WORLD AGENDA: NUCLEAR-ARMED IRAN IS FEAR AS NETANYAHU VISITS OBAMA
James Hider

Times Online
April 1, 2009

Israel’s outgoing leader Ehud Olmert speaks to Mr Netanyahu before
the start of the swearing-in of the new coalition government

It was the first issue he mentioned after being elected, and was
uppermost on his mind again this week when he swore in his government:
it is safe to say that a nuclear-armed Iran will also be top of the
agenda when Israel’s new Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, meets
Barack Obama in Washington next month.

Mr Netanyahu’s constant reminders of the existential threat facing
his country – he has compared it to the Nazi Holocaust – leave him
little room to back down, as military intelligence increasingly points
to the fact that Iran is about to acquire a nuclear weapon.

The question on everyone’s lips is, behind the rhetoric, will –
and can – Israel go it alone? If so, how?

The bombing of an Iranian arms convoy being smuggled through Sudan
to Gaza in January proved that range is no problem. And Israel’s
daring bombing of Syria’s suspected nuclear reactor, which was being
developed with Iranian backing, in 2007 showed that the Israeli air
force – which swung through Turkish air space to avoid sophisticated
Syrian missile defences – does not lack ingenious methods of attack.

In the Sudanese bombing, the Israeli military used F-16 fighter-bombers
escorted by F-15 fighters to ward off any possible counter-strike by
Sudanese jets while they destroyed their target. Then unmanned drones
surveyed the wrecked convoy, showing it was only partially damaged,
upon which the high command ordered the bombers in for a second strike.

The use of drones has revolutionised warfare in recent years. They can
circle at high altitude for far longer than manned fighters, gathering
intelligence or delivering a small but often deadly payload. In the
recent Gaza war, they were what Hamas fighters feared most – an unseen
enemy tracking them, capable of striking or calling in the big guns
at a minute’s notice. They can also be shot down without the risk
of losing an airman’s life, or the high cost of mounting a rescue or
facing a hostage situation.

They may already have been deployed in Israel’s efforts to counter
Iran’s dash to nuclear capacity. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian
President, said last month that unidentified drones – widely assumed
to be Israeli–disrupted the launch of a rocket carrying Iran’s
first satellite into space. Hovering at great height, the intruder
jammed electronic communications, causing a delay of several hours
and necessitating the use of back-up systems to complete the launch.

The belligerent President was also reported to have decided to use
fighter planes to shoot the drone down – as US forces did to an Iranian
drone in Iraqi air space recently — but for unexplained reasons the
order was not carried through.

The message of the intrusion was clear, however: Israel can penetrate
Iranian airspace with impunity, and in Syria and Sudan it has shown
that it retains the capacity to launch long range attacks such as
the 1981 destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, which permanently
derailed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear programme.

Logistically, Israel has a number of ways of approaching Iran. There
was speculation last year that Israel’s close military ties to Georgia,
which came to light during the Russian invasion of South Ossetia,
extended to using it as a launch pad to attack Iran, heading south
through Armenian airspace before anyone had time to react.

The key question is what Iran’s response would be, and on that will
hang US backing. Aside from its long-range missiles, quite capable of
reaching Israel, Iran has powerful proxies spread across the region
and poised to strike at Israel or the over-extended US military.

The Sudanese convoy reportedly contained rockets for Hamas that could
reach Tel Aviv from Gaza. Combined with the Katyusha rockets that
Iran’s allies Hezbollah could fire from the north, Iran’s tentacles
would have been able to reach deep into the heart of Israel’s coastal
population20centres.

Iran could also stir up serious trouble militarily for the US in
Afghanistan and Iraq, supplying training, weaponry and financing to
the various militias there, as it gave deadly and almost unstoppable
EFPs — explosively formed penetrators — to the Shia Mahdi Army in
Iraq, and, allegedly, to al-Qaeda affiliates.

So when Mr Netanyahu visits Washington, he will be drawing on all
his credentials as a security expert and articulate advocate of the
use of force to persuade Mr Obama that all options should, indeed,
be on the table, as he has so often told his domestic audience.