclear program, this option would not entail any direct effort to deal with iran’s support for terror- ists and radical groups, nor would it directly seek to mitigate other iranian efforts to subvert the sta- tus quo in the Middle east. at most, this policy assumes that iran’s ability to pursue such activi- ties would be greatly enhanced by possession of a (presumed) nuclear weapons capability, and therefore that removing this threat would help limit iran’s ability to cause problems for the Unit- ed states in the region. Likewise, this approach
43 We note that the George W. Bush administration reportedly dissuaded israel from mounting such a strike in 2008, suggesting that it had
a second wave would meet alerted air defenses, creating military and political problems that is- rael would likely find insurmountable. an initial israeli attack across iraqi territory would severely complicate the U.s. military presence there; a re- peat performance would likely compromise it altogether. Thus, after the first round of strikes, israel would have nothing but its small fleet of ballistic missiles and submarine-launched cruise missiles for follow-on attacks, and because the ballistic missiles are such valuable assets, Jerusa- lem would not likely squander them on anything but the highest value iranian targets.
another problem israel faces is distance. The iaF possesses 25 F-15i long-range strike air- craft, which have a combat radius of over 2,500 kilometers, giving them the range to hit ira- nian targets even if they have to fly via turkey or saudi arabia. however, 25 aircraft is a tiny number given the size, dispersal, and hardening of the iranian nuclear program, especially since the planes could not carry much ordnance, nor would they have the ability to hit multiple facili- ties on a single sortie at that distance. so israel’s F-15i fleet alone could not hope to do as much damage to the iranian nuclear program as even the small-scale american airstrike discussed in the previous chapter.44 Thus just employing the
25 F-15is probably would not make the opera- tion worthwhile from Jerusalem’s or Washing- ton’s perspective.
in addition to the F-15is, israel has acquired 100 F- 16i fighter bombers. There is a great deal of specu- lation regarding the combat range of the F-16i, which most sources suggest is roughly 1,600-1,800 kilometers. however, at least one well-regarded is- raeli source has stated that it has a range of 2,100
overview of the Policy
an israeli air campaign against iran would have a number of very important differences from an american campaign. First, the israeli air Force (iaF) has the problem of overflight transit from israel to iran. israel has no aircraft carriers, so its planes must take off from israeli air bases. it also does not possess long-range bombers like the B-1 or B-2, or huge fleets of refueling tankers, all of which means that unlike the United states, israel cannot avoid flying through someone’s air space. The most direct route from israel to iran’s Natanz facility is roughly 1,750 kilometers across Jordan and iraq. as the occupying power in iraq, the United states is responsible for defending iraqi airspace. The alternatives via turkish airspace (over 2,200 kilometers) or saudi airspace (over 2,400 kilometers) would also put the attack force into the skies of U.s. allies equipped with amer- ican-supplied air defenses and fighter aircraft. in the case of turkey, an israeli overflight would be further complicated by the fact that turkey is a Nato ally that the United states has a commit- ment to defend, and it hosts a large, joint turkish- american airbase along the most likely route of attack.
For political and military reasons, israel’s need to overfly turkish, iraqi-Jordanian, or saudi air- space creates two problems. First, an israeli strike must achieve surprise so that israeli planes are not intercepted by the air defenses and fighters of those countries. second, in part based on reason number one, the israelis would get basically one shot at iran. on the first pass, they likely would surprise any of those countries and be able to reach iran and return before the turks, saudis, or Jordanians could activate their air defenses; but
44 israel has three submarines (and is acquiring two more) that could also launch a small number of cruise missiles (american harpoon
anti-ship cruise missiles) against iranian targets. once again, the numbers that israel could launch would be dwarfed by the numbers of (larger and longer range) cruise missiles that the United states could be expected to employ in even a limited air campaign against the iranian nuclear program.
years, the possibility that israel would find ways to “hide” tankers in international air space or fly them with the strike packages for much of the way until their services are no longer needed should not be ruled out. however, such risky operations would only be feasible for the first round of strikes. once the surprise is over and the iranians, turks, Jordanians, and/or saudis have their air defenses on alert, the tankers would be highly vulnerable.
What all of this means is that, realistically, an is- raeli strike against iran could consist of no more than 125 israeli F-15i and F-16i sorties (with limited weapons loads because of the distance), backed by a small number of cruise missile shots. This is not a meaningless force, and it likely could do a considerable amount of damage to the best known of iran’s facilities. But again, it probably could not do as much damage as even the lim- ited american airstrikes option discussed in the previous chapter—it probably would not even be able to cover all the targets listed. Moreover, the iaF would have virtually no capability to conduct opportunity strikes on targets revealed by iranian actions during the attacks themselves. Nor would it have much, if any, ability to follow up with re- peat strikes to hit facilities where the initial at- tack failed to destroy the target. overall, an israeli strike would be even less likely to meaningfully set back the iranian nuclear program than would an american air campaign.46