Stillmann's Freckle Cream

vs Israeli aircraft. Iranian bombs

Monday, June 18, 2007 Iran. An administration source explains that Washington deems Iran's cooperation "needed for a withdrawal [of U.S. forces] from Iraq."

If true, this implies that the Jewish state stands alone against a regime that threatens to "wipe Israel off the map" and is building nuclear weapons to do so. Israeli leaders are showing signs that their patience is running out: the Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz just warned that "diplomatic efforts will yield results by the end of 2007." Can

in practice the Israel Defense Forces to tear up the program Nuclear Iran?

analysis of top secret intelligence agencies normally respond to questions as well. But talented outsiders, using open sources, can also make their forecasts. Whitney Raas and Austin Long studied this problem at the Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and spread their impressive analysis, "Osirak Redux? Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities" in the journal International Security.

Raas and Long focus exclusively on feasibility, not on political appeal or the strategic implications: if the Israeli national leadership decided to damage the Iranian infrastructure, could forces accomplish this mission? The authors consider five components of a successful attack: Intelligence: slow the production of fissile material requires incapacitating only three facilities of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. In ascending order of importance, are: the heavy water plant and plutonium production reactors under construction at Arak, a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan and the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Destroying the Natanz facility in particular, they note, "is critical to impeding Iran's progress toward nuclearization."

Arsenal: To damage all three facilities with reasonable confidence requires - given their size, their being underground, the weapons available to the Israeli forces, and other factors - 24 5000-pound bombs and 24 weapons of 2000 pounds.

Platforms: Noting the "odd amalgamation of technologies" available to the Iranians and the limitations of their fighter planes and defense forces to stand up when the Israeli Air Force high-tech, Raas-Long calculate that the IDF need a strike package of 25 F-15 and 25 F-16.

Routes: Israeli jets can reach their targets via three paths: Turkey to the north, Jordan and Iraq in the middle, or Saudi Arabia to the south. In terms of fuel and cargo, the distances can be covered in all three cases.

Defense forces: Rather than predict the outcome of an Israel-Iran confrontation, the authors estimate how many of the 50 Israeli planes would have to reach their three targets for the operation to succeed. Figure 24 planes must reach Natanz, 6 Isfahan, Arak and 5, or 35 total. At this point, that means the Iranian defenders minimally must stop 16 of 50 planes, or one third of the strike force. The authors consider "substantial" this attrition rate in the case of Natanz and "almost unimaginable" in the case of the other two goals.

Overall, Raas-Long concluded that the relentless modernization of the air forces of Israel gives "the ability to destroy even more reinforced targets in Iran with some degree of confidence." Comparing an Iranian operation with Israel to attack Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, which was an overwhelming success, they conclude that this "does not appear to be more risky" than the previous.

The big question hanging over the operation, with which the authors speculate, is whether any of the governments Turkish, Jordanian, Saudi American or Israeli would agree to use their airspace (Iraq, remember, is under U.S. control .) Unless achieve Israeli permission to cross these territories, their planes would have to fight their way to Iran as well. This jeopardizes the entire project more than any other factor. (The IDF could reduce this problem by flying along borders, for example, the Turkish-Syrian, permitting both countries en route to claim Israeli planes were in the airspace of another).

Raas-Long imply but do not claim that the IDF could reach the continental island Jargo, through which exports 90% of Iranian oil, heavily damaging the Iranian economy.

Israeli forces have "a chance reasonable prospect of success "unilaterally. destroy Iranian nuclear facilities could help deter Tehran to pursue its weapons program. The Raas-Long study, therefore, more likely a diplomatic settlement. Their findings may deserve wider dissemination.