Good News and Bad News on Iran's Nuclear Program

UPDATED: Links fixed.

MIT Researchers just concluded a study on Israel's potential to destroy Iran's fledgling nuclear capability.

The Good News: Yes, Israel can do it again, and MIT posits that Israel stands a "reasonable chance of success" to knock out all 3 major components of Iran's nuclear program: The Heavy Water and Plutonium Production Reactor, Uranium Conversion Facility, and Uranium Enrichment Facility.

Summary of the study:

Intelligence: To impede the production of fissile material requires incapacitating only three facilities of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. In ascending order of importance, these are: the heavy water plant and plutonium production reactors under construction at Arak, a uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, and a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Destroying the Natanz facility in particular, they note, "is critical to impeding Iran's progress toward nuclearization."

Ordnance: 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 – twenty-four 5,000-lb. weapons and twenty-four 2,000-lb. weapons.

Platforms: Noting the "odd amalgamation of technologies" available to the Iranians and the limitations of their fighter planes and ground defenses to stand up to the high-tech Israeli air force, Raas-Long calculate that the IDF needs a relatively small strike package of twenty-five F-15Is and twenty-five F-16Is.

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 in all three cases are manageable.

Defense forces: Rather than predict the outcome of an Israeli-Iranian confrontation, the authors calculate how many out of the 50 Israeli planes would have to reach their three targets for the operation to succeed. They figure 24 planes must reach Natanz, 6 to Isfahan, and 5 to Arak, or 35 all together. Turned around, that means the Iranian defenders minimally must stop 16 of 50 planes, or one-third of the strike force. The authors consider this attrition rate "considerable" for Natanz and "almost unimaginable" for the other two targets.

In all, Raas-Long find that the relentless modernization of Israel's air force gives it "the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence." Comparing an Iranian operation to Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, which was a complete success, they find this one "would appear to be no more risky" than the earlier one.

The great question mark hanging over the operation, one which the authors do not speculate about, is whether any of the Turkish, Jordanian, American, or Saudi governments would acquiesce to Israeli penetration of their air spaces. (Iraq, recall, is under American control). Unless the Israelis win advance permission to cross these territories, their jets might have to fight their way to Iran. More than any other factor, this one imperils the entire project. (The IDF could reduce this problem by flying along borders, for example, the Turkey-Syria one, permitting both countries en route to claim Israeli planes were in the other fellow's air space.)

Raas-Long imply but do not state that the IDF could reach Kharg Island, through which over 90 percent of Iranian oil is exported, heavily damaging the Iranian economy.

That Israeli forces have "a reasonable chance of success" unilaterally to destroy key Iranian nuclear facilities could help deter Tehran from proceeding with its weapon program. The Raas-Long study, therefore, makes a diplomatic deal more likely. Its results deserve the widest possible dissemination.

See the whole study here in PDF format.

So what's the bad news?

Israel today just elected a new President, Shimon Peres, who thought that Israel's bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 was a bad idea, voted against the attack, and still believes it was a bad idea...["The Bombing the Iraqi reactor was a mistake", Shimon Peres, Ha'aretz Newspaper, 24-Dec-1995]

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael