ISRAEL AND IRAN - THE STAND-OFF CONTINUES

One of the Middle-East flash-point situations, this being the stand-off between Iran and Israel, is starting to look more serious as days, weeks and months pass by but at least, at this point in time, the two countries are only exchanging insults rather than military hardware.

Israel says that the Iranian nuclear facilities should either be destroyed or removed while Iran says that Israel should be wiped out.

Neither of those suggestions are either viable or desirable but should either side be stupid enough to make an attempted move, the repercussions would be felt well beyond the Middle-East in major ways while in essence, nothing would be gained by either Iran or Israel in both military as well as economic and social terms.

However while there are major differences between Israel and Iran, in a strange way, both countries are similar in many ways.

Given past conduct of both countries, both countries can be and are regarded as rogue states.

Both countries are politically unstable.

Both countries have leaders of unstable and unreliable political capacity, these individuals being Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both leaders have to rely on external influences in order to retain power. In Netanyahu's case it is the ultra-orthodox 'lunitune' right, while Ahmadinejad forever has to seek approval from the likes of Ayatollah All Khamenei, another rather unsavory character.

Both countries have engaged in and have been proven to be guilty of major breaches of international and human rights laws and both countries continue to use grubby and illegal tactics in order to achieve their end.

In Israel's case, the country has been illegally occupying large slices of territory and under Netanyahu, the man who failed to make any decent progress during the last time he was Prime Minister, the country appears to be consolidating its hold of occupied territory despite such consolidation being illegal. In Israel's case also, it is a fact that the Israeli Air Force regularly breaches international borders as in the multiple cases over the Lebanon as well as conduction training patrols off Cyprus, which often only cease when challenged.

Both countries have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and both countries have used such weapons or variations thereof during various conflicts. In terms of nuclear weapons, Israel has well over 100 warheads while Iran currently has two, albeit yet untested. Israel tested its nuclear weapons off South Africa a substantial number of years ago.

Both countries have ready-to-activate stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Israel used illegal weapons during its attacks on Gaza while Iran last used such weapons in anger during the Iran-Iraq conflict.

So what is the scenario in terms of Iran and Israel attacking each other?

To do that we need to look at defence/attack capabilities of each country.

Israel has a well-developed air defence system mainly based on US defence doctrine and equipment.

The air force has later versions of the F15 as well as F16 aircraft. It has an AWACS, ECM, ASW&C capability as well as both Arrow II and Patriot, and versions thereof, ground-to-air defence missiles. Israel also has a large number of 'bunker-buster' bombs. Both the F15s and F16s have air-to-air refuelling capability supplied by modified 707 and more recently 747 aircraft and are thus theoretically capable of reaching Iran.

Israel has Jericho I, II and III ballistic missiles. The one and two versions are known to the outside world while the Jericho III is a still classified three-stage ballistic missile with a 5,000 kilometre range. An even longer range version is under development.

Other mainly US-designed artillery capable of launching projectiles at longer range have also been imported by Israel as have other equipment that Israel would prefer people not to know about.

Iran on the other hand has a weaker aircraft-based air defence system and relies more on missile based air defence systems. Iran has numerous types of both attack and defence missile systems that are being moved around the countryside on a daily basis.

In the attack mode, Iran is well capable of delivering any type of munitions onto any target within the Middle-East, including Israel, and beyond. The weapons, mainly based on North Korean and Russian types have been extensively modified by Korean, Pakistani and other military experts. Iran has a strong, reasonably well equipped land-based army.

Now for the attack scenario upon Iran.

Any land-based attack onto Iran will be out of the question. Iran is not Iraq and any country stupid enough to try it would not even get past first-base.

Any first-strike attack upon Iran with aircraft using bunker-busters would not get far as such aircraft would get intercepted well outside Iran's borders. In the unlikely event that any bunker-busters would hit their target, the object of the target would have been moved.

Missile-based first-strike attacks upon Iran would also have marginal if any effect as, while vulnerable, the Iranian air defence system would be able to cope with incoming missiles independently of the centralised air defence system. And in any case, any target objective would have been moved to another location by that time. The only vulnerable targets in Iran are the above-ground nuclear research facilities and its centralised air defence system.

In Iran's case, any attack upon its oil export facilities would send the oil price spiralling upward pushing the already shaky world economy into a deep recession.

As a consequence of an attack upon Iran, the level of Iranian support for militant and terrorism-based groups throughout the Middle-East and beyond would dramatically increase as to cause a major problem for countries throughout the world but mainly for countries in the Middle-East, Europe, Asia and the US.

An attack upon Iran, illegal as it would be, would thus also be very unwise in strategic terms as well as the fact that, in terms of Iran's nuclear capability, an attack would make very little difference.

As for an attack upon Israel.

A strike-first Iranian attack upon Israel would be a very unwise scenario.

Iran's missiles would be intercepted well before reaching Israel and its command and control system would be rendered defunct very quickly in a first-strike scenario.

Any Iranian attack would be missile-based and would use chemical, biological and conventional explosive warheads. A nuclear attack would be highly unlikely as such an attack would have damage-control consequences for Palestine, the Lebanon, parts of Syria, Jordan and parts of Egypt.

Any attack upon Israel would also have regional consequences for Iran in terms of international reputation as well as its overall support base.

Both of the scenarios are extremely unattractive for both sides concerned as the external preventative and subsequent reactions from third parties and third party groups would be swift in coming and decisive in nature.

So, as far this analysis is concerned my comment with this. "Don't even try it gentlemen, you will only be wasting good hardware".

And for what it is worth.

My name is Henk Luf.
And That's The Way It Is.

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