Military action is a last resort, we are told. Intense diplomacy is the way forward. Sanctions will curb the Iranian nuclear threat. However, with politicians in both the United States and Iran taking up unyielding positions, the risk of military conflict between the two countries remains high. Undoubtedly the USA and its allies have contingency plans for a military attack on Iran. President Bush has made clear his resolve that the Iranians will not be allowed to build up a nuclear capacity that might allow them to develop nuclear weapons.
Supporters of a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities like to present that option as a modern version of Israel's air strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Then Israeli bombers carried out a surgical strike on Iraq's first nuclear reactor while it was still under construction. The facility was heavily damaged and Saddam Hussein's nuclear plans were put back by years. Embroiled in war with Iran, the Iraqi dictator could do little to retaliate against Israel, while the international community restricted itself to diplomatic condemnation of the raid.
All that was more than twenty-five years ago. Today any serious attack on Iran's nuclear sites would require a much bigger military operation than the Osirak raid. Widely scattered, well defended, and with many important facilities hidden underground, Iranian nuclear sites could only be destroyed by a concerted attack from overwhelming air power, including aircraft and missiles. There are a dozen confirmed or suspected nuclear facilities in Iran, of which those at Bushehr, Arak, Natanz and Isfahan are the most important. The Iranians have sworn to protect these facilities with all their forces. At the very least, American attackers would need to destroy Iranian air defences (radars, missiles and airfields) to ensure their own safety.
Iran has threatened to respond to any attack with missile strikes on Israel and on American bases in the Persian Gulf area. Thus attacks on Iranian air defences would need to be extended to include the destruction of Iranian long-range missile forces. Similarly, Iran has threatened to attack tankers in the Gulf and close its entrance at the Strait of Hormuz so as to deal a major blow to world oil trade. To pre-empt this possible mode of retaliation, American attackers would also have to neutralise Iranian naval forces, both the regular navy and the 'mosquito fleet' of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Thus it is obvious that any major American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities could not just be a case of hitting a few sites in a surgical strike. A large scale onslaught on all Iran's air, naval and missile forces, plus command and control systems, would be necessary to remove Iranian defences and to prevent any serious military retaliation by that country.
The current Iranian government appears to think that it can use its co-religionists, the Shias of Iraq, as a threat to restrain the Americans from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. They believe Iraqi Shias will rise up and attack American and other coalition forces if Iran is attacked. This may be a dangerous miscalculation, as the Iraqi Shias have disappointed Iranian expectations in the past. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s the Shias of Iraq, the majority population, did not rise up in any numbers to support Iran. This reluctance might be attributed to the efficiency of Saddam Hussein's repressive apparatus, but it gives pause for thought.
Similarly, a country is not an automatic friend of Iran just because it has a Shia majority in its population. This is shown by the ambivalent relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan, with the latter country now largely seen as being in the Western camp. Indeed there has been talk of establishing US bases in Azerbaijan on Iran's north-western border.
Shias now have a degree of political dominance in Iraq that they have not enjoyed for more than 350 years. While some Shia militants might be ready to launch attacks in the aftermath of an American assault on Iran, many Iraqi Shias might well refuse to do so, fearing to lose all their poltical gains since 2003. If Iran actually sent troops into Iraq there is no guarantee they would be well received by the local population.
If those wishing to attack Iran are presenting a misleading picture of the nature of such a strike, many Iranians cling to possibly false hopes that fear of Shia reaction in Iraq will discourage the Americans from taking military action. The result of miscalculations on both sides may well be that what is billed as a surgical strike will instead produce a regional war which will do incalculable damage to the world economy.
Nevertheless a military showdown may be avoided. Twice before Iran has found itself on the brink of war with the United States. First in 1988 during the so-called 'tanker war' in the Gulf, and secondly after the Iranian-backed terrorist attack on American military personnel at Khobar in Saudi Arabia in 1996. On both occasions the Iranians turned away from conflict. Despite the strident rhetoric of President Ahmadinejad and his colleagues, we must hope that moderates in the Iranian government will also prevail on this occasion.
