Op-Ed: What An Israeli Attack On Iran Will Look Like

First up, one major leading indicator, from the awesome HuffPo Iran page:

Army General David Petraeus told Congress that "the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."

While Iran insists its nuclear program is intended for peaceful power generation, Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said "Iranian officials have consistently failed to provide the assurances and transparency necessary for international acceptance and verification."

So that's General Petraeus' POV. His word's been bond of late. To be honest. If I were Israel, this kind of apocalyptic talk from the potential fanatical wild-eyed button-pushers in Iran would make me nervous, too. By the way, who else but Iran places anti-aircraft batteries at their peaceful nuke sites? Food for thought. THIS JUST IN: More food for thought. An interesting sidebar from Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld at the Huffington Post: 'Does Iran Harbor Osama bin Laden'? Now, before any of you go jumping off the deep end with Saddam and his non-WMDs, I'm just reporting this stuff, okay? Actually, HuffPo is. Take it up with them. Next up, yet another leading indicator from The Atlantic, which quotes the new hardline leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to President Obama: stop Iran or I will. He too has been a man of his word in the past. By the way, there's been some controversy over what it was Prime Minister Netanyahu actually said in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg clears that up on his blog here. He said it. Done deal. So there it is. Looks like things are heating up all around: Iran's nuke program, Israel's new Prime Minister, and the temperature in the Oval Office. But before we look ahead to what such an attack will look like, barring any major world intervention (yawn), we only need look back to Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear reactor in Tuwaitha, Iraq, which the Israelis took out on June 7, 1981, in what was dubbed Operation Opera. Say that three times fast! The Wiki page also shows a map charting the course of the Israeli strike. In an ironic twist, the Iranians themselves had struck at Osirak with F-4 Phantoms on September 30, 1980, during the Iran-Iraq War. Their birthday present to me during the Hostage Crisis, who'd a-thunk it? In even more blackly comic fashion, the Iranians were screaming just as loudly about Iraq's nuclear program as the Israelis. Most believed it was only a matter of time before either Israel or Iran took potshots at Osirak. Look at the Iranians' POV at the time. Saddam was already bombarding them with chemical weapons, in violation of nearly every international convention there was. Was it really much of a stretch to think he'd nuke Tehran? As it turned out, both Iran and Israel had their fun. Israel, however, won the Kewpie Doll. Which brings us to today. Iran has changed its tune on shady nuke programs. Israel has not. Do the math. The challenges to Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, with Natanz being the prime target of any such strikes, are distance and airspace, which present far greater complications than their strike on Osirak. They only had to cross over a curiously passive Saudi Arabia to invade Iraqi airspace then. Distance really isn't much of a problem, considering Israel has been striking Hamas-bound Iranian weapons convoys in the Sudanese desert. Much greater distance than to Osirak. Mid-air refueling is the Bomb. But look at a map of the region today. In any possible contingency, Israel would have to cross into the airspace of at least two countries, including Syria, Jordan and/or Saudi Arabia. Yet regardless of what flight path they take, unless they go a thousand miles out of their way they must cross through Iraqi airspace, now patrolled by both the American and Iraqi Air Forces. Very complicating factor for the Israeli Air Force, especially if President Obama and the Iraqi leadership aren't on board. Neither seem to be at the moment. But less us look also at the thousand-miles-out-of-the-way contingencies which do not involve Iraqi airspace. The possibility of flying over Jordan and Saudi Arabia may be a lot less of a hostile proposition than you might think. Iran's nuke program is making a lot more of its neighbors than just Israel nervous. Some might look the other way. Like, say, Saudi Arabia. Israel could, of course, bypass the whole problem of flying attack aircraft through potentially hostile airspace by lobbing a few well-placed ballistic missiles at Natanz and other nuke sites in Iran. Unlike Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il's North Korea and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran, Israel has the technology down as well as we do, if not even better in some ways. So, Dear Readers, it really isn't much a matter of 'if' as to when and how Israel will attack Iran's nuke sites. I take Benjamin Netanyahu at his word. Israel did not stand for an existential nuclear threat from Iraq in 1981. They will not stand for one now from Iran. The countdown is on. Let us turn the tables for a moment. Let us hypothesize that Mexico was a hostile fanatical Thugocracy, and had been attacking and killing us for years in every way from suicide bombings to rocket attacks, as well as threatening to exterminate us one American at a time. And today was working on a shady nuke program, much of it shielded from international eyes, while they now threaten to exterminate us quickly. Would YOU want to take that chance? As a Bonus Prize, here are some contingencies that have already been thought out and considered from as far back as 2007, from people far more knowledgeable on the subject than I. Here's Iran's contingency response plan, which includes strikes at Israel's nuke facilities. But Israel's got Missile Command now. This, of course, could explode into a regional conflagration. Can't make an omelet with breaking a few eggs. That's an OpEd for another time, but I believe it would involve Hezbollah attacking from the North, and Hamas from the South. They've been doing Iran's dirty work for years. They're probably drawing up contingency plans of their own right now for their leash-holding masters in Iran. Like I said, things are heating up. I know it's gonna happen. Don't want it to happen. Well, okay. I do. But I would prefer they wait until July 4th this time. But wait! There's more!