Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran?

On September 21, 2004, Iran celebrated her “Sacred Defense Week” with a military parade commemorating Iraq’s 1980 attack and the eight-year war that followed. A principal feature of the parade was the display of Iran’s Shahab-2 ballistic missile and the introduction of the newly developed Shahab-3. A banner was draped over the side of the Shahab 2 with the message, “ISRAEL SHOULD BE WIPED OFF THE MAP”; another banner reading “WE WILL CRUSH AMERICA UNDER OUR FEET” was draped over the side of a trailer carrying the more advanced Shahab-3 missile.

The messages were no idle threats. Long-range ballistic missiles have few, if any, peaceful uses. No country goes to the enormous expense of producing technologically sophisticated missiles like the Shahab-3 or the Shahab-4 for any purpose other than carrying a nuclear or a biological bomb. And, an official commentary on the missiles was carried live on state television openly stating: "These missiles enable us to destroy the enemy with missile strikes wherever he is." The Shahab-3, based on a North Korean update of the Soviet Scud missile, was Iran's most advanced missile. It had a range of 800 miles and a payload of 1,540 pounds enabling it to strike almost any Middle Eastern target, including Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyadh, Cairo, as well as U. S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Iran also possesses the Shahab-4 missile and is working on a missile with range of 1,875 miles. Such a missile would put every major European capital within range.

From the start of the 1979 Revolution, mixed messages have come out of Iran. Enthusiastic crowds responded to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s characterization of America as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan” by chanting “Death to America; Death to Israel.” Clearly, some officials, both Iranian and foreign, take such threats literally. Others, both Iranian and foreign, insist that Iranians do not really mean what they say.

The most extreme threats have come from religious and political extremists, such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies. On October 26, 2005 during the final week of Ramadan, Ahmadinejad repeated to Teheran university students that “that Israel must be wiped off the map of the earth.” More cautious elements both inside Iran and in the Arab world sought to distance themselves from Ahmadinejad’s threat, but the Iranian president had no intention of being explained away. Two days later, cheered on by thousands of supporters, he repeated the threat and reminded the world of his official status: "My words are the Iranian nation's words."

Ahmadinejad’s genocidal threat was but the latest in a long series of threats by Iranians promising Israel’s destruction. On December 14, 2001, in an address at Tehran University, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad’s predecessor as president of Iran and widely considered to be a “moderate,” stated that, "If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the [their] global arrogance would come to a dead end because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam." Moreover, not only did Rafsanjani threaten Israel with annihilation, he also played a singularly important role in creating Iran’s nuclear weapons program with which to carry out the threat.

Israel's leaders in both the political and the cultural spheres have characterized the Iranian position as`an "existential threat," thus indicating that they take Iran's threats with the utmost seriousness and if they believed that Iran was ready to carry out its threat, they might very well strike first.

What would be the likely outcome of a nuclear war between Iran and Israel? In a comprehensive analysis on the subject, Andrew Cordesman,"Iran, Israel, and Nuclear War," one of the most widely respected American strategists, has come to a very different conclusion than Rafsanjani. He has concluded that, though seriously wounded, Israel would survive both demographically and economically. His analysis includes photos, graphs and text, and is perhaps the most comprehensive current analysis publicly available on the subject. Also available here is a brief summary of Cordesman's analysis by Daniel Pipes, "The Unthinkable Consequences of an Iran-Israel Nuclear Exchange."

In reality, there could be no winners in such an apocalypse. Cordesman got it right when he concluded his analysis with the following comment: "The War Game Paradox: The Only Way to Win is Not to Play."