War with Iran looks very unlikely. Anyway, I have asked two experts to describe possible scenarios.

Questions:

1. Would you say there somebody (US, Israel?) who is willing to start full scale war with Iran or only airstrikes on nuclear facilities are maybe the option?

2. Do you think air strikes could effectively cripple alleged nuclear program of Iran? Do you think limited military action could lead to the change of the regime or it would probably cement current regime?

3. What would be in your opinion the reaction of Tehran on airstrikes? What Iran can do from military point of view in the case of the full scale conflict?

4. Reports about plans of military attack against Iran are for some people confirmation some attack is inevitable and about warmongering especially from US and Israel governments. But don't you think it is normal to plan this kind of attack if we perceive Iran as the possible threat?

Answers:

Michal Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

1. No one suggest all out war. What analyst discuss is a campaign similar to that launched against Iraq in 1998, not what occurred in 2003 .

2. Airstrikes could cripple and delay for years Iran’s nuclear program. They could not end it. And the cost of airstrikes would be high. One of the main problems with the airstrikes is that they would solidify the regime. Iranians may not like their government, but they are fiercely nationalistic and would rally around the flag if attacked. Indeed, the best thing ever to happen to the Islamic revolution in its early days was Saddam’s invasion, as it enabled Khomeini to solidify control.

3. Iran would try to close the Strait of Hormuz. Hezbollah would attack Israel. Iranian proxies have already shown themselves ready and willing to attack targets from Baghdad to Buenos Aires. And, Iranian-backed militias would seek to destroy the southern Iraqi oil fields, removing at least 2 millions barrels/day of oil and driving the price up. The Iranians cannot do anything serious in a direct military confrontation, but their asymmetric abilities are formidable.

4. I haven’t heard any thing credible about military plans for the strike. People like Sy Hersh are taken far more seriously in Bratislava than in Washington, as they often print rumors and not fact and, in retrospective, often turn out to be flat-out wrong. But, Israel considers an Iranian nuclear program to be an existential threat, and they will strike if they feel they have no choice. One of the greatest dangers from my perspective is Iranian overconfidence. Washington may have no plans to attack, but Iran may feel it can get away with adventurism it cannot and force the United States into a response. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that the Pentagon deploy forces into the region to add substance to our red lines so there can be no accidental misreading.

Walter Ladwig, doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Merton College, Oxford

1. I do not think that a full-scale war with Iran is a feasible option for either the United States or Israel. With the US Army and Marine Corps heavily committed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (where more US troops are needed), the United States simply does not possess the available manpower or equipment necessary to undertake such an operation or, more importantly, deal with the aftermath of occupation and so forth. Israel’s military, though highly professional and technologically advanced, is also quite small and made up mostly of reservists—so any full scale war requires them to bring their soldiers into the Army from civilian life. Moreover, the Israeli military is not really equipped for long range power projection, it's equipped to repel attacks on Israel proper. I do not believe that Israel possesses either the power projection capability (How would their ground forces actually get to Iran? Sail them through the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf to make an amphibious assault?) or the manpower to mount such an operation. If military action were to be taken against Iran’s nuclear facilities, some combination of airstrikes and cruise missiles are the most appropriate as they provide the accuracy that would be necessary to strike hardened and buried targets. In recent months, Israel has been testing its new generation of ballistic missile the Jericho-3, which appears to have the range to reach targets in Iran, however the available open source reports suggest that they do not have anywhere near the accuracy necessary to strike Iran’s facilities with conventional warheads.

2. While Iran has taken many steps to protect their nuclear facilities from an Osirak-style attack by spreading them throughout the country and burying them underground, there does still appear to be several critical “chokepoints” in their nuclear program that, if destroyed, would significantly delay Iran’s nuclear efforts. In particular the most important facilities to target would be the Plutonium production reactor and associated heavy water facility currently under construction at Arak; the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz; and the uranium conversion facilities in Isfahan . If these were to be significantly damaged or destroyed, Iran’s ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons would be retarded.

I think it is unlikely that limited military action would cause Iran’s government to fall. Despite the arguments of airpower theorists, it is very difficult to find historical examples of governments collapsing or being overthrown domestically due to external airstrikes or bombardment. Even the Germans during World War II lasted through years of the allied strategic bombing campaign. The conventional wisdom with Iran is that the current government is deeply unpopular in many segments of society for its failures in economic and domestic policy, but change will have to come from within Iran. As soon as an external threat is posed to the country (by say the United States or Israel) the Iranian people will rally around the government.

3. Iran has a very limited ability to defend its airspace. The county’s aging air defense systems were only marginally effective during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and would likely be hard-pressed to stop a determined airstrike against the country’s nuclear facilities by a modern air force equipped with advanced technology. Similarly, it pilots are poorly trained so it is unlikely that they their Air Force would be able to successfully intercept a strike force.

However, Iran does possess the ability to retaliate against either the U.S. or Israel . If it wanted to strike back at the United States, it would have a number of options. It could attack US interests in the Middle East region by increasing its support for Shia insurgents/militias in Iraq and could potentially work to destabilize the pro-US Karzai government in Afghanistan (though this latter move would not be in Iran’s long-term interests.) Further abroad, Iran is the primary patron of Hezbollah, who some experts believe would have the ability to carry out terrorist attacks against American targets (perhaps even within the United States) in short order.

From a more conventional standpoint, Iran’s various short and medium range missiles could target U.S. bases and facilities inside Iraq, though such an attack would appear to be an act of war against its neighbor.

The most economically costly (for the United States) course of action Iran could take would be oil related. Iran sits astride the Strait of Hormuz, the most important maritime choke point in the work, through which seventeen-million barrels of oil a day (20% of the world’s oil supply and 93% of oil exported from the Gulf) transits by tanker. Making use of naval mines, land based aircraft and anti-ship cruise missiles, Iran could slow or halt tanker traffic through the Strait for a period of a month or more. While such an effort would be somewhat self-harming, since Iran relies on oil exports for its economy, it could be significantly costly for the United States, in both military and economic terms, to forcibly re-open the Strait to maritime traffic.

4. When people hear about plans for a strike on Iran being drawn up, they need to understand that the job of military organizations around the world is to plan for war. Aside from actually fighting a war, that is their full time job. Of course the U.S. would have some kind of plan for military action against Iran. The mere existence of such a plan does not mean that it is necessarily likely to be executed. It could be simply be a bureaucratic contingency or, more likely, it could also be part of a more complicated part of the signaling, bluffing and diplomacy that is going on between Washington and Tehran. In international relations, drafting or discussing a war plan is a form of implicit threat. Iran cannot rule out a U.S. attack, which signals the seriousness with which American policy makers are talking this issue. The average person may believe that a threat is the opposite of diplomacy, but that is a mistake, threats and diplomacy go hand in hand, and neither can work properly without the other.