The Sunday Telegraph is quoting British defense sources as saying an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites by American forces is “inevitable.”
It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is “inevitable” if Teheran’s leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.
[…] The United States government is hopeful that the military operation will be a multinational mission, but defence chiefs believe that the Bush administration is prepared to launch the attack on its own or with the assistance of Israel, if there is little international support. British military chiefs believe an attack would be limited to a series of air strikes against nuclear plants – a land assault is not being considered at the moment.
But confirmation that Britain has started contingency planning will undermine the claim last month by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that a military attack against Iran was “inconceivable”.
[…] Tactical Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from US navy ships and submarines in the Gulf would, it is believed, target Iran’s air defence systems at the nuclear installations.
That would enable attacks by B2 stealth bombers equipped with eight 4,500lb enhanced BLU-28 satellite-guided bunker-busting bombs, flying from Diego Garcia, the isolated US Navy base in the Indian Ocean, RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Whiteman USAF base in Missouri.
It is understood that any direct British involvement in an attack would be limited but may extend to the use of the RAF’s highly secret airborne early warning aircraft.
Fascinating. Because I was about to reverse my long-held idea that when it happens, the USAF planes will have the Israeli flag painted on them to give the U.S. plausable deniability. Now, I’m more and more inclined to believe that the IAF will be flying side-by-side with the USAF.
Or maybe the IAF will paint its planes with the USAF logos. Hmmm.
I do think the attacks on the facilities are inevitable, because I don’t think Iran will stand down.
The attacks have become both probable and problematic due to Russia’s apparent shipment of highly advanced, MIRV missiles and 200-knot torpedoes to Iran in the past few days. Iran is trying to give Russia plausible deniability by claiming that they developed these weapons, but they do not have the technical manufacturing capacity to do so.
chsw
Israel will not be involved. America does not want to hear the “US-Israel alliance” attacked Iran. The US wants to let the world know that Iran is a threat to the entire world not just Israel. President Bush will not paint American planes with the Star of David but will be a stand up guy and unapologetically say that we did it. Besides, Israeli planes do not have the range to reach Iran from Israel and return. I also think that most of the attacks will be done by Tomahawk cruise missiles.
A recent article on aircraft identification pointed out that it is basically impossible to tell what is painted on aircraft when they fly bombing or strafing missions. Consider how close commercial jets must be before you can tell what company it is from. Aircraft are normally identified because of their silhouettes. THus, it would not be possible for a repainted fighter to be identified as belonging to a particular country unless it deliberately flew “low and slow” or was shot down.
The Mullahs will say Israel was involved anyway.
Thanks Brits, for making this public.
Since Iran already considers it is at war with the USA and has been feeding the Iraqi terrorists for a long time to give effect to this idea, we should return the favor and declare war on Iran, formally and in due form. It’ll shock the hell out of everybody.
Do something really bad, diplomatically and economically, to the stupid Russians. Do they really think Iran is innocuous to them, or that America is their primary enemy in a world of Islamist terrorism? It wasn’t Americans at Beslan.
I don’t believe that Iran is going to stand down. It is just a matter of time before the mullahs are forced to take cover.