The Wargaming says Iran will get nuclear weapons

Fom ALDaily  - The Atlantic Online - Will Iran Be Next? .  An interesting report on an american wargaming exercise covering the military options with regard to Irans development of nuclear weapons.  the writer concludes.

So this is how the war game turned out: with a finding that the next American President must, through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited. "After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers," Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

what also became clear to me is that it is very unlikely that Israel will bomb Iran.  The two main reasons of which only the first was covered in the article are : iraq involved a close country and a single facility.  Iran learned from Osirak and there would be a high political cost and a high probablity of a failure to completely destroy their ability to retaliate, so why provoke it.  the second is that Sharon is no longer in power and it is likely that the government of Israel is unlikely to be strong enough to take the political risk.

Militarily the options for America counter or preemptively striking Iran were quite likely to be successful.  The option was considered of regime change and opposed by all involved for obvious reasons.

My conclusion is that the US government will offer something similar to what Maggie told the iraqis.  Diplomatic means will be used to slow their progress towards Nuclear Weapons, but the consequences of Iran ever pre-emptively striking Iraq or israel would be very high.

Iran will get nuclear weapons and they will be "encouraged" not to use them.  The political consequences of action against Iran are now too high.  So that is what the anti war protestors have now achieved.  They have made it possible for a madman like the leader of Iran to get nuclear weapons.  It makes the world a far more dangerous place.

Comments

[AL]

While its true Iran's facilities are apparently more distributed than Israels, Israels striking power is now far more advanced.

They have Strike Eagles (long range deep penetrators designed to attack Warsaw Pact installations behind the front lines), and long-range modified F16's (they conformal fuel tanks along the spine of the aircraft). Both carry Israeli-designed missiles and electonic warfare systems, built after long experience with Soviet-designed aircraft and SAM networks.

And the Iranians have yet to install current generation Russian SAM's. They've been ordered, but not delivered.

If an Israeli strike occurs it will probably be in the next couple of months before those SAMs are installed, otherwise American stealth aircraft of some sort will be required to neutralise the SAM sites before the nuclear facilities can be attacked.

[sagenz]

I have no doubt that israel could effectively take out a number of iran nuclear sites. But unlike Osiraq they could never be sure they got all of them. If Iran has 20 key sites now they would be put back 2 years and would distribute their nuclear activities over 100 sites then 500 in the middle of tehran. Israel does not have the capacity to wage war on iran. It is therefore a reasonable conclusion that Iran will get nuclear weapons. Better that Israel has not been the first to attack in that event.
On your final para I think that Israels decision making is paralysed. I very much doubt the next leader will want his first action to precipitate a missile war in the middle east. Imagine - Israel strikes. Iran says. We will strike back when we have the means. What does israel do next. ask the americans to help? We started a fight with the big guy next door and he is now threatening to beat us up. Not a reality