Asia Times Special

Asia Times:
More power to the resistance

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

SOUTH LEBANON - A bombed bridge at Zahran near the border with Israel is the first landmark of a war zone. There are grim scenes everywhere, from huge craters to destroyed cars and buildings.

There is a constant noise as Israeli planes criss-cross the sky. People don't know when the next attack will come. Nerves are frayed.

"Don't stop. Keep moving, man! You'll be a sitting duck for Israeli planes," shouted a female journalist coming from Beirut as I took a picture of a bombed car on a main road near Qasmeyeh village, close to the city of Tyre.

We passed through many deserted towns and villages on the way
to Tyre; they seemed like ghost towns. Many walls were plastered with pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iranian revolution of 1979 ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, and dozens of Hezbollah martyrs.

A radio announcement explained the absence of people: more than 50 people, most of them women and children, had died when Israeli jets bombed a building in Qana, about 20 kilometers from Tyre. People were literally hiding for their lives. Israel subsequently agreed to a 48-hour suspension of air strikes in Lebanon.

"Israeli planes are hitting anywhere of their choice and this has caused major destruction. People are displaced from their towns," said a volunteer, Abdul Karim, in Sidon, which has become a center for the internally displaced refugees of south Lebanon.

All the same, Sidon is still a danger zone. On Sunday morning, Israeli planes bombed the Imam Jafer Sadiq Mosque in the heart of the city, as the mosque is administrated by Hezbollah sympathizers.

"Approximately 80,000 people have been displaced here over the three weeks of the Israeli bombings," said Karim. "Others have taken refuge with their relatives in Beirut or other cities, while those who do not have relatives are taking shelter in schools, hospitals and other places. There are 51 of these refugee centers."

Conversations with some of the refugees reveal that while most of the women seek sanctuary, for the men it is a different story.

"Three of my sons are leading the resistance in Der Amis [Tyre]," said Abu Ali Hussain Abdullah, 50. "I have seven children, four are daughters, so I have my wife and four daughters here in Sidon. As soon as I get my family settled with my relatives in Beirut or another safe place, I will also join the resistance."

Becoming misty-eyed, Abdullah said he thinks of his sons constantly, but they are all committed to the "cause".

"Our mission is to defeat Israeli designs to capture our land, and once I get a chance I will also join hands with my sons," said Abdullah.

Jamileh, 70, told a similar story. Her house was hit by an Israeli bomb and all female members were sent away to safe areas. But the men had only one destination - the mountain fastness where Hezbollah is dug in against Israeli forces.

On Sunday afternoon, the first shipment of aid reached the port of Tyre via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The 120-tonne shipment basically comprised food, especially for the border villages of southern Lebanon where there is a serious humanitarian crisis.

"We spoke to Israel before the shipment arrived in Tyre. Israel gave us the green signal that it would allow us to distribute the aid, but later it revoked its clearance, and now we wonder how to utilize this aid," an aid worker in Tyre told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity.

"We cannot go public to describe which towns Israel has refused to let us supply as this would jeopardize our operations," commented Roland Hugelin, the media relations officer of the ICRC in Lebanon.

"Everybody knows where Hezbollah is sitting. Certainly they are not in the cities. They are in the mountains, but still Israel targets urban centers ... you know why?" asked Habib al-Kabir, a resident of Tyre. He then answered himself, "Because now each and every child, young and old, boys and girls, are Hezbollah ... they will defend their country."

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Iran turns crisis into opportunity

By Jason Motlagh
Aug 1, 2006

Regardless of whether or not the Hezbollah attack on Israel that triggered the Mideast crisis was green-lighted by Iran, the Islamic Republic's hardline regime is poised to reap spoils that will ultimately advance its end game - to become a regional power player.

The timing of the July 12 cross-border kidnapping of two Israeli troops by Hezbollah militants led some observers to speculate the move had been coordinated with Tehran, which still bankrolls the Shi'ite movement and has built up a weapons arsenal of 10,000-12,000 rockets or more.

Iran sought to divert international attention from its nuclear program, the argument goes, so it deliberately ordered its Shi'ite proxy in southern Lebanon to make a move that was sure to elicit a strong reprisal. With its nuclear file referred back to the United Nations Security Council and the Group of Eight summit fast approaching, where leaders were slated to chew over possible sanctions, Iran was in a bind. President Mahmud Ahmadinejad had furthermore told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) his country would answer its request to halt its uranium-enrichment program by August 22 - plenty of time to create a smokescreen.

