WASHINGTON — Massive, devastating air strikes, a full dose of "shock and awe" with hundreds of bunker-busting bombs slicing through concrete at more than a dozen nuclear sites across Iran is no longer just the idle musing of military planners and uber-hawks.
Although air strikes don't seem imminent as the U.S.-Iranian drama unfolds, planning for a bombing campaign and preparing for the geopolitical blowback has preoccupied military and political councils for months.
No one is predicting a full-blown ground war with Iran. The likeliest scenario, a blistering air war that could last as little as one night or as long as two weeks, would be designed to avoid the quagmire of invasion and regime change that now characterizes Iraq. But skepticism remains about whether any amount of bombing can substantially delay Iran's entry into the nuclear-weapons club.
Attacking Iran has gone far beyond the twilight musings of a lame-duck president. Almost all of those jockeying to succeed U.S. President George W. Bush are similarly bellicose. Both front-runners, Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani, have said that Iran's ruling mullahs can't be allowed to go nuclear. "Iran would be very sure if I were president of the United States that I would not allow them to become nuclear," said Mr. Giuliani. Ms. Clinton is equally hard-line.
Nor does the threat come just from the United States. As hopes fade that sanctions and common sense might avert a military confrontation with Tehran - as they appear to have done with North Korea - other Western leaders are openly warning that bombing may be needed.
Unless Tehran scraps its clandestine and suspicious nuclear program and its quest for weapons-grade uranium (it already has the missiles capable of delivering an atomic warhead), the world will be "faced with an alternative that I call catastrophic: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran," French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned.
Bombing Iran would be relatively easy. Its antiquated air force and Russian air-defence missiles would be easy pickings for the U.S. warplanes.
But effectively destroying Iran's widely scattered and deeply buried nuclear facilities would be far harder, although achievable, according to air-power experts. But the fallout, especially the anger sown across much of the Muslim world by another U.S.-led attack in the Middle East, would be impossible to calculate.
Israel has twice launched pre-emptive air strikes ostensibly to cripple nuclear programs. In both instances, against Iraq in 1981 and Syria two months ago, the targeted regimes howled but did nothing.
The single-strike Israeli attacks would seem like pinpricks, compared with the rain of destruction U.S. warplanes would need to kneecap Iran's far larger nuclear network.
"American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak nuclear centre in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq," said John Pike, director at Globalsecurity.org, a leading defence and security group.
"Using the full force of operational B-2 stealth bombers, staging from Diego Garcia or flying direct from the United States," along with warplanes from land bases in the region and carriers at sea, at least two-dozen suspected nuclear sites would be targeted, he said.
Although U.S. ground forces are stretched thin with nearly 200,000 fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the firepower of the U.S. air force and the warplanes aboard aircraft carriers could easily overwhelm Iran's defences, leaving U.S. warplanes in complete command of the skies and free to pound targets at will.
With air bases close by in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan, including Kandahar, and naval-carrier battle groups in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, hundreds of U.S. warplanes serviced by scores of airborne refuellers could deliver a near constant hail of high explosives.
Fighter-bombers and radar-jammers would spearhead any attack. B-2 bombers, each capable of delivering 20 four-tonne bunker-busting bombs, along with smaller stealth bombers and streams of F-18s from the carriers could maintain an open-ended bombing campaign.
"They could keep it up until the end of time, which might be hastened by the bombing," Mr. Pike said. "They could make the rubble jump; there's plenty of stuff to bomb," he added, a reference to the now famous line from former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Afghanistan was a "target-poor" country.
Mr. Pike believes it could all be over in a single night. Others predict days, or even weeks, of sustained bombing.
Unidentified Pentagon planners have been cited talking of "1,500 aim points." What is clear is that a score or more known nuclear sites would be destroyed. Some, in remote deserts, would present little risk of "collateral damage," military jargon for unintended civilian causalities. Others, like laboratories at the University of Tehran, in the heart of a teeming capital city, would be hard to destroy without killing innocent Iranians.
What would likely unfold would be weeks of escalating tension, following a breakdown of diplomatic efforts.
The next crisis point may come later this month if the UN Security Council becomes deadlocked over further sanctions.
"China and Russia are more concerned about the prospect of the U.S. bombing Iran than of Iran getting a nuclear bomb," says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Tehran remains defiant. Our enemies "must know that Iran will not give the slightest concession ... to any power," Iran's fiery President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday. For his part, Mr. Bush has pointedly refused to rule out resorting to war. Last month, another U.S. naval battle group - including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman with 100 warplanes on board and the Canadian frigate HMCS Charlottetown as one of its screen of smaller warships - left for the Persian Gulf. At least one, and often two, carrier battle groups are always in the region.
Whether even weeks of bombing would cripple Iran's nuclear program cannot be known. Mr. Pike believes it would set back, by a decade or more, the time Tehran needs to develop a nuclear warhead. But Iran's clandestine program - international inspectors were completely clueless as to the existence of several major sites until exiles ratted out the mullahs - may be so extensive that even the longest target list will miss some.
"It's not a question of whether we can do a strike or not and whether the strike could be effective," retired Marine general Anthony Zinni told Time magazine. "It certainly would be, to some degree. But are you prepared for all that follows?"
Attacked and humiliated, Iran might be tempted, as Mr. Ahmadinejad has suggested, to strike back, although Iran has limited military options.
At least some Sunni governments in the region, not least Saudi Arabia, would be secretly delighted to see the Shia mullahs in Tehran bloodied. But the grave risk of any military action spiralling into a regional war, especially if Mr. Ahmadinejad tried to make good on his threat to attack Israel, remains.
"Arab leaders would like to see Iran taken down a notch," said Steven Cook, an analyst specializing in the Arab world at the Council on Foreign Relations, "but their citizens will see this as what they perceive to be America's ongoing war on Islam."
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Building tension
The confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program has been simmering for more than five years. These are some of the key flashpoints.
August, 2002: Iranian exiles say that Tehran has built a vast uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak without informing the United Nations.
December, 2002: The existence of the sites is confirmed by satellite photographs shown on U.S. television. The United States accuses Tehran of "across-the-board pursuit of weapons of mass destruction." Iran agrees to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
June, 2003: IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei accuses Iran of not revealing the extent of its nuclear work and urges leaders to sign up for more intrusive inspections.
October, 2003: After meeting French, German and British foreign ministers, Tehran agrees to stop producing enriched uranium and formally decides to sign the Additional Protocol, a measure that extends the IAEA's ability to detect undeclared nuclear activities. No evidence is produced to confirm the end of enrichment.
November, 2003: Mr. ElBaradei says there is "no evidence" that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. The United States disagrees.
February, 2004: An IAEA report says Iran experimented with polonium-210, which can be used to trigger the chain reaction in a nuclear bomb. Iran did not explain the experiments. Iran again agrees to suspend enrichment, but again does not do so.
March, 2004: Iran is urged to reveal its entire nuclear program to the IAEA by June 1, 2004.
September, 2004: The IAEA orders Iran to stop preparations for large-scale uranium enrichment. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell labels Iran a growing danger and calls for the UN Security Council to impose sanctions.
August, 2005: Hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is installed as Iranian President as Tehran pledges an "irreversible" resumption of enrichment.
Jan. 10, 2006: Iran removes UN seals at the Natanz enrichment plant and resumes nuclear fuel research.
February, 2006: The IAEA votes to report Iran to the UN Security Council. Iran ends snap UN nuclear inspections the next day.
July 31, 2006: The UN Security Council demands that Iran suspend its nuclear activities by Aug. 31.
Aug. 31, 2006: The UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its work on nuclear fuel passes. IAEA says Tehran has failed to suspend the program.
Dec. 23, 2006: The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously adopts a binding resolution that imposes some sanctions and calls on Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities and to comply with its IAEA obligations.
March 24, 2007: The Security Council unanimously approves a resolution broadening UN sanctions against Iran for its continuing failure to halt uranium enrichment. Iranian officials call the new measures "unnecessary and unjustified."
April 10, 2007: Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs says Iran will not accept any suspension of its uranium-enrichment activities and urges world powers to accept the "new reality" of the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
May 23, 2007: The IAEA says in a new report, issued to coincide with the expiration of a Security Council deadline for Tehran, that Iran continues to defy UN Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment and has expanded such work. The report adds that the UN nuclear agency's ability to monitor nuclear activities in Iran has declined due to lack of access to sites.
Oct. 24, 2007: The United States imposes new sanctions on Iran and accuses the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps of spreading weapons of mass destruction.
Sources: BBC, Reuters, Financial Times, Radio Free Europe
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Target: Iran
Despite continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has ample air and naval power to strike Iran. In addition to nuclear installations, other likely targets include ballistic missile sites, Revolutionary Guard bases, and naval assets.
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Syria: Earlier this year, Israel bombed a site in Syria's Deir ez-Zor region that it suspected was part of a nascent nuclear program.
Osirak: Israel in 1981 had its aircraft bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor before it became operational.
Natanz: Believed to be Iran's primary uranium-enrichment site and a key target of any attack.
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B1: A supersonic, intercontinental bomber, capable of penetrating deep into defended airspace and dropping more than 50-tonnes of conventional bombs on a single mission.
B2: America's biggest stealthy long-range bomber, capable of flying half-way around the globe to deliver up to 23 tonnes of bombs on multiple targets.
F-117: The original stealth fighter, almost invisible on radar, was used to drop the first bombs in both Iraq invasions.
F-18: Carrier-borne fighter-bomber capable of many roles from air combat to bombing missions.
EGBU-28: The newest of the U.S. "bunker busters," it uses a GPS guidance system and can penetrate six metres of concrete to deliver four tonnes of high explosives.
SOURCES: FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS, GLOBAL SECURITY.ORG, ASSOCIATED PRESS
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International/?pageRequested=1
REBUTTAL TO BIASED SPIN IN ARTICLE ABOVE:
The full text of the statement reads as follows:
At the very outset, NAM would like to recall its principled positions on this issue, as reflected in the Statement on the Islamic Republic of Iran's Nuclear Issue adopted in the 14th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Havana, Cuba, on 15 and 16 September 2006.
The Heads of State or Government reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right of all States, to develop research, production and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations. Therefore, nothing should be interpreted in a way as inhibiting or restricting this right of States to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
They furthermore reaffirmed that States' choices and decisions in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear technology and its fuel cycle policies must be respected.
The Heads of State or Government recognized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the sole competent authority for verification of the respective safeguards obligations of Member States and stressed that there should be no undue pressure or interference in the Agency's activities, especially its verification process, which would jeopardize the efficiency and credibility of the Agency.
The Heads of State or Government welcomed the cooperation extended by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the IAEA including those voluntary confidence-building measures undertaken, with a view to resolve the remaining issues. They noted the assessment of the IAEA Director-General that all nuclear material declared by Iran had been accounted for. They noted, at the same time, that the process for drawing a conclusion with regard to the absence of undeclared material and activities in Iran is an ongoing and time-consuming process. In this regard, the Heads of State or Government encouraged Iran to urgently continue to cooperate actively and fully with the IAEA within the Agency's mandate to resolve outstanding issues in order to promote confidence and a peaceful resolution of the issue.
The Heads of State or Government emphasized the fundamental distinction between the legal obligations of States to their respective safeguards agreements and any confidence building measures voluntarily undertaken to resolve difficult issues, and believed that such voluntary undertakings are not legal safeguards obligations.
The Heads of State or Government considered the establishment of nuclear-weapons-free zones (NWFZs) as a positive step towards attaining the objective of global nuclear disarmament and reiterated the support for the establishment in the Middle East of a nuclear- weapon-free zone, in accordance with relevant General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. Pending the establishment of such a zone ,they demanded Israel to accede to the NPT without delay and place promptly all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive IAEA safeguards.
The Heads of State or Government reaffirmed the inviolability of peaceful nuclear activities and that any attack or threat of attack against peaceful nuclear facilities -operational or under construction- poses a great danger to human beings and the environment ,and constitutes a grave violation of international law, principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and regulations of the IAEA. They recognized the need for a comprehensive multilaterally negotiated instrument, prohibiting attacks, or threat of attacks on nuclear facilities devoted to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The Heads of State or Government strongly believed that all issues on safeguards and verification, including those of Iran, should be resolved within the IAEA framework, and be based on technical and legal grounds. They further emphasized that the Agency should continue its work to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue within its mandate under the Statute of the IAEA.
The Heads of State or Government also strongly believed that diplomacy and dialogue through peaceful means must continue to find a long term solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. They expressed their conviction that the only way to resolve the issue is to resume negotiations without any preconditions and to enhance cooperation with the involvement of all necessary parties to promote international confidence with the view to facilitating Agency's work on resolving the outstanding issues.
NAM welcomes the efforts made by Iran and the IAEA Secretariat in the implementation of the of the Work Plan as contained in INFCIRC/711 on Understanding of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Agency on the Modalities of resolution of the Outstanding Issues, which was reflected in the Summary of the previous report of the Director General as a significant step forward. NAM believes that these steps will facilitate the negotiation between Iran and the concerned parties in order to have a peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue.
In these regards NAM is pleased to note that the Report of the Director General establishes, inter alia, the following progress in the implementation of the Work Plan:
The Agency has been able to conclude that answers provided by Iran on the declared past P-1 and P-2 centrifuge programme are consistent with its findings.
Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on issues raised in the context of the Work Plan.
On 8 November 2007, upon the request of the Agency, as reflected in the paragraph B of the Work Plan, Iran had provided to the Agency a copy of the 15-page document on Uranium metal.
NAM welcomes this substantive progress and is optimistic that the remaining questions will be resolved with the proactive cooperation of Iran with the IAEA.
NAM welcomes the conclusion of the Safeguard Approach and the Facility Attachment for the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, which entered in force on September 30, 2007. NAM hopes that this would facilitate the Agency comprehensive and full safeguards verification implementation at this facility.
NAM also takes note that the Director General expressed once again that the Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of declared material in Iran, and that Iran has provided the Agency with access declared nuclear material, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities. NAM also notes that the Agency has not found indications of on-going reprocessing activities In Iran.
NAM reiterates its full confidence in the impartiality and professionalism of the Secretariat of the IAEA and of its Director General, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei. In light of some recent development, NAM strongly rejects any undue pressure or interference in the Agency's activities, especially in its verification process, which will jeopardize its efficiency and credibility. Particularly, In this connection NAM reiterates its full support for the recent steps taken by the Director General in order to resolve the outstanding issues on Iran.
The 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency held its regular year-end meeting on Thursday.
A number of different topics are supposed to be brought up for discussion during the meeting, which is expected to last two days.
The IAEA's technical assistance and cooperation (TAC) committee has just wrapped up a three-day meeting of its own, the results of which would be presented to the UN nuclear watchdog's board.
IAEA Director General Mohamed Elbaradei said on Thursday that "Our progress over the past two months has been made possible by an increased level of cooperation on the part of Iran, in accordance with the work plan."
Addressing the IAEA Board of Governors on Thursday, he said with regard to Iran's current nuclear activities, "We have been able to verify the non-diversion of all declared nuclear material. We also have in place a safeguards approach for the Natanz facility that enables us to credibly verify all enrichment activities there," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei gave a complete report to IAEA Board of Governors on Iran's cooperation with IAEA.
In his report, ElBaradei underlined that Iran's report on P1 and P2 centrifuge enrichment technologies have been correct and transparent.
At the very outset NAM would like to thank the Director General for his introductory statement, which highlights the main issues to be considered in the present session of the Board of Governors.
NAM takes note that the Governments of the Republic of Chad and of the Republic of Mozambique have decided to conclude comprehensive safeguards agreements with the Agency as well as the corresponding protocols additional to those agreements.
NAM also takes note of the decision of the Republic of the Cote d'Ivore to conclude an Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement with the Agency.
On behalf of the Vienna Chapter of Non-Aligned Movement we would like to thank the Director General, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, for his update on the implementation of safeguards in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
NAM reiterates its desire for the total realization of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and its continued support for the Six-Party Talks, as a way to find a long term solution to the Korean nuclear issue through diplomacy and dialogue. NAM had therefore welcomed the Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks as well as the agreement on the Initial Actions for its Implementation, reached in Beijing on 13 February 2007.
In this context, NAM notes with satisfaction that the monitoring and verification activities, as envisaged under the" Initial Actions", are being implemented with the cooperation of the DPRK and the active participation of the IAEA. NAM encourages the Agency and the DPRK to continue its efforts in this regard.
