The signing of a Munich-class
agreement with Iran that hands it more than it ever hoped to pull off
represents a shocking, craven American capitulation to an apocalyptic crazy
state: a North Korea with oil. Nothing in Western history remotely approaches it,
not even Neville Chamberlain's storied appeasement of another antisemitic
negotiating partner.
But it also augurs the possibility
of a nuclear war coming far sooner than one could have imagined under
conventional wisdom worst-case scenarios. Following the US's betrayal of Israel
and its de facto detente with Iran, we cannot expect Israel to copy
longstanding US doctrines of no-first-nuclear-use and preferences for
conventional-weapons-only war plans. After all, both were premised (especially
after the USSR's 1991 collapse) on decades of US nuclear and conventional
supremacy. If there ever were an unassailable case for a small, frighteningly
vulnerable nation to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons to shock, economically
paralyze, and decapitate am enemy sworn to its destruction, Israel has arrived
at that circumstance.
Why? Because Israel has no choice,
given the radical new alignment against it that now includes the US, given
reported Obama threats in 2014 to shoot down Israeli attack planes, his
disclosure of Israel's nuclear secrets and its Central Asian strike-force
recovery bases, and above all his agreement to help Iran protect its enrichment
facilities from terrorists and cyberwarfare – i.e., from the very
special-operations and cyber forces that Israel would use in desperate attempts
to halt Iran's bomb. Thus Israel is being forced, more rapidly and irreversibly
than we appreciate, into a bet-the-nation decision where it has only one
forceful, game-changing choice -- early nuclear pre-emption – to wrest back
control of its survival and to dictate the aftermath of such a survival strike.
Would this involve many nuclear
weapons? No – probably fewer than 10-15, although their yields must be
sufficiently large to maximize ground shock. Would it produce Iranian civilian
casualties? Yes but not as many as one might suppose, as it would avoid cities.
Most casualties would be radiological, like Chernobyl, rather than thermal and
blast casualties. Would it spur a larger catalytic nuclear war? No. Would it
subsequently impel Russia, China and new proliferators to normalize nuclear
weapons in their own war planning? Or would the massive global panic over the
first nuclear use in anger in 70 years, one that would draw saturation media
coverage, panic their publics into urgent demands for ballistic missile
self-defense systems? Probably the latter.
The Iranian elite's ideology and
controlling political psychology is inherently preferential towards nukes and
direct population targeting as a way to implement Shi'ite messianism and
end-times extremism. Iran is a newly nuclear apocalyptic Shi'ite regime that
ranks as the most blatantly genocidal government since the Khmer Rouge's
Sorbonne-educated leaders took over Cambodia in April, 1975. Senior Iranian
officials have periodically tied nuclear war to the return of the Twelfth Imam
or Mahdi, which Iran's previous president anticipated within several years.
This reflects not just the triumphalist enthusiasm of a new arriviste nuclear
power that just won more at the table than it dared to dream. It also reflects
a self-amplifying, autarchic end-days theology that is immune to both reality
testing and to Western liberal/progressive tenets about prim and proper nuclear
behavior.
Admittedly, Iranian leaders have
lately resorted to envisioning Israel's collapse in more restrained terms
through Palestinian demographic takeover of the Israeli state and asymmetric
warfare. Still there remains a lurid history of Iranian officials urging the
elimination of Israel and its people, of allocating their nukes to Israeli
territory to maximize Jewish fatalities, of Iranian officials leading crowds in
chants of “Death to Israel!” Iran's government also released a video game
allowing players to target various kinds of Iranian ballistic missiles against
Israeli cities – this as part of intensive propaganda drumming up hatred of
Jews. A more recent video game envisions a massive Iranian ground army marching
to liberate Jerusalem. In all, Iran's official stoking of genocidal Jew hatred
is far beyond what Hitler’s government dared to advocate before the 1939
outbreak of World War 2.
The deliberate American silence over
Iran's genocidal intentionality sends an unmistakable signal to Israel that the
US no longer recognizes a primordial, civilizational moral obligation to
protect it from the most explicit threats imaginable. It is truly on its own,
with the US in an all-but-overt alliance with its worst enemy. The shock to
Israel's leaders of this abrupt American lurch into tacitly accepting this
Iranian intentionality cannot be understated. Iran is violating the core tenets
of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, a US initiative after the Tokyo and Nuremberg
war-crimes trials to codify genocide as a crime against humanity. Now the US is
silent.
But this shift is also recent. Every
US government prior to President Obama would have foresworn nuclear talks with
such a psychopathic regime or would have walked out in a rage upon such
utterances. Yet Iran's genocidal threats have had no discernible effect on
Obama's canine eagerness for a deal. It's as if 75 years ago a US president had
cheerfully engaged in peace talks with Hitler and his SS entourage despite learning
the details of the Nazis' secret Wannsee Conference where Hitler signed off on
the Final Solution for the Jews. But whereas Hitler had the sense in that era
to keep that conclave secret, Iran's Wannsee intentionality toward Israel and
world Jewry has for years been flamboyantly rude-and-crude and in-your-face.
That this Iranian advocacy of a second Holocaust drew no objection from the US
negotiators of this deal should make moral pariahs out of every one of them –
including our president and Secretary of State.
These two factors alone, especially
the abrupt evaporation of the US's ultimate existential bargain with Israel
through Obama's de facto alliance with the mullahs, would drive Israel to the
one attack option it can unilaterally use without running short of munitions
and experiencing the massive US coercion embedded in that dependence. But there
are other reasons why early Israeli nuclear pre-emption is not only justified
but almost mandatory.
First, it is too late to stop Iran's
bomb-making momentum with conventional weapons or sanctions. That nation's
science and technology base is robust and improving. It has learned to
domestically produce high-performance gas centrifuges whose uranium gas output
is such that smaller numbers of them are needed for breakout. The US spent
decades and many billions at labs like Oak Ridge National Laboratory on
composites, software-controlled magnetic bearings, gas flow separations,
thermal controls and ultra-precision manufacturing for these thin-wall, very-high-speed
devices. Yet Iran has come up the centrifuge learning curve with surprising
speed. Its metallurgists are familiar with a novel aluminum forging method that
may yield nanophase aluminum shells so strong that they approach the
centrifugal strength usually associated with more demanding composite-shell gas
centrifuges. Also, Iran's bomb engineering and physics can tap the
sophisticated bomb designs and re-entry vehicle (RV) skills of North Korea,
which is reducing the weight and mass of its H-bombs to fit on ballistic
missiles and whose collaboration with Iran reportedly included Iranian
technicians at North Korean bomb tests.
Other technology sources in the
Nuclear Bombs R Us cartel for wannabe proliferators set up by rogue nuclear
scientist A.Q. Khan of Pakistan include China, Russia and Pakistan. Worst of
all, under the US-Iran deal, Iran's ballistic missiles can improve their
reliability, accuracy, throw-weight and their post-boost RV-release thrusters.
Second, Iran's underground nuclear
targets are likely harder than American and Israeli hard-target munition (HTM)
developers have assumed. Why? Because Iranian engineers have perfected the
world's toughest concrete, developing mixtures using geopolymers, quartz
powders (called fume) and metal and ceramic fibers. The result is hardness
levels reportedly up to 50,000-60,000 psi in experimental samples. This means
that even shallow “cut and cover” hard targets like the Natanz centrifuge
enrichment plant, an armored complex in an excavated pit that is then covered,
can resist destruction by the US's most lethal hard-target bomb: the 30,000-lb
“Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” Only the B-2 and the B-52 can carry the MOP. Yet
while the MOP can penetrate ~200 ft into 5000-psi targets, it only reaches 25
feet into 10,000-psi concrete – and Iranian cement for new or up-armored
underground bunkers has likely progressed well beyond that.
US and Israeli HTM alternatives
include staged-warhead penetrators and – high on the wish list – novel
energetic chemistries with orders-of-magnitude more power than current HTMs.
Tactical HTMs with up to four sequential warheads use precursor warheads to
blast an initial opening for larger follow-through charges to destroy tanks,
fortifications and bridge piers. But these impact at slow speeds compared to
what's needed to kill deep hard targets. The latter need superhard casings
(probably single-crystal metals) and packaging to keep their sequenced charges
intact during violent impacts of thousands of feet/second (fps). One benchmark
is the Department of Energy's Sandia lab's success years ago in firing a
simulated hard-target RV into rock at 4400 fps. Similarly, reactive-material
(RM) munitions and next-generation HEDM (high-energy-density material)
explosives and energetic chemistries with orders-of-magnitude more power look
promising for the future. But these require years of iterative fly-redesign-fly
testing to assure they'll survive impact with their deep targets.
Bottom line: with even the US's best
non-nuclear HTMs marginal against Iran's critical deep targets, Israel's HTMs
probably wouldn't do the job either, being lower in kinetic energy on target.
Alternatives like using HTMs to destroy entrances to such targets and
ventilation shafts may work – but unless Iranian military power and recovery
are set back months or years, this damage would be repaired or worked round.
Moreover, nuclear facilities tunneled into mountains would be almost impossible
to destroy with conventionals.
Still, the brains behind Iran's
nuclear bomb, missile and WMD is concentrated in soft targets like the Iranian
universities run by the IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps), custodian of the
bomb program). These can be hit by conventionals under a Peenemunde targeting
strategy to kill as many weapon scientists and technicians as possible. (This
recalls Prime Minister Winston Churchill's directive for British bombers to
target the residential housing on the small Baltic island where Hitler had
sited his V-2 rocket program.) Alternatively, conventional or nuclear EMP
(electromagnetic pulse) or HPM (high-power microwave) weapons could destroy for
months all the computers and communications that support university-hosted bomb
work. This would keep these scientists and surrounding urban populations alive.
Third, Obama's decision to provide Iran “training courses and workshops
to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear
security threats, including sabotage, to nuclear facilities and systems as well
as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection
systems” is the clearest indicator that this accord is aimed squarely at Israel.
Why? It eliminates the sole option Israel has left now that it lacks the
US-supplied conventional HTMs to destroy unexpectedly hard deep targets,
forcing it at best into a slow-motion conventionals-only campaign. This would
expose it to brutal political and military blowback by Iran and its Chinese,
Russian and European suppliers – and by an enraged American president. In
essence, it appears that the Obama regime has under the accord deliberately
stripped Israel of every option except nuclear pre-emption – which Obama, in
typically liberal-progressive fashion, assumes would never happen. Ergo, Israel
would be forced to accommodate Iranian military supremacy.
Fourth, what may drive an early
Israeli nuclear attack are two considerations: (a) Russian S-300 ATBM/SAMs (anti-tactical
ballistic missile/surface-to-air missile) in Iranian hands; and (b)
Hezb’allah's thousands of missiles. Russia's agreement to supply Iran four
batteries of its fearsome S-300 by late August for defending priority targets
would make it very difficult for Israel to mount the complex precision bombing
strategies needed for tough targets. The S-300, the world's best, can knock down
high-speed aircraft from near ground level to almost 100,000 feet. It can also
engage some ballistic missiles.
Meanwhile, Hezb’allah's arsenal of
more than 60,000 rockets (by some estimates) is a much greater threat to
Israel, especially its air force, than is appreciated. Hezb’allah has
retrofitted an unknown fraction of these missiles, whose range now covers
almost all of Israel, with GPS and precision guidance, allowing them to hit
critical targets. Unfortunately, Israel's Iron Dome and David’s Sling
interceptors were designed on the assumption that most incoming missiles would
be inaccurate and so the interceptors could be saved only for those approaching
critical targets. The result? Hezb’allah rocket campaigns targeting Israeli
airbases and other military targets could quickly run Israel out of
interceptors. Iran could easily order such a campaign to throw Israel off
balance as it focuses on the deadly US-abetted nuclear threat from Iran.
An Israeli nuclear pre-emption is
thus eminently thinkable. Every other option has been stripped away by Obama's
decision, concealed from Israel, Congress and our allies until it was too late
to challenge, to let Iranian bomb-making R&D run free and to harden Iran's
bomb-making infrastructure against Israel – while imposing lethal restrictions
on Israeli countermeasures and forswearing any US and allied military attacks,
such as B-2's and B-52's dropping MOP bombs.
The die is now cast. Nuclear
pre-emption becomes attractive to a nation in extremis, where
Israel is now:
...Israel needs to impart a
powerful, disorganizing shock to the Iranian regime that accomplishes realistic
military objectives: digging out its expensive underground enrichment plants,
destroying its Arak plutonium reactor and maybe Bushehr in the bargain, killing
its bomb and missile professionals, scientists and technicians, IRGC bases, its
oil production sites, oil export terminals and the leaders of the regime where
they can be found.
...its initial strike must move very
fast and be conclusive within 1-2 hours, like the Israeli air attack opening
the 1967 Six-Day War. The goal is to so stun the regime that Israel controls
the first and subsequent phases of the war and its ending. This means that
Israel must hit enough critical targets with maximum shock – and be willing to
revisit or expand its targets – so as to control blowback and retaliation from
Iran's allies. In essence, this involves a very fast-paced Israeli redesign of
the Middle East in the course of a nuclear war for survival.