On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Ministry warned that Tehran would abandon the international community's package of nuclear incentives if the UN Security Council approved a resolution against Iran. The ministry said that if the US passed any resolution against Iran on Monday, when it was due to meet, Iran would no longer consider the package.

A draft UN resolution gives Tehran until August 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face the threat of international sanctions.

Hezbollah calling the shots
Most experts agree it is doubtful Iran called the shots over the kidnapping. They note that since its formation in 1982, Hezbollah has operated with greater autonomy from its patron.

It is undisputed that Iran has provided more advanced missile technologies, including mid- and long-range rockets that could in theory strike as far as Tel Aviv. Yet Iran provides between US$25 million and $50 million a year to Hezbollah, or roughly half of what mainstream reports claim; and the numbers of Revolutionary Guard advisers dispatched to aid militants are said to be negligible compared with years past.

"Historically, Iran threw abundant support Hezbollah's way as its forward position against Israel," Cliff Kupchan, director of the Eurasia program at the Eurasia Group think-tank, told Asia Times Online. "There's no sign of Iran's master hand in this case."

Ken Pollack, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, echoed this view at a press briefing. "Hezbollah has been acting much more independently of Iran, especially since the end of the Cedar Revolution, and I cannot rule out the possibility that they [Iranians] were absolutely blind-sided by this."

While Hezbollah's intransigence may look like an attempt by Iran to remind the West of the destructive capabilities it can muster when threatened by harsh policies, an aggressive stance that supports violence hurts Iran on the nuclear issue. Aside from asserting that it would use all "potentials" in the event Israel attacked Syria, Iran has kept a low profile as the fighting rages on. By some estimates, Israel and Hezbollah could exchange blows deep into autumn, a prospect that undoubtedly appeals to an Iranian leadership that has stalled at every turn in the face of international maneuvers to stop its nuclear program.

Even by conservative estimates, however, Iran is five to 10 years from having a nuclear weapon to leverage, so there are other more imminent ramifications to consider. Hezbollah only need survive to win its war with Israel; this amounts to victory by proxy for Iran against its arch-enemy, which seems feasible given Hezbollah's vast weapons stockpiles and low numbers of casualties despite relentless Israeli bombardment. Hezbollah has used but 3% of its rockets, and its home advantage already is readily apparent in the failure of Israel Defense Forces ground troops to make any headway.

Iran realizes that to command legitimate respect vis-a-vis the United States and Israel it needs a nuclear deterrent. But the Mideast crisis is an opportunity to cultivate soft power further under circumstances that might finally transcend the Sunni-Shi'ite divide that has long polarized the region and undercut designs for a sweeping Shi'ite revolution. "If Hezbollah prevails in this conflict," said Brookings' Pollack, "that will greatly raise the prestige, the strength, the influence of Iran's great proxy in the Levant.

"It will draw other countries into Iran's orbit ... Iraqi Shi'ite militias further into Iraq's orbit because Iran will be seen as the ... efficacious state able to stand up to the United States, Israel and its other allies in the Middle East."

Such a scenario dovetails with the mullahs' revolutionary objective to strengthen what King Abdullah of Jordan has called the "Shi'ite crescent" - an Iranian-led bloc spanning from Iran to Lebanon. Although Shi'ites account for just 10% of the Muslim world, they are near parity with Sunnis across these countries and dominate the oil-rich regions of Iran, Iraq and eastern Saudi Arabia. Riyadh's fear of Iran's ascendance to protector of the Arab world's Palestinian cause celebre has of late chilled its support for Hezbollah.

According to Anthony Cordesman, a strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Hezbollah implicitly "shows the Arab and Muslim world that Iran is a government willing to strike at the Israeli enemy - even though it is not Arab or Sunni". He added: "Israel's reprisals ... make it seem in Arab and Muslim eyes as if Iran supports 'freedom fighters'."

While it remains to be seen to what degree Sunnis and Shi'ites can shelve age-old differences to rally against a common enemy, the off-chance cannot be dismissed. In a statement last week by al-Qaeda No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, announcing that the terror franchise would avenge Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the Palestinians, he used a Koranic term often employed by the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's Islamic revolution.
Some have interpreted this to be an overture toward an alliance with Shi'ites, a view buoyed by additional hints from Zawahiri that his organization might help Hezbollah carry out attacks against Israeli targets. Were Lebanon to become an Iraq-style honey pot for Islamic militants of all stripes, experts say that US and Israeli engagements across the region would play to Iran's favor.

For Ahmadinejad and his fundamentalists, pursuit of a regional conflagration may be driven by an apocalyptic vision. The Twelver Shi'ism branch of Islam they subscribe to holds that there were 12 successors (imams) to the Prophet Mohammed, the last of whom never died but went into hiding in the 10th century. The 12th "hidden" imam, or Mahdi, is expected to return to bring justice and peace to a world corrupted, but not before a terrible wave of war is unleashed.

The debate persists among Twelvers over whether the Mahdi's return is destined to follow widespread chaos or if the faithful must establish a just order to summon him from hiding. Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith who has pledged that Israel will one day be "wiped off the map" of the Middle East, has repeatedly made his case for the former.

In his own words, the Islamic "Revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th imam, the Mahdi". During a speech to the UN General Assembly last year, enveloped in "green light", he indicated the end of the world was near. He often praises martyrdom and has presided over an influx of "martyrdom-seeking operations" to enlist volunteers, hundreds of whom have signed up to fight in Lebanon if necessary. One of his first acts on taking office was to donate $17 million toward the construction of the Jamkaran Mosque, where it is believed the Mahdi might one day appear.

But Ahmadinejad's brand of zealotry has irked many prominent Iranian clerics, who have accused him of using religious matters for political gain. As massive capital flights abroad continue and unemployment nears 30% in a country where two-thirds of the population is under 30, a potential erosion of his grassroots support base could have a sobering effect.

For the time being, the attention of Iranians and the international community is dead-fixed on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. Israel has announced plans to call on 30,000 reservists as the likelihood of a full-scale ground offensive looms. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to launch deeper missile strikes against Israel to herald a new phase of the war. And casualties pile higher, with at least 50 Israelis and more than 400 Lebanese, mostly civilians, killed since violence erupted two weeks ago.

Iran's possible nuclear-weapons agenda, meanwhile, has again slipped beneath the radar, but experts say it may yet try to emerge as a peacemaker. According to Pollack, if the fighting drags on and the West is unable to broker a ceasefire, the Iranians may take the stage and offer to rein in Hezbollah in exchange for abandoning the latest nuclear package on offer.

"If the Iranians ... said we can turn off Hezbollah, but you've got to back off our nuclear program ... that would make Iran look like a force for stability in the region," said Pollack. "It would make Iran look like a peacemaker, and that would greatly undermine this international consensus to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear technology."

Curiously, Ahmadinejad told the IAEA that Iran would have an answer for a proposed incentives package to cease its uranium-enrichment activities by August 22. This date just happens to coincide with the Islamic-calendar date Rajab 28, when the Kurdish Muslim warrior Saladin conquered Jerusalem.

Jason Motlagh is deputy foreign editor at United Press International in Washington, DC. He has reported freelance from Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various US and European news media.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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When the devil dislikes the stink of brimstone

By Spengler

It's a bit like the devil disliking the stench of sulfur, but Iran's leaders now complain that the United States has thrown the Middle East into chaos in order to reshape the region. That is a man-bites-camel story. With the exception of the late Yasser Arafat, no one has wielded the weapon of instability with greater skill than Iran. Israel's disproportionate response to the July 12 Hezbollah provocation changed the rules of the game in the region. Whether the players have the presence of mind to exploit the new rules remains an open question.

Persia's new imperialists have grasped the shift in circumstances far more quickly than their obtuse counterparts in Washington. The benefits of chaos most likely redound to the US and Israel, even though squeamishness prevents Washington from thinking this way. The Iranians, who are utterly ruthless, profligate in the expenditure of human blood, and adept at the use of chaos as a strategic weapon, know just what is afoot.

"Israel is pushing the region into utter chaos," warned the July 15 editorial in the Foreign Ministry daily Tehran Times, warning that America's backing for Israel "will harm the whole world, from exacerbation of the global security situation to undermining the world economy". The newspaper added that "the attack on Lebanon has already sent oil prices skyrocketing to an unprecedented high of [US]$78 per barrel". Tehran's instinct remains to respond to the threat of chaos by raising the ante by reference to the oil weapon.

On July 25, "Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said ... that survival of the Zionist regime depends on creation of crises and unrest in the Middle East region," Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. On the same day, "Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said that the United States has thrown the region into chaos to reach its ultimate goal of the new Middle East," again according to IRNA.

Iran now badly wants a ceasefire so that Hezbollah can claim a draw as a victory. A few Israeli analysts, although evidently not the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, understand the game. "In a way, we're playing an old Palestine Liberation Organization game, to precipitate regional instability and then try to bring in international intervention," Israeli defense analyst Michael Oren told the New York Times on July 24. Oren, author of the standard history of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, advocates an Israeli attack on Syrian armored divisions stationed on the Lebanese border.

Asefi and Oren understand the sea-change in the Middle East better than the US or Israeli government. Despite the vehemence of Israel's initial response to the July 12 incidents, Jerusalem remains squeamish about casualties both among Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians. If the enemy employs civilian sites as artillery platforms, and civilians decline to leave after due warning, they are subject to attack. The three-score deaths at Qana are sad, but so were the 180,000 deaths during Lebanon's civil war of 1976-80 and the million deaths during the Iran-Iraq War, including perhaps 100,000 12-to-14-year-old children sent by the Khomeinists into the Iraqi minefields. The political-religious current to which Hezbollah adheres holds the region's record for civilian deaths, despite British Prime Minister Tony Blair's crocodile tears.

Israel's strongest move on the chessboard would be a massive armored incursion into Lebanon to crush Hezbollah combined with limited strikes against Syria. These would be costly in terms of human life, but that is the bill due the devil for fleeing Lebanon six years ago. The Israeli population longs for normalcy, and is loath to sacrifice its young men, a fact with which Hezbollah taunts them. It is far from clear whether Israel will convert a subtle but fundamental change in the regional balance into a strategic breakthrough.

Washington's best move would be an ultimatum to Tehran with a deadline for dismantling its nuclear-weapons program, followed by aerial attacks in the event of non-compliance. Rather than engage the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Washington should take the opportunity to destabilize it. Rather than attempt to hold together its Frankenstein monster in Iraq, it should partition the country. Sunnis and Shi'ites already are fleeing mixed neighborhoods and agglomerating into sectarian strongholds, and a broader population exchange is the best formula to suppress bloodshed.

In other words, in pursuit of its own best interests, Washington should do precisely what the Iranian regime fears that it may do. Tehran's paranoia, of course, runs far ahead of Washington's limited imagination. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is skating in tighter and tighter little circles attempting to limit the war. The US demand for a 48-hour halt in Israeli bombing runs in Lebanon to which Israel acquiesced expresses the delusional hope that Sunni Arab states can be enlisted to oppose Iran and Hezbollah.

Israel, in summary, remains in denial about the failure of its withdrawal policy since 2000, and Washington remains in denial about the absurdity of its plan to stabilize the Middle East through democracy. That gives Iran considerable wiggle room to press ahead from an inherently weakened position.

Given Jerusalem's reluctance to pursue an advantageous position with abandon, it is not clear how the near-term situation will proceed. A multinational peacekeeping force would have to confront a highly effective guerrilla force with a predilection for suicide attacks against foreign soldiers. Unless France is willing to deploy its Foreign Legion, it is hard to identify prospective participants. Most likely the situation will drag on well into August, when Iran must deliver an answer to the United States on its nuclear program.

What cards does Tehran have left to play? It can (1) further destabilize Iraq, (2) deploy terrorists against Israeli and US targets outside the theater, or (3) make good on its threat to wield the "oil weapon".

If Washington really had a conspiratorial bent, it would provoke Tehran into wielding the oil weapon, with the objective of shutting off both Iranian oil exports and its imports of refined product. The world can sustain a loss of Iran's 5% of world oil supply much better than Iran can sustain the loss of 100% of its oil revenues. Gasoline prices in the United States probably would double, ie, to the prevailing level in highly taxed Europe, or the equivalent of $6 a gallon (about $1.60 a liter). The Western economy would suffer, but Iran's economy would implode. The Ahmadinejad regime would collapse in short order.

If Iran could bottle up the Strait of Hormuz, through which two-fifths of world oil exports pass, the position of the world economy might become desperate, but it is likely that the US 7th Fleet could prevent this.

In this scenario, Washington would exploit a one-time shock to oil prices to roll over political obstacles to stringent energy-security measures (rapid exploitation of domestic energy sources, building nuclear power plants, gasoline conservation). US consumption would suffer, but a shift from consumption to investment ultimately would benefit the US economy.

I very much doubt that President George W Bush has either the brains or the stomach to press America's advantage. To a surprising extent, US leaders still swim in the goldfish bowl of the Cold War era. It has not quite dawned on them that the United States, in the parlance of options traders, is "long volatility". As I wrote on January 26, 2002 (Geopolitics in the light of option theory):

The elder Bush and advisers such as James Baker and Bent Scowcroft, schooled in the Cold War, flinched at the thought of instability ... Their strategic reflex came from the simple fact that the Soviet Union stood to gain from any instability outside its immediate sphere of influence. The more chaos, the more options open to the Kremlin. Now there is no Soviet Union. Russia remains occupied with domestic problems. China shows little inclination to fish in stormy waters far from its shores. No power stands to gain from instability other than the United States itself. American clients and enemies alike can twist and turn in the wind; America can watch and wait ... Coups, revolutions, wars do not faze Washington. It can sit back like the council of gods in Homer's Iliad, betting on the outcome and choosing whom to support and whom to undermine. From the standpoint of American interest, the more volatility, the more choices and the more influence.

This will not be the first time in history that a power with a potentially winning position frittered away its advantage by inaction. Germany in the First Morocco Crisis of 1905 comes to mind, when the opportunity arose to crush France at a moment when Russia was paralyzed by revolution and Britain had no interest in intervening. The most probable outcome is that Iran will feel emboldened by the resilience of Hezbollah and defy the West on the nuclear issue, and that the United States will attack Iranian nuclear installations this year.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Iran will fight to its strengths

By Richard M Bennett

It seems increasingly likely to many foreign observers that Iran's army has quietly acknowledged that it stands little chance of defeating the United States in the event of invasion, at least using conventional means.

However, its planning for an unconventional or guerrilla warfare campaign of resistance is far advanced and its confidence that it would prove ultimately successful has been greatly reinforced by the ongoing insurgency in Iraq and the resistance shown by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In recognition of this, the US may be losing interest in the vast commitment needed for an invasion and the strain this would undoubtedly place on its already overstretched armed forces. The suspicion grows that any future US-led attack on Iran may be
restricted to a massive series of air and missile strikes on strategic targets, most directly linked to Iran's nuclear program.

The US would certainly wish severely to damage not only nuclear-research facilities, but missile-production centers; chemical and biological warfare installations; the air-defense infrastructure, radar, command and control sites and probably the most significant air bases as well.

It is unlikely, however, that anything short of a ground invasion or the use of small nuclear weapons would do anything more than seriously degrade Iran's advanced weapons programs and at most set the country back some five years. The US must hope that it "gets lucky" and that a serious military humiliation for Iran would fatally undermine the government in Tehran and lead to an eventual change of regime.

It is interesting to consider whether the Central Intelligence Agency and other Western intelligence services have achieved any great degree of penetration of Iran or indeed anything on the scale of intelligence available on Iraq's air and ground forces. Even in Iraq it must be remembered that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction proved to be grossly flawed.

Iran's powerful and much-feared intelligence and security services have built highly effective networks of informants around the world and have a tight hold on Iranian society. So far, it seems, Iran has proved rather hard to infiltrate - its political intentions, military installations and probably its most important secrets are very well protected.

The army
Iran's armed forces have been placed on a high level of preparedness and a number of major exercises have been carried out in recent months, particularly along the coastline of the Persian Gulf.

There is a growing confidence among its leadership that Iran could survive a conflict, short of outright invasion, with the United States. Both the army and the Republican Guard have invested much time, effort and thought into providing Iran with an effective low-tech response to the United States' overwhelming military power.

The army of some 325,000 is organized into a Northern Operations Sector headquarters Reyaiyeh (Azerbaijani and Turkish borders - reserve for Iraq front); Western Operations Sector headquarters Bakhtaran (Kermanshah); Southern Operations Sector headquarters Dezful (southern Iraq front - Gulf Coast - Strait of Hormuz); Eastern Operations Sector headquarters Birjand (Afghan, Pakistani and Turkmen borders); Airmobile Strategic Reserve headquarters Isfahan; Army Command headquarters Tehran; and the Republican Guard (IRGC Pasdaran inqilab) of more than 130,000.

