What Kind of Help?

Forgive me, but I must disagree with you here. ANY support worries me, particularly now that Iran is talking about the end of America just like she is talking about the end of Israel.

hey I hear ya John, no one wants these bozos to have the bomb. But remember that in the end, we hold all the aces. They simple cannot employ these things against us without retaliation.

Israel, different story....which is why I suspect that the clock is nearing midnight...

I don't know what to believe about their program anymore. Other than the fact that they're continuing it, that is.

Over at Hot Air there's a commenter in the thread on this topic called NPP. Says he worked for CENTCOM recently and he went into great depth about why this is unlikely in several postings there. Check it out.

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/24/telegraph-north-korea-helping-iran-to-prepare-for-nuke-test/

An arab muslim country, cutting backdoor deals with a athiestic communist country, in areas concerning thier most high and precious weapons program, is a bad bad sign.

The inherent differences and vast geographical seperation between these two countries should be enough to make them only casual partners at the most, yet here they are colluding with each other about thier favorite subject. Throw Venezuala in the mix with its radical socialism, glinting interests in other peoples turf, and this is starting to look kinda like the pre WWII days, back when a overspoken german racist set up a deal with a couple Italians and a bunch of ambitious asians who happened to live on the other side of earth.

Of course the Germans, Italians, and Japanese, didn't own vast amounts of the worlds oil. It is well documented that this one detail was both a prime motivator in these countries going rogue, and a prime reason for several of thier most crushing defeats. This new axis is showing up in better shape, and with a more precise goal. (Destruction of the US and allies, as compared to simple geographical and global domination) the world has only grown more willing to appease them, and we are to busy enjoying our so called peace dividend to really prepare.

Why do US officers think it is just so easy for "Israel to take out the Iranian nukes?" When we see that the most powerful Air Force in the world, the USAF is not acting. So what makes you think that a MUCH weaker Air Force would be able to do it? How exactly is the IAF supposed to fly over three enemy countries- bomb targets scattered across an area the size of France and Germany, penetrate the Russian MTor SAMs and hit bunkers built into mountains. Seriously, I would like to hear how this air campaign is going to go down, considering that Isreal has only 50 F-15Is..

whoa slow down there Fishman, no one said it'd be "easy."

Difficult, but not impossible.

Here's one way it could be done.

John,

That article you linked is a political ploy by Israel to intimidate Iran. Given the almost complete lack of outcry in Israel about the leak of what would be a top secret real world war plan, I think it's safe to say that is not a likely scenario.

It has many practical problems as well. Think of the consequences of an Israeli nuclear-armed jet going down over Iran? The key limitation with Israel attacking Iran by air is not the number of F-15I's, but the lack of tanking aircraft. With only about a 1/2 dozen tankers, you can only get a limited number of aircraft into the interior of Iran and back out. And where would the aerial refuelling take place? Over Iraq? Over Saudi? Over the Gulf in Iranian radar coverage?

No, that is one "plan" I'm pretty confident will not happen.

beat you to it Andy, I floated the "calculated leak" idea back when the tacnuke story broke.

However, I'll disagree with you here. When Israel's survivability is in question, there simply are no military certainties. Period.

ps - two tankers could handle the load. Would probably have to fuel there and back. The question is, as you stated, the location of the refueling tracks.

Another idea I've heard is that Israeli commandos establish a refueling point somewhere in northern Iraq, Turkey, or Saudi.

But like I said Andy, as someone who A)is in the air force and B) has studied in Israel, hearing you list problems as if Israel hasn't spent 50 years beating those type of odds, I'm very skeptical as to the legitimacy of your argument.

John,

I was in both the Navy and Air Force.

I guess we could debate the number of tankers required for a strike package, but of course everything is in the details. What route? The shortest is overland, but the safest is probably an all-water route. How many targets? Just Natanz? What about support aircraft? You and I both know the number of aircraft beyond strikers for threat suppression, etc. can easily be a 5 to 1 ratio for a raid against a heavily defended site (which the nuclear sites are).

I suspect, as you seem to indicate, that Israel will have more creative plans than what we discuss here - something deceptive or designed to exploit Iranian weaknesses.

But for the public plan we're discussing, nuclear weapons on tactical aircraft for a long range mission against an opponent who expects an air attack is pretty dangerous in my view. Why risk a nuke falling into Iranian hands when Israel could use a ballistic missile? If the situation is desperate enough to consider nukes then a guaranteed, accurate strike that cannot be interdicted is the way to go.

There are many other problems with the plan in that article. First, consider nuclear weaponeering - to get the penetration needed against a pinpoint target the aircraft would have to be at altitude and therefore in the envelopes of Iran's strategic SAM's. Then consider that, according to the plan, conventional munitions would "open holes" for the nukes. There will have to be separation between the conventional and nuclear strikers, so when those conventional weapons go off, they'll alert the local air defense right as the nuke strikers are inbound. Pretty risky, wouldn't you agree?

But the biggest strike (pun intended) against the air strike plans littering the press these days is that they're so public. If there's one thing that Israel has demonstrated over the last 50 years, it's good opsec and they would never publicly float a plan they had any intention of executing.

But we'll have to see what the Israeli's do and my bet is that it will be unconventional, daring, and not at all what we expect.

Actually, this guy has a pretty good take on the North Korea - Iran article:

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2007/01/days-most-ominous-development.html