The Unthinkable - A nuclear attack on Israel or the Navy

A recent WSJ article on August 8th by Bernard Lewis, a professor emeritus of Princeton, suggested Iran may have some Armageddon-like event planned around August 22nd, involving an Islamic end of time type event hinted at by the Iranians, and initiated by them. Here is a link to his article: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008768

The article is an attention gainer in its frightening prospects. Mr. Lewis implies to me a good guess is that such an event would be a nuclear explosion in Israel. The source of such a device could be Iran, Russia or one of its former states, or North Korea. In the latter two cases, Iran would have bought the weapon or materials.

This article has had me stewing for the last few days. Here is my speculation. While the date may be wrong, the implications of such an attack seem too possible to me.

Such a device would be the size of a Hiroshima bomb (20 KT). It would be one bomb with a ground detonation or very nearby ocean detonation.

While one bomb would not blow up the entire nation, its devastation would be enormous in or near a population center, probably Tel Aviv. The downwind contamination effects in Jordon, and probably Saudi Arabia would be terrible depending on the weather at the time. The prevailing weather patterns should protect both Syria and Iran.

The political prospect of a shooting world war coming out of this attack are too obvious. Once things spin out of control, who knows what to speculate about. It is almost certain to me that the United States will be caught up in all this.

Mr. Lewis’s article also suggests retaliation by Israel is probably preplanned should political and military command and control be lost. I would agree, and almost certainly Israel has nuclear weapons. The VELA event in the Indian Ocean in 1979 is good evidence. See this link for details: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/nuke-test.htm

What scares me the most is the pattern of behavior of Iranian leaders since the Shah was thrown out, what the Iranian theocrats and politicians have gotten away with internationally (beginning with the Marine and French bombings in the early 1980‘s) , and the probable resulting overconfidence and misjudgments that always result. Now I add Mr. Lewis’s article suggesting the religious aspect, and I am scared.

I imagine Israel and all other concerned nations have government people that have already thought about this possibility, and what to do.

The obvious effort is to stop the delivery of the bomb. Iran is 1,000 miles away from Israel, and the land and sea in between is not friendly to Iran. So I suspect the device would come in by air to Syria and then to be flown or smuggled in to Israel. Since all this is too obvious to the Israelis and the Europeans and the Americans and the Syrians, I suspect this path is being monitored very well.

Iran does suffer from divided interests. The Persians and the conservative military have to tolerate and even compete with the more Arab-like theocrats and politicians and their Army of God (250,000 strong). In my mind, the theocrats and ruling politicians and their Army of God are the ones I worry about. This friction line between the two elements does provide another possible way to prevent delivery of a bomb.

Plan B for the Iranians is to achieve their tactical mission in their local area. This means closing off middle east oil through the Straits of Hormuz (and trying to make it permanent) most likely using cruise missiles from various Iranian coastal areas, primarily Busheur and Bandar Abbas. In my speculation, this Plan B lacks the end of the world aspects Mr. Lewis’s article guesses at.

Plan C for the Iranians is more likely than Plan B, and maybe concurrent with a Plan B. I would expect the Iranians to use a nuclear weapon delivered by a bought and paid for European built diesel submarine (their Russian diesel submarines are too noisy to do the delivery). The nuclear device would take out a US Navy aircraft carrier, or perhaps an amphibious carrier. In either case, the intent would be to prompt the shooting world war mentioned earlier.

The most thoughtful articles recently by Victor Davis Hanson about today and the 1930’s come to mind right now. I always wondered what my ancestors and others thought about events as Hitler and the Japanese told us what they were going to do. Here is a link to one article: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson080406.html

It seems much the same today as the theocrats in Iran, the president of Iran, and many other aggressive mullahs tell me they are going to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, destroy my western culture, convert me to their religion, and assume dictator like powers. I don’t think they are fooling.