The IRGC also has a small but effective naval force of at least 10 Chinese Houdong-class missile boats with C802 missiles and more than 100 small fast craft for suicide missions against large warships or merchant vessels, shore-based anti-ship missile batteries, and a large combat swimmer special warfare force. These are based at al-Farsiyah, Sirri, Abu Musa and Larak and on the Halul oil platform.

Equipment
Between the army and the IRGC the Iranians can probably field about 1,600 battle tanks (including 157 M47/M48, 150 M60A1, 200 Chieftain, 540 T-55 and T-59, 75 T-62, 480 T-72 and at least 20 Iranian-built Zulfikar); some 1,500 BMP-1, BMP-2, M113 and other armored personnel carriers; more than 300 self-propelled and 2,100 towed artillery; 900 mobile multiple rocket launchers; more than 7,000 mortars, anti-tank weapons and man-portable SAMs (surface-to-air missiles). To this can be added more than 550 helicopters, including some 85 US AH-1J combat helicopters.

Missile force
Iran's missile programs are among the regime's top priorities and it has succeeded in producing a number of effective ballistic-missile systems, including:
Shahab-1 missile is a minor variant of the Scud-B, which Iran initially acquired from Libya and Syria between 1985 and 1986. The Scud-B's 300-kilometer range allowed Iran to strike Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. There are probably about 350 in service.

Shahab-2 missile is a variant of the Scud-C, built from 1990 with the assistance of North Korea. It has a range 500-700km, and is therefore capable of striking targets in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Iraq. About 450 are probably now in service.

Shahab-3 is a genuine medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) developed indigenously by Iran. It had an original range of 1,300km; recent modifications have increased this to nearly 2,100km. It can thus easily reach Israel and US bases throughout the region. The missile, based on the Nodong-1, was first tested in 1998 and became operational on July 7, 2003. On November 9, 2004, it was claimed that Iran now had the capability of mass-producing this missile.

Significantly, Iran, with North Korean assistance, is also actively pursuing the development of a genuine intercontinental ballistic missile capability, a missile capable of threatening not only the whole of the Middle East but Europe, Africa and Asia as well.

Many other systems have been acquired, modified or developed by Iran in recent years. These include SAMs, anti-tank missiles, coast-defense missiles, battlefield missiles and highly sophisticated anti-ship missiles reportedly capable of threatening US aircraft carriers operating outside of the immediate Gulf area.

Weapons of mass destruction
Iran has an advanced chemical and biological warfare program and is believed to have stockpiled several hundred tons of chemical agents in bulk and weaponized form, including nerve, blister, choking and blood agents. It has the capability to actually deploy artillery shells, bombs and missile warheads filled with chemical agents in significant numbers. Whether it can deploy biological weapons effectively remains in doubt.

However, international interest remains firmly fixed on Iran's nuclear program, one that is widely considered by Western powers to be aimed largely at the production of deployable weapons. Iran now has several dozen nuclear-research facilities, mostly well hidden and some buried deep in bunkers, mountain caverns and heavily fortified tunnel systems.

Unless the Pentagon's intelligence on these locations is of top quality and extremely precise, it is doubtful whether any significant long-term damage can be assured by the use of conventional weapons alone.

The air force
While Iran is aware that a low-tech defense may prove highly effective in deterring a ground invasion, the defense of its strategic targets requires an increasingly sophisticated and advanced high-tech air defense.

The key target in any future US or Israeli air strike, regardless of its scope or duration, would undoubtedly be Iran's nuclear industry. Attacks on Iran's air defenses would seek to cause long-term degradation and any large-scale operation would require a broader range of air defense targets to be struck.

The initial intention would be to blind Iran's air-defense command by destroying its radar coverage and paralyzing its command and control infrastructure.

Iran faces the possibility of attack by either the US or Israel. The Israeli Air Force, with its limited strategic assets, would only be able to strike at a very small number of the main Iranian targets using F-15Is and rather risky in-flight refueling somewhere over Iraq.

Additional strike capability would only be available from the F-16I squadrons using the buddy-refueling system. Recent deliveries of advanced weapons by the US have markedly increased the ability of the Israel Defense Force to attack hardened targets, but the number of sites would still remain limited to a few high-value targets, such as the Bushehr nuclear reactor complex.

