Attack Iran? Some Long-Range Nightmare Scenarios

By Allen J Duffis
Published: March 2, 2006

When I was a young boy in the late 1940’s, I loved listening to “The Lone Ranger” on radio.  The ‘masked rider of the plains’ always managed to vanquish his adversary, completely, riding off into the sunset with his Indian companion, shouting victoriously “Hi, Yo Silver!” as proof positive of his deed done.

Unfortunately, in real life, that sort of scenario doesn’t work very well. And when it comes to failed international politics and resultant military actions of last resort, it doesn’t work at all. 

When the Lone Ranger rode out of town, there was never any unfinished business.  But Sarajevo, Korea, and Iraq prove that such is not the finality one hopes for when it comes to poking your nose, recklessly, into some other nations internal affairs.  The ‘morning after’ can be very long, costly and bloody. 

Therefore it is time for the planners of the next chaotic foray into world politics to first investigate, with a high degree of intensity and thoroughness, the full extent of possible ramifications of a preemptive action against a sovereign state, again, namely Iran.  A country whose only crime it would appear is its desire to possess a nuclear deterrent – like we, Russia, Great Britain, France and Israel have?

Point One: Like billiard balls on a table, there is an interconnection between forces thousands of miles apart marked, most notably, by a trail of oil. The players who have it: Great Britain, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran.

Point Two: There is an interconnection by those who need oil, some desperately: China, North Korea, Japan, India and the United States.

Point Three: The states that have ample supplies to sustain themselves should major shortages ‘suddenly’ develop are – Russia, Great Britain, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait.

Point Four: The states almost immediately affected by ‘sudden’ shortages of oil are – the United States, China, Japan and India.

Point Five: The states most likely to seek leverage power in world politics, by gaining control of specific oil suppliers during protracted shortages are – Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

Point Six:    The Russians and Chinese have developed strong alliances with the Iranians and Venezuelans, while we, for the moment, have “war-time” control over Iraq (whose pumping and refining capacity is in major disrepair). Who does that leave most affected by a ‘sudden’ shortage of oil?   America!

No matter what they may say now, should we independently (or heaven forbid in conjunction with Israel) attack the Iranians, the Russians will cuddle up to them in the ‘long term’ when the Iranians offer hard cash for armaments and aircraft to re-supply themselves.

After such an attack, the Saudis will have to make at least a token slowdown in supply to appease their angry neighbors, and the Venezuelans (15-20 percent of our imported oil) will shut off export of crude to the U.S, diverting said to China, India and Japan.  And as a result of these actions, the U.S. economy will almost certainly go into severe meltdown.  Our currency may drop dramatically in value and other world powers will almost certainly curtail, or cease, the purchase of dollars.

Therefore, other than for purposes of national bravado, what long-term advantages can be gained for America, by attacking Iran?  None that I can see, and note the key word here again is ‘long-term’.

There are, however, some ‘long-term’ disadvantages that may result from such an attack. And these possible outcomes should be thoroughly investigated, before such an attack is contemplated.  The key word here is ‘people’.

The population of Iran is approximately 70 million people; most of who reside in densely populated urban areas.  The country at present has 4 nuclear processing sites that we know of at the following locations: The Natanz facility (a mainly underground plant which is the center of their nuclear program): the Arak heavy water reactor site, which is 150 miles southwest of the capitol, Tehran; the 1000 megawatt light water reactor Bushehr facility; and the site at Esfahan which processes fuel for the reactors at Arak and Bushehr.  This site also houses a research reactor built with French assistance, and a plutonium reactor that was built with Chinese technical assistance. Click here for a detailed map of Iran's nuclear facilities.

It is important to note, however, that reliable intelligence sources suspect that Iran (a country so vast that it managed to hide a nuclear reactor for years) may have an equal number of operational nuclear development sites that are well hidden.  And there is strong evidence to believe there is credibility to this suspicion.

Even with so called surgically accurate ‘pinpoint’ Cruise missile attacks on the known facilities (launched by ships in the Persian Gulf or from Iraq), there is no way to avoid a massive loss of Iranian life on the ground: site workers and personnel, soldiers and inhabitants of surrounding areas.

The Ultra Right advocates such military strikes; seeming without taking into account that site personnel have relatives throughout the country.  Instead they blindly speak and agitate toward the hope that the upwardly mobile young modern thinking generation of Iran, will eventually revolt (with American covert assistance) and overthrow the Mullah run government.  I don’t think so.

More than likely the reaction of Iranian youth to such a massive air attack that kills many of their relations and countrymen, will mirror that of Americans to 9-11. Can any sane person think that such would not be the case?

Now here is the clincher.  The Iranians are well aware that we might just decide to attack without well thought out resort to reason: and they have openly made preparations for such an eventuality.  It has been noted recently that they have begun to move and diversify their international holdings (an estimated 22 billion in foreign exchange reserves), making it extremely difficult to isolate and freeze all of their foreign assets as was done with Iraq.

They have also placed their 325,000 standing man army (in a country 3 times the square mileage of Iraq) on full alert. And they have a reserve pool of an estimated 240, 000 conscripts to call upon in an emergency, along with a 22 million of age male population.  All told invasion is, for all intents and purposes, out of the question – even if we had the forces to do so – and we don’t.

Finally, it is said the Devil is in the details, but in this case, he may well be in the ‘possibilities’ born of such an attack.  Think about it.  I am quite certain Iranian President Alireza Rafsanjani has.

America’s greatest fear is that an Iranian nuclear weapon may find its way into the hands of a terrorist group, like al Queda.  Well if your country is massively attacked and, for the moment, your nuclear ambitions are quashed, what other options for revenge are open to you?   How about these two possibilities?

One: You load portions of your stores of already processed nuclear material into the effective medium-range missiles you have, and fire them at Israel.  Of course, the Israelis will retaliate, in all likelihood, with something a bit more powerful than a simple dirty bomb missile.

Two: You give some portion of your stores of already processed nuclear material or highly radioactive waste product to a terrorist group: and they put together a ‘dirty bomb.’   Any fool can work out the rest. 

Are you reading this carefully President Bush?