Anthony Cordesman thinks the unthinkable.
Posted on 11/26/2007 6:29:04 PM PST by Salem
Anthony Cordesman, a strategist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, has estimated the consequences if Tehran gets the bomb and a nuclear exchange with Israel ensues. He expects, writes Martin Walker of United Press International,
some 16 million to 28 million Iranians dead within 21 days, and between 200,000 and 800,000 Israelis dead within the same time frame. The total of deaths beyond 21 days could rise very much higher, depending on civil defense and public health facilities, where Israel has a major advantage.
It is theoretically possible that the Israeli state, economy and organized society might just survive such an almost-mortal blow. Iran would not survive as an organized society. "Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term," Cordesman notes. The difference in the death tolls is largely because Israel is believed to have more nuclear weapons of very much higher yield (some of 1 megaton), and Israel is deploying the Arrow advanced anti-missile system in addition to its Patriot batteries. Fewer Iranian weapons would get through.
Anthony Cordesman thinks the unthinkable. |
|
|
|
|
The biggest bomb that Iran is expected to have is 100 kilotons, which can inflict third-degree burns on exposed flesh at 8 miles; Israel's 1-megaton bombs can inflict third-degree burns at 24 miles. Moreover, the radiation fallout from an airburst of such a 1-megaton bomb can kill unsheltered people at up to 80 miles within 18 hours as the radiation plume drifts. (Jordan, by the way, would suffer severe radiation damage from an Iranian strike on Tel Aviv.)
Cordesman assumes that Iran, with less than 30 nuclear warheads in the period after 2010, would aim for the main population centers of Tel Aviv and Haifa, while Israel would have more than 200 warheads and far better delivery systems, including cruise missiles launched from its 3 Dolphin-class submarines.
The assumption is that Israel would be going for Iran's nuclear development centers in Tehran, Natanz, Ardekan, Saghand, Gashin, Bushehr, Aral, Isfahan and Lashkar A'bad. Israel would also likely target the main population centers of Tehran, Tabriz, Qazvin, Isfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Kerman, Qom, Ahwaz and Kermanshah. Cordesman points out that the city of Tehran, with a population of 15 million in its metropolitan area, is "a topographic basin with mountain reflector. Nearly ideal nuclear killing ground."
Further, Cordesman expects that Israel would need to keep a "reserve strike capability to ensure no other power can capitalize on Iranian strike" and might target "key Arab neighbors"— Syria, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf states in particular.
Israel would have various options, including a limited nuclear strike on the region mainly inhabited by the Alawite minority from which come the ruling Assad dynasty. A full-scale Israeli attack on Syria would kill up to 18 million people within 21 days; Syrian recovery would not be possible. A Syrian attack with all its reputed chemical and biological warfare assets could kill up to 800,000 Israelis, but Israeli society would recover.
An Israeli attack on Egypt would likely strike at the main population centers of Cairo, Alexandria, Damietta, Port Said, Suez, Luxor and Aswan. Cordesman does not give a death toll here, but it would certainly be in the tens of millions. It would also destroy the Suez Canal and almost certainly destroy the Aswan dam, sending monstrous floods down the Nile to sweep away the glowing rubble. It would mean the end of Egypt as a functioning society.
Cordesman also lists the oil wells, refineries and ports along the Gulf that could also be targets in the event of a mass nuclear response by an Israel convinced that it was being dealt a potentially mortal blow. Being contained within the region, such a nuclear exchange might not be Armageddon for the human race; it would certainly be Armageddon for the global economy.
Walker concludes that Cordesman's analysis spells out "the end of Persian civilization, quite probably the end of Egyptian civilization, and the end of the Oil Age. This would also mean the end of globalization and the extraordinary accretions in world trade and growth and prosperity that are hauling hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians and others out of poverty."
Comments: (1) Cordesman's projections continue the work of private individuals making available to the public what usually is the exclusive domain of intelligence services For another example pertaining to the Iranian nuclear program see the work of Whitney Raas and Austin Long, as summarized by me in "Israeli Jets vs. Iranian Nukes."
(2) If Cordesman's projections are at all accurate, they directly contradict the blithe assumptions of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president, who asserted in December 2001, concerning an exchange of nuclear weapons with Israel:
If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce minor damages in the Muslim world.
In other words, Rafsanjani was saying, an exchange would wipe out Israel's smaller population but leave Iran functioning. But Cordesman draws precisely the opposite conclusion. One hopes he is being heard by non-apocalyptic leaders in Tehran.
(3) Again, assuming his analysis is sound, the stakes in an Iran-Israel nuclear exchange are both far higher and of far more universal import (China, India, the global economy?) than usually imagined.
(4) Anyone still in favor of permitting the Iranians, who do have an apocalyptic leadership, to get nuclear weapons? (November 21, 2007)
Nightmarish and horrific.
I read this, and think the only thing to prevent a whole heck of a lot of dead Iranians in the longterm, is the US Navy, Air Force, and a President with the courage and moral fortitude to deploy them against the mad Mullah's nascent nuclear weapons program.
But that's just me.
And probably Gonzo and a few other people.
"...It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world." [FReeper Retief]
"...That the totalitarian force pitted against freedom wears a religious makes this civil war among mankind all the more difficult to engage. Loving freedom as we do, it seems reprehensible to deