Is War Coming to Iran?

I don't think the US has any appetite for war so soon after withdrawing from Iraq. However, it is difficult to tell how serious Israel is about its threats of attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran is a pretty large country, and if the US does not get involved, I don't think Israel will contemplate any ground operations. The problem is, what will the Iranian response be after Israeli airstrikes? If Iran responds with missile attacks on Israel, the US may be forced to intervene. If the Iranian regime simply downplays the strikes and responds only with rhetoric, they will be seen as weak by their people and may lose their grip on power, not to mention considerable influence in the region.

What do you guys think? Is war coming?

What do you guys think? Is war coming?

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solarz..I hope not. Seems like everyday I pick up a different version about the situation in Iran. Everyday. And gas prices in the US are spiraling up because of all these "war jitters" coming from the Persian Gulf.

I think the US is trying to reign in Israel for fear that an Israeli attack on Iran would lead to a major and very bloody conflict. If war did come between Israel and Iran the US would come to the aid of the Israeli's..no doubt.

bd popeye said:

solarz..I hope not. Seems like everyday I pick up a different version about the situation in Iran. Everyday. And gas prices in the US are spiraling up because of all these "war jitters" coming from the Persian Gulf.

I think the US is trying to reign in Israel for fear that an Israeli attack on Iran would lead to a major and very bloody conflict. If war did come between Israel and Iran the US would come to the aid of the Israeli's..no doubt.

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Agreed! I wish all parties would stay calm and don't rush into things, especially Israel. IMO, for the US, the last thing they want now is another war. Obama just celebrated the "pulling out" from Iraq and declared another defense budget cut. This is NOT a good time for another major conflict, especially this is an election year. Giving the message that "we are sending American boys to another potentially long and painful conflict" would not be good for Obama.

While I don't doubt the US will come to the aid of Israel, I do wonder what form of aid the US will likely provide. If Israel decides to attack despite objection from the US, the aid probably won't come in any form of direct military action. The US won't allow itself to be taken hostage by Israel. The US might've told Israel exactly that.. "we don't want you to do it. If you do it anyway, don't expect us to give you any meaningful help..."

Considering that Iran is separated from Israel by several countries including Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, I don't think Israel has to worry about an Iranian invasion.

So what kind of retaliation options does Iran have? Off hand, I can think of two: missile attacks and using Hezbollah/Hamas as proxies. This means that if US intervention is necessary, it would be in the form of sending troops into Iran rather than helping defend Israel. This makes direct US military participation even less likely.

So what would be the implications? If Israel feels that Iran can't really touch them, then they are all the more likely to carry out their threats of airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Most articles I read about it say Israel will not be able to do serious damage to the Iranian nuclear complex. So the one way the US can diffuse the situation after Israeli aggression would be to get rid of the Israeli weapons of mass destruction. That would enable Iran to show that it has no nuclear bomb program without incurring the complaint that it is kowtowing to the Great Satan. This would no doubt cause a great uproar in the election campaign, but should the interest of the country not be more important than that of the President? And he should increase the prestige of the US enough to have a good chance to be re-elected.
Of course the policy of centuries is the start a war and then claim it is madness to change horses in mid-stream, but I don't think that can be an attractive policy against Iran. That country is much larger than Iraq, has a population twice as large, has prepared for such a war for two decades and has the support of the vast majority of its population.
Besides a war would be hugely damaging to the finances of the US and to the interests of China and India and Pakistan and even of the members of GCC.
Al together there is really no effective policy by the US towards Iran than an exchange of ambassadors. But the internal politics of the US is likely to prevent that.

I don't think Iran would both with a nuclear weapons programme if Israel didn't have nukes.

If you stop to really think about it, Israeli nukes are by far any away the most likely to be actually used in combat. More so than even North Korea's or India and Pakistan's.

If Israel does attack Iran's nuclear facilities, it is very likely that they will use tactical nukes as the bulk of Iran's nuclear programme is buried so deep no conventional weapons can reach them.

I have also made this point previously, but if the US offered Iran Israeli disarmament, and Iran will snap your hand off. Hell, they will probably demand the most stringent and transparent disarmament and verification process possible to be applied to both sides so that everyone can be absolutely sure all weapons and related materials and technologies have been disposed off.

For Israel, loosing nukes would mean very little in real terms, because their conventional forces are so much better than all their neighbours and rivals', and with their close cultural and military links with the US, there is no realistic existential threat to Israel any more. The only conceivable existential threat to Israel will only come about as a result of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the ME.

If everyone in the region had nukes, Israel stands at a distinct disadvantage, because of it's tiny size. With such a small country, even a handful of nukes would effectively wipe Israel off the map, whereas someone like Iran of Saudi Arabia are large enough to take a few nukes and still recover eventually.

What more, because of the small size of Israel and the close proximity of hostile neighbours, once those neighbours goes nuclear, there would be very little warning time of an incoming attack. This combine with Israel's small size means it is not beyond the realm of possibility that a saturation nuclear first strike could also knock out most if not all of Israel's own nukes, thus saving the attacking country from a nuclear second strike counter attack.

Because of this, it is very likely that Israel will adopt an unusually aggressive nuclear posture. This would be extremely dangerous, especially when you take into account the past record of Irregular forces launching massed rocket attacks against Israeli targets.

From Israel's POV, if would be very easy for them to mistake a conventional rocket attack as a nuclear first strike, and may well 'respond' before the true nature of the rockets are known. This in term would trigger a counter-launch from it's nuclear armed neighbours, and before you know it, we have a full scale nuke war on our hands.

So, Israel's strategic position would be massively damaged if a neighbour develops nuclear weapons. In addition, once a neighbour has developed nukes, there is a very strong possibility of a nuke war starting by mistake.

The only two solutions to this problem for Israel are 1) stop anyone else in the region getting nukes. Or 2) Disarm themselves and make sure no-one has nukes in the ME.

If Israel gives up it's nukes, it would preserve it's tactical advantages as in a purely conventional fight, none of it's neighbours would stand much of a chance, and if all of them ganged up again, the US would surely send in the troops (this could easily be a condition for Israel giving up the bomb). If no-one in the region had the bomb, no-one is going to be using it. That is far far safer and preferable to everyone being on a hair trigger to start lobbing nukes around.

But in reality, Israel will only push 1), maybe even up to the point of starting a war to keep anyone else from developing nukes. The Israelis have lorded over everyone else in the region with their nukes for too long for them to give them up now.

The only person in the world who could potentially make Israel give up it's nukes cannot do that without triggering a massive Jewish backlash in the states out of all proportion to their numbers.

He can forget about re-election or any lucrative speech giving or consulting/lobbying jobs, and will almost certainly get a pile of death threats and be branded as Hilter reborn by the Jewish owned/controlled media...

Perversely, if you want a nuclear free ME, you should probably hope that Obama contracts some sort of terminal illness, as the only way any US president can stand up to Israel on this issue is if he literally has nothing left to loose.

I disagree that Iran would be willing to give up its nuclear program if Israel disarms. Iran pursues nuclear weapons for the same reason North Korea does: as a deterrence against US invasion. Therefore, whether or not Israel has nukes makes no difference in this regard.

Well I think this is a lot of talk and no action. They're trying to scare Iran into submission. The Western economies would certainly go through another hit making it far worse. Does anyone really think after Iraq and Afghanistan, this would turn out any better? And after Obama turned the US's focus on the Far East, how would it look for the election that he let Israel do that and certainly dragging the US into another Middle East war?

We'll need to see how the mess in Syria will be dealt with - though Syria and Iran ain't physically bordered they're close allies, whichever way the current situation Syria goes - current regime toppled or survived - it'll nonetheless leave it invalid for some time, at least in terms of responding to the Iranian situation.

Thus it'd be when Syria no longer in the current state of flux then the "Iran question" will be answered...

solarz said:

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I don't think the US has any appetite for war so soon after withdrawing from Iraq. However, it is difficult to tell how serious Israel is about its threats of attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran is a pretty large country, and if the US does not get involved, I don't think Israel will contemplate any ground operations. The problem is, what will the Iranian response be after Israeli airstrikes? If Iran responds with missile attacks on Israel, the US may be forced to intervene. If the Iranian regime simply downplays the strikes and responds only with rhetoric, they will be seen as weak by their people and may lose their grip on power, not to mention considerable influence in the region.

What do you guys think? Is war coming?

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They could always stop the Israeli air attack. Theoretically, the Israeli Air Force would need at least multiple precision strikes on the Iranian facility near Natanz, due to it's thick earth/reinforced-concrete arrangement, plus the fact that it's being guarded by a sophisticated and multi-layered IADS network. That's all assuming Israel bypasses the rest of the Iranian IADS along it's western borders, while having enough fuel and munitions to actually bomb the place, whilst evading or jamming Iranian SAMs. This is also a good time to note that the distance between Tel Aviv and Natanz is an even 1,000 miles!