It is considered unlikely by some observers that Israel would be prepared to use its Jericho missile force to attack Iranian targets, except in retaliation.

The United States, however, is not restricted by such limitations and if the political will is present, then a truly exotic and quite remarkable variety of weaponry is available for use by the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Ranging from ship- and submarine-launched to air-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, stand-off weapons would be guided to their targets by satellite and deep-penetration bombs.

Highly sophisticated precision delivery of traditional and specialized bombs would come from strike aircraft ranging from B-2 Spirit and F-117 stealth aircraft and B-52 heavy bombers to the F-18, F-16, F-15 and F-14 fighters. These devastating air strikes would be delivered from a range of air bases established in friendly countries on all sides of Iran and from aircraft carriers, missile cruisers, destroyers and submarines in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf.

Air defense
In consequence of the threat to Iran's strategic targets, the armed forces have sought constantly to upgrade, modify and enlarge their air defenses. New radars, missiles and control equipment have been acquired from Russia and numerous other countries in Europe and Asia.

The Iranian Air Defense Command appears to have rejected the old Soviet-style layered and inflexible national system that so obviously failed Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Iran, however, has sought to learn valuable lessons from the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in Serbia and US tactics against Iraq.

Every attempt is being made to improve the survivability of the radar, command and control networks as Iran is painfully aware that these would be the United States' first target and would be an essential part of any realistic chance of Iran proving more resilient than its Iraqi neighbor was in 2003.

The Iranians appear to be pinning their hopes not on stopping the strikes, but simply on making them rather costly to the attacker, by developing an air-defense system based on a number of highly integrated local networks of interceptor aircraft. Ground-based SAMs and radar-controlled anti-aircraft artillery will provide a flexible layered protection for specific areas.

This will be backed up by a mobile defense system involving the unexpected movement of highly mobile SAMs linked to numerous small formations of low-flying fighters screened by mountain ranges and teamed with F-14A "controllers" operating at higher altitudes and deeper within Iranian airspace.

It has been assumed by some sources that this is part of an Iranian air force plan to ambush US strike aircraft, their electronic support aircraft, AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) and refueling tankers with surprise attacks using salvos of very long-range missiles. It remains to be seen whether these are to be Iran's tactics or indeed whether they would stand any serious chance of success.

The air force has struggled hard to rebuild the fighting force that existed under the shah. Sophisticated aircraft and weapons and superbly trained combat pilots were lost to attrition in the eight-year war with Iraq or through poor maintenance, lack of flying hours and a chronic shortage of spare parts.

However, it is widely believed that the air force has done a remarkable job in recent years with limited resources and a shortage of advanced equipment. There is no doubt that the air force remains determined and committed and, while no match for the US or Israel, would still prove a tough opponent.

Air defense
There are reportedly some 16 battalions with more than 100 US I-Hawk, and five squadrons with 30 British Rapier and 15 Tigercat. There are many other air-defense units, with 60 Chinese HQ-2J(SA2), 10 or more Russian SA5, 30 Russian SA-6, Chinese FM80 (based on French Crotale), thousands of Russian and Iranian modified SA7s and later-model man-portable SAMs, as well as some remaining US Stingers.

Iran also recently signed a major deal to buy at least 29 advanced Russian tactical SAM systems, known as the TOR-M1, which is designed to bring down cruise missiles and aircraft at low altitudes.

The navy
The Iranian naval forces could turn out to be a rather unpleasant surprise for the United States, very much the war of the flea versus the elephant, but still capable of giving a nasty bite or two.

The main surface combatants include three light missile patrol frigates and two corvettes, along with at least 20 fast missile craft armed with C802 anti-ship missiles. To these surface warships must be added three Russian Kilo-class ultra-quiet conventional submarines armed with long-range wake-homing torpedoes. Iran also has the significant capability to lay thousands of advanced Russian and Chinese naval mines in the Gulf and particularly in the narrow entrance formed by the Strait of Hormuz.

It has bases at Bandar Abbas (fleet headquarters), Bushehr, Kharg, Bandar-e-Anzelli, Bandar-e-Khomeini and Chah Bahar.

AFI Research provides expert information on the world's intelligence services, armed forces and conflicts. Contact rbmedia@supanet.com.

(Copyright 2006 AFI Research. Used with permission.)

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