What If Israel Decides to Take-Out Iran's Nuclear Facilities?

Laura King, in the LAT (Oct. 22, 2004):

Increasingly concerned about Iran's nuclear program, Israel is weighing its options and has not ruled out a military strike to prevent the Islamic Republic from gaining the capability to build atomic weapons, according to policymakers, military officials, analysts and diplomats....

Preemptive strikes have always been an essential element of Israel's military doctrine. Perhaps the most pertinent example is the air raid that destroyed Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981.

Experts are divided, however, on whether that precedent should be viewed as a window into Israel's thinking on Iran.

"The comparison to 1981 is of the utmost relevance because the decision-making is based on the same factors," said army reserve Col. Danny Shoham, a former military intelligence officer who is now a researcher at Bar-Ilan University. "Those are: What is the reliability of the intelligence picture? What would be the response of the opponent? What is the point of no return in terms of nuclear development, and what would be the international response?"

But he and others also noted key differences that could weigh against a military strike. Iran's nuclear development sites are widely scattered, in many cases hidden underground and heavily fortified, so Israel would have far less opportunity to deal the Iranian program a single devastating blow.

"It would be a complicated operation. In order to undermine or disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, you would have to strike at least three or four sites," said Ephraim Kam, the deputy head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

"Otherwise the damage would be too limited, and it would not postpone the program by more than a year or two, and this could in the end be worse than doing nothing."

Few believe, however, that logistical challenges alone would hold back the Jewish state if it determined that a strike was necessary.

To reach Hussein's nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes were over hostile territory for most of their 90-minute, 680-mile flight. All the while, they held to a tightly clustered formation that resembled the radar signature of a commercial jet. When the Israelis reached their target, they destroyed the Iraqi reactor in less than a minute and a half.

The raid, which was preceded by months of rehearsals using mock-ups of the targeted reactor, is still regarded in military and aviation circles as a model of planning, operational discipline and innovation -- qualities that analysts familiar with Israel's military capabilities say could be drawn upon again.

"I wouldn't want to speculate about exactly how the present-day objective might be achieved, but I will say this: The Israeli air force is extremely, extremely creative in its problem-solving approach," said Dan Schueftan, a senior fellow at the National Security Studies Center at Haifa University and the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center.