The Coming Israel-Iran War

War

If open, general war were to break out between Israel and Iran, it would likely be Israel that attacks first.

Iran has no immediate motivation to go to war with Israel—and no means to do so even if it wanted to, for the simple reason that there is no way for Iranian forces to hopscotch American-controlled Iraq in order to get at Israel.

Furthermore, Iran is perfectly aware that not only does the United States control Iraq, the U.S. is also Israel’s unconditional ally—an ally which essentially surrounds Iran. Consider this map of American forces currently deployed:

One could argue, as I would, that the American forces are demoralised and degraded because of the endless, pointless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—but even so, Iran’s forces on their best days are no match for American armed forces on their worst. And Iran and its leadership presumably knows this.

So if war between Israel and Iran breaks out, it would start from the Israeli end.

The putative motivation of the pre-emptive attack would be Israeli fears of an Iranian nuclear weapon. The rationale would be, “Iran is on the cusp of delivering a nuclear weapon—ergo suspected Iranian nuclear sites must be destroyed.”

However—and this is key—unlike Iraq, Iran cannot be conquered: It is simply too big, and its geography too forbidding, especially to the west where it borders Iraq.

So any “war” against Iran would begin with a series of bombing strikes.

Logically, the opening salvo of this war would be an airstrike against suspected Iranian nuclear sites. But this presents major problems.

Again, geography: Iran is too far from Israel for its air force to easily attack these suspected nuclear sites and then return to base. Furthermore, the Iranian nuclear weapons development centers are small, spread out, hardened, and deliberately mobile—and Iran is an incredibly large country.

Compare this tactical situation to the Israeli airstrike carried out on the Iraqi nuclear program in Osirak in 1981: Apart from the Osirak site being concentrated in one relatively small area just outside of Baghdad—and apart from the surprise factor, absent in the current Iranian situation—Iraq was far closer to Israel than Iran is, obviously. This meant that, in the Osirak attack of 1981, the whole operation involved a single airstrike, and it had the element of complete surprise.

That would not be the case today. Any airstrike against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities that would get the job done would need to be:

• Carried out over a prolonged period of time, in order to hit all the possible locations in Iran.
• Of necessity supported by the United States.

Let’s consider the second of these two problems:

The United States controls Iraq, which of course lies between Israel and Iran. In order to reach Iran and carry out effective airstrikes, Israeli bombers would have to receive U.S. permission to fly over Iraq. Possibly—indeed, very likely—Israeli bombers would need U.S. assistance insofar as refueling and other logistic issues are concerned.

Thus any Israeli attack on Iran would of necessity need U.S. countenance. And this support would not be peripheral or marginal—American support would be essential to the Israeli war effort.

Thus Iran—and the rest of the world—would rightfully identify the United States as going to war with Iran. Indeed, there would be no other way which the rest of the world—including Europe, Japan, China and the United Nations—would be able to interpret such an Israeli attack on Iran: No matter what the American political establishment claimed, the perception of the rest of the world is that this was a combined Israeli-American attack on Iran.

This would present severe diplomatic challenges, not only in the short-term, but in the medium- to long-term—challenges which the U.S. State Department would simply not be able to meet, and which would wreak havoc with not merely American diplomacy, but America’s strategic situation vis-à-vis its allies and key relationships.

In other words, the rest of the world’s perception that the United States deliberately started a war with Iran would wreck its various alliances and relationships—including its relationships with China and especially India, both of whom (as we will see below) depend to an extraordinary extent on Iranian oil, the supply of which would presumably be cut during the period of open warfare.

Now, to return to the first of the two problems of an Israeli attack on Iran: Because of how spread-out the intended targets would be, it would take a while—at least a few days, possibly a month or more—for the Israeli air force to destroy all the possible Iranian nuclear sites.

It is not realistic to think that Israel—once it has decided to strike Iran—would not do a thorough job of demolishing suspected nuclear sites. Therefore, the bombing campaign would continue until Israel was reasonably confident that its forces had destroyed all the essential nuclear weapons sites. And this would of necessity take time.

A prolonged bombing campaign means that there is a greater chance of escalation—and an escalating war becomes more unpredictable.

Escalation would be determined by Iran’s response—which even under the best of circumstances would be ugly, and severely damaging to the West.

Iranian rocket attacks against Israel would be the only obvious conventional military tactic open to Iran.

Iran’s missiles certainly have the range—consider the map to the right (click to enlarge), detailing the range of Iran’s Sahab-3 missiles, which have been successfully tested recently. But launching these missiles at Israel would be the only readily available retaliation that Iran could carry out—assuming of course that the missiles themselves are not destroyed by Israeli bombers.

Iran’s army cannot invade Israel. And because of the American presence in Iraq, the Iranian air force will not be able to respond in like measure to an Israeli attack—simple as that. Any Iranian air force bomber flying on its merry way to strafe Israel would be picked out of the skies over Iraq in short order.

Additionally, since the American armed forces control Iraq and have superior weaponry, there would be no incentive for Iran’s army to attack American forces in Iraq by conventional means: They know they would lose, if they went head-to-head against the United States, and there would be nothing for the Iranians to win.

Furthermore, the Iranian armed force learned a great deal from the prolonged conventional war against Iraq between 1980 and 1988, specifically, how counterproductive a conventional war can be, when compared to low-cost, low-exposure tactics—such as terrorism.

Therefore, Iran will use terrorism as its response to the Israeli attack: Terrorism in Israel, and terrorism in Iraq. Terrorism on a trulymassive scale. From the Iranian perspective, it’s their only sure-fire option.

Terrorism in Israel will be demoralising. But terrorism in Iraq will actually produce more devastating results—both for the West and for Iran.

Terrorism in Israel

Hezbollah, in Lebanon, will step up rocket attacks in the northern end of Israel. Militarily pointless, but great PR for both sides.

Egypt—now that the Mubarek regime is gone—will also be the staging ground for terrorist attacks against Israel—but this time from the south.

But the real danger will be suicide bombers throughout Israel—especially if the Israelis squeeze their Arab citizens.

From the point of view of Iran, tapping into the disaffected Israeli-Arabs—especially if an Israeli-Iranian war drags on over weeks, and becomes a U.S.-Israeli gang-bang of Iran—will be the simplest thing in the world. And if the Israeli government begins deliberately targetting Israeli-Arabs for special scrutiny, they’ll only be breeding enemies. All at minimal cost to Iran.

Terrorism in Iraq

Remember: 80% of the Iraqi population is Shiite. And though they are Arab Shi’a, they are sympathetic to Iran, whose leaders are by and large ethnically tolerant.

Therefore, Iraqi Shiite terrorists and suicide bombers would carry out attacks on American interests in Iraq—specifically oil interests.

It would be no trick at all to carry out suicide bombings of pipelines and oil storage facilities—further disrupting oil supplies from the region—

—and precisely here is where Iran could conceivably miscalculate.

If Iran’s use of terrorism in the face of the Israeli onslaught reaches a tipping point, it is conceivable that the United States will “escalate” its involvement in the Israeli-Iranian war—in a way that would permanently harm Iran.

If an Israeli-Iranian war were to drag on—or if the terrorist attacks American soldiers in Iraq suffer is too horrific to passively withstand—the likelihood of the United States getting directly involved (as opposed to indirectly involved by way of assisting the Israelis) would be overwhelming.

What do I mean by this? I mean to say that America would invade Iran.

First off, as explained above, American will already be blamed for the sorry mess of the Israeli-Iranian war. So the diplomatic bullet will already be in the gut.

Second, it would present political advantages to the incumbent president to invade Iran. Obama would “look tough”, as he “went after” the Iranian regime—especially if Iran resorted to terrorism on American soil.

Third, Iran’s oil fields could be easily overrun by American troops—and prove too tempting a target to pass up. Consider this map of the Zagros oil fields on either side of the Iraq-Iran border (click to enlarge).

So under the excuse of “Protecting the world’s oil supply from the crazed terrorists in Iran, and keeping the global economy running”, the United States would invade the Zagros fold belt oil fields.

If Iran and Israel were locked in a war, and the marginal costs of an invasion were minimal, then it would be to the U.S.’s advantage to steal the Iranian oil fields—which is what they would likely do, especially if oil had shot up to $250 a barrel, as would happen once this shindig got started.

Because the United States would of necessity have to support Israel in order for it to carry out a war against Iran, America would be blamed for this war at the outset. And if the United States invaded Iran, more so.

China and India especially would throw a hissy-fit over the Israeli-Iranian war—but to think that China would go to war with the United States over such a conflict is unrealistic, not to say foolish.

China’s Reaction

As will be discussed, China receives roughly 6% of its oil consumption from Iran. Certainly a loss of this oil supply will negatively affect the Chinese economy, and will spark even higher inflation of the Renminbi.

However, aggravating though that may be, it is simply not enough of a motivating factor for China to go to war with the United States.

China has no “special relationship” with Iran (whose Imams consider the Chinese a bunch of Godless Communists). China shares no border with Iran, and has no strategic overlap or specific shared interest.

Most important of all, China has no troops anywhere near the combat theater to affect the outcome, one way or the other. And even if it did,what would be the point of China getting between Iran and the United States?

There would no point, of course.

So any ridiculous talk that Iran might somehow spark a World War with China is, frankly, just stupid.

India’s Reaction

Over 12% of India’s oil needs are provided by Iran, as the chart in the next section shows. So any war with Iran would disrupt this supply—creating havoc in India.

The natural rise in the price of oil would adversely affect India’s poor—likely to the point of starvation.

India’s anger towards the United States would only serve to drive it further towards China. India’s estimation would be, of course, that the United States is an irresponsible power that deliberately created the conditions for mass starvation in India, or at least a great deal of suffering. Hence they would not think they could trust the U.S., and instead lead them to closer ties with its Asian neighbors—and perhaps support China in whatever regional economic programs it came up with.

Japan’s Reaction

What reaction?

Europe’s Reaction

Condemnation—as simple as that.

The Europeans despise the Israelis—they view the Israeli leadership as criminals. After all, there is a reason Tzipi Livni and other Israeli leaders without diplomatic immunity don’t dare travel to the UK, Spain or Belgium: They would be arrested on the spot, under the Universal Jurisdiction laws that allowed for the detention of the dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1999.

Once an Israeli-Iranian war got started, the Europeans would be horrified as they watched oil shoot the moon. Such a severe rise in the price of oil would have catastrophic effects on Europe’s tenuous fiscal situation. The balance of trade of the entire region—and not just of the PIIGS—would be completely shot, triggering a severe inflation of both the euro and the pound sterling: Essentially, Europe would experience stagflation as a product of this oil shock, no different from what America experienced in 1979.

So the Europeans would be furious—but on a practical level would be powerless to do anything except maybe break off diplomatic relations with Israel and tear their hair out.

If Israel were dumb enough to use nuclear weapons against Iran at any point in this conflict, then all bets are off.

We talk about using nuclear weapons rather cavalierly sometimes—even the moron known as Hillary Clinton shoots her mouth off about “going nuclear”.

But the fact is, no country since the United States in World War II has used a nuclear weapon in a war—ever.

If Israel were to use nuclear weapons, there is not a nation on earth that would not condemn them. And more to the point, it would open the door for other nations to use nuclear weapons with impunity: Pakistan against India, and North Korea against Japan are two obvious examples that spring to mind.

If Israel were to use nuclear weapons against Iran in order to “defend itself against Iran’s nuclear weapons”, it is impossible to predict the world reaction—but it would be bad, bad, bad.

For the discussion of this Scenario, go to The Lounge’s thread on the subject.