...what is poorly appreciated is
that nuclear weapons from 10 to 300 kilotons (KT) – depending on accuracy – can
destroy deep hard targets to 200+ meters depth by ground coupling if they
penetrate merely 3 meters into the ground (Effects of Nuclear Earth
Penetrators and Other Weapons: National Research Council /
National Academy Press, 2005, pp. 30-51). Israel could lower bomb yields or
achieve deeper target kills by its reported tests of two-plane nuclear attacks
in which the first plane drops a conventional HTM like a GBU-28 to open up a
channel; the second plane drops its tactical nuclear bomb into that 'soft'
channel for greater depth before bursting. This unavoidably would produce
fallout on cities downwind. Fortunately, the same medical countermeasures used
for radiological accidents (Chernobyl accidents, etc.) – potassium iodide
pills (available domestically from www.ki4u.com) – can be airdropped for use by
exposed urbanites.
...the more important objective,
however, is decapitation and economic paralysis by EMP and HPM effects that
destroy all electronic, electrical and electromechanical devices on Iranian
territory. While a high-altitude nuclear burst would affect most of Iran's
territory, it may not be necessary if smaller, lower-altitude weapons are used.
...A small number of nuclear weapons
(10-15?) may suffice: one each for known underground hard targets, with one
held in reserve pending bomb-damage assessments; several low-yield bombs for
above-ground bomb-related depots; and low-yield neutron weapons to hit IRGC and
regime targets while avoiding blast and fallout. Reactors can be hit with
conventional HPM pulse weapons to burn out electrical, electronic and
electromechanical systems for later reactor destruction by Special Forces. A
targeting priority (using antipersonnel conventionals) would be
university-hosted bomb/missile scientists.
...Israeli F-15s and F-16s provide
the most accurate delivery for the initial phase – assuming that the S-300
batteries can be decoyed, jammed or destroyed (where Israeli air force
experience is unmatched). The small stock of Jericho-2 ballistic missiles
probably would be held in reserve. They can't be used against buried targets
unless their re-entry vehicles (RVs) are fitted with penetrator casings and
decelerators like ribbon parachutes (used to slow down US test RVs for
shallow-water recovery at Pacific atolls) to avoid disintegrating on impact.
(Both methods require flight-testing, which is detectable.) Israel's Dolphin
subs in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean can launch nuclear or (probably)
conventional cruise missiles with cluster munitions for IRGC targets.
The final issue is how Israeli and
US leaders would operate in these conditions. An Israeli decision to go nuclear
would be the most tightly held decision in history, given the prospect of
out-of-control blowback by our current president if that was leaked. Still,
Israel sees itself being driven into a Second Holocaust corner, possibly within
weeks as the S-300s begin deploying around Iran's nuclear targets. Once it
decides nukes are its only way out, it would simulate and map out all possible
event chains and surprises once it launches. Unavoidably, it would also have to
decide what to do if it learns the US is feeding its pre-launch mobilization
information to Iran, using its electronic listening posts and missile-defense
radars in the region. It may have to jam or destroy those US sites.
For the US, however, this no-warning
nuclear war would land like a thunderbolt on an unprepared White House that
would likely panic and lash out as Obama's loudly touted “legacy” goes up in
smoke. The characteristic signatures of nuclear bursts would be captured and
geolocated by US satellite. The commander of NORAD (North American Aerospace
Defense Command) under Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs would call the
White House on the famous red phone. (As one of the few civilians who sat
through a red phone alert at NORAD in July 1982, after a Soviet missile sub
launched two test missiles off the Kamchatk Peninsulaa, I can testify it is a
frightening experience for which nothing prepares you.) Given the psychology of
our current president and his emotional investment in his Iran deal, what might
follow could challenge the military chain of command with orders that
previously were unthinkable.
Now retired, John Bosma draws on a
40-year background in nuclear war-gaming and strategic arms control (SALT 1 and
2, Soviet arms-racing and SALT violations, US force upgrades) at Boeing
Aerospace (1977-1980); congressional staff and White House experience
(1981-1983) in organizing the “Star Wars” ballistic missile defense (BMD)
program and proposing its “defense-enforced strategic reductions” arms-control
model adopted by the Reagan State Department; military space journalism
(1984-1987); and technology scouting in conventional strategic warfare, rapid
(1-2 hours) posture change in space, novel BMD engagement geometries with
miniature air-launched interceptors, counter-WMD/terrorism, naval BMD and
undersea warfare. Clients included DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency), the Missile Defense Agency, the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD)
Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, the Navy and the He follows Israeli
forces and BMD and has studied Iran's nuclear R&D programs. All of his work
is open-source
***
***
I was shocked when I read this article. Let’s hope it
will not come to this.
