Israelis not capable of Iranian strike

General Martin Dempsey


According to the New York Times today, America is trying to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. General Martin Dempsey said it was “not prudent at this point” to attack Iran and “a strike at this time would be destabilising.”


American military analysts think it’s fraught with danger and a bad idea. Israeli jet pilots would have to fly more than 1,000 miles across hostile airspace, refuel in the air, fight off Iran’s defenses while bombing underground nuclear sites - and they would need at least 100 planes to do it.


Michael V. Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009, said last month that airstrikes capable of seriously setting back Iran’s nuclear program were “beyond the capacity” of Israel, in part because of the distance that attack aircraft would have to travel and the scale of the task.


Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, a retired top Air Force intelligence official said “All the pundits who talk about ‘Oh, yeah, let’s bomb Iran,’ it ain’t going to be that easy.” And the British agree. British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC that attacking Iran would not be “the wise thing” for Israel to do “at the moment.” One fear is that the US would be “sucked into finishing he job” and they could do it in spades.


Should the United States decide to get involved, the Pentagon has the ability to launch big strikes with bombers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, followed up by drones that could carry out damage assessments to help direct further strikes. Unlike Israel, the US has plenty of refuelling options, bombers could fly from Al Udeid air base in Qatar, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or bases in Britain and the United States.


But there’s a problem, experts say it will be difficult to penetrate Iran’s deepest nuclear facilities and are working on enhancing the existing 30,000 pound bomb called “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” that was specifically designed for Iran and North Korea. “There’s only one superpower in the world that can carry this off,” General Deptula said. “Israel’s great on a selective strike here and there.”


So Israel has been told, in no uncertain terms, to back off.