RE: New Concerns That Israel Is Close To Striking Iran's Nuclear Facilities
August 18, 2012 at 12:29 am
(This post was last modified: August 18, 2012 at 12:41 am by Anomalocaris.)
You place too much faith in hard military power. The scenario Iran wants to create is far isreal, after hitting some Iranian nuclear installation, be then drawn into an endless medium intensity war against groups like hazballah, which are well organized, well supplied, fanatical irregulars in tactically oriented guerrilla movement with nation state sponsor ship, more like Vietcong than al Qaeda.
Israel will be compelled to use hugely costly hard power weapons to strike at cheap fanatics, inflicting collateral casualties with each blow, thus at once incensing muslim public opinions and enlarging the pool of volunteer fanatics with each blow, and forcing Israel in a trap whose other side is Israel's own domestic political reason. Isreal would be compelled for domestic political reason to keep trying to score tactical victories of the sort that puts strategic victory further and further out of reach.
While Israel is thus fully and expensively engaged, Iran would only need to drip in low cost weapon and cheap training to its deniable proxies to keep it going. But all the time, the west leaning despotic Sunni regimes would find itself ever more between a rock - western pressure to not give into anti-Israel public sentiment, and a hard place - domestic anti-Israeli sentiment and the extremist groups it spawns.
Iran is counting on the fact that those west leaning despotic Sunni regimes will be the first to crack in this complex game.
Over the last few years, Iranian has been very cunning in supplying its proxy guerillas with the sort of weapon and tactics that forces Israel to make massively disproportionate countermeasures.
For example, they gave hazballah a single Chinese made anti ship missile they purchased in the 1990s. This missile hit and badly damaged on Israeli corvette. Who would have thought a rag tag band of guerilla would be able to fire a sophisticated sea skimming missile at a state of the art vessel from a real navy? All of a sudden every Israeli patrol boat must be equipped with multimillion dollar missile defense systems. Who knows whether the hazballah has another such missile.
They gave hazballah a single Russian smart mine. The mine blew up a merkava 5 tank and killed everyone inside. Who would have thought a rag tag band of guerillas would be able to utterly demolish one of the world's strongest tanks? All of a sudden every Israeli patrol must be circumspect and screen its tanks with vulnerable infantry
Israeli military is well equipped and enjoy superiority in one type if war. Iranians are very cunning in forcing another type of war upon the Israelis in which they enjoy no overall advantage.
Israel will be compelled to use hugely costly hard power weapons to strike at cheap fanatics, inflicting collateral casualties with each blow, thus at once incensing muslim public opinions and enlarging the pool of volunteer fanatics with each blow, and forcing Israel in a trap whose other side is Israel's own domestic political reason. Isreal would be compelled for domestic political reason to keep trying to score tactical victories of the sort that puts strategic victory further and further out of reach.
While Israel is thus fully and expensively engaged, Iran would only need to drip in low cost weapon and cheap training to its deniable proxies to keep it going. But all the time, the west leaning despotic Sunni regimes would find itself ever more between a rock - western pressure to not give into anti-Israel public sentiment, and a hard place - domestic anti-Israeli sentiment and the extremist groups it spawns.
Iran is counting on the fact that those west leaning despotic Sunni regimes will be the first to crack in this complex game.
Over the last few years, Iranian has been very cunning in supplying its proxy guerillas with the sort of weapon and tactics that forces Israel to make massively disproportionate countermeasures.
For example, they gave hazballah a single Chinese made anti ship missile they purchased in the 1990s. This missile hit and badly damaged on Israeli corvette. Who would have thought a rag tag band of guerilla would be able to fire a sophisticated sea skimming missile at a state of the art vessel from a real navy? All of a sudden every Israeli patrol boat must be equipped with multimillion dollar missile defense systems. Who knows whether the hazballah has another such missile.
They gave hazballah a single Russian smart mine. The mine blew up a merkava 5 tank and killed everyone inside. Who would have thought a rag tag band of guerillas would be able to utterly demolish one of the world's strongest tanks? All of a sudden every Israeli patrol must be circumspect and screen its tanks with vulnerable infantry
Israeli military is well equipped and enjoy superiority in one type if war. Iranians are very cunning in forcing another type of war upon the Israelis in which they enjoy no overall advantage.
