Copyright by John T. Reed

There seems to be a consensus that Israel will bomb Iran’s nuclear bomb program. Seems to me there is no chance that such an attack would succeed.

I doubt anyone knows exactly where the stuff is. Furthermore, it’s probably at multiple locations underneath mountains.

There is a bunker-buster bomb. There is no mountain-buster bomb. Nuclear bombs could probably destroy a mountain over time if you used enough of them. But Israel dropping nuclear bombs on Iran would probably not be a good PR move. Plus, I doubt Israel knows exactly which mountains to bomb.

Could Israel mount a sort of commando raid like Entebbe? I doubt it. Entebbe only needed to fool some lightly armed airport security. Small bands of Israeli commandos trying to destroy multiple nuclear sites in Iran would probably not succeed at all let alone completely.

Plus there is the fact that such bombings generally have no permanent effects. True, Israel bombed Iraq and Syria and the attacks seemed to have a permanent effect. But in World War II, a post-war study of our strategic bombing of Germany found that Germany was producing more war material at the end of the war than before the bombing campaign. Basically, they moved the factories to mountain caves, which Iran has already done. Even if Israel was totally successful with such an attack, Iran could rebuild. No doubt they would incorporate lessons learned into the rebuilding making it far harder for Israel to succeed a second time.

There are a number of practical problems like a path for Israeli planes to get into and out of Iran.

Presumably, Iran has arranged for distant early warning of such an attack so Israel would not be able to achieve surprise. Indeed, their prior two attacks on Iraq and Syria have probably destroyed their ability to surprise any enemies.

The distance between Israel and Iran is greater than to Iraq and Syria.

The attacks on Iraq and Syria embarrassed the muslim world. Another such attack would increase the cumulative Islamic anger. If Israel can attack other countries, they can attack Israel. Israel was not very impressive militarily in the Lebanon situation in 2006. No one goes undefeated forever. Victories are extremely expensive financially.

I doubt Iran could do very much back at Israel. Israel is a long ways away. Iran seems to me working on missiles to attack israel. That would be about the only way.

Some would probably say I am failing to take into account Israel’s fear on being wiped out and willingness to do anything to prevent that. No, I’m not. I am just saying they have very limited ability to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and other major nuclear military powers are probably the only ones with the ability to deter or destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And they seem not to have the political will to do so in spite of swearing angrily that they will.

I hope U.S. elected officials will consult the American people, not just Israel and its supporters about whether we should go to war with Iran. I suspect we should because of their nuclear bomb program and generally irresponsible actions regarding aggression against other nations since their revolution.

I suspect a U.S.-Iran war is a now-or-later issue, not whether or not. Militarily, now is better. Politically, the American people seem to need a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 to declare war. So the 100,000 or more who die in the first Iranian nuclear attack will be sacrificed to build political will. And the war itself will be more costly than if fought now, but politics reigns. Iran is acquiring weapons of mass destrution. So has North Korea. But WMD has fallen out of favor as a war reason.

I also think we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan now. Iran is a real threat to us. Iraq and Afghanistan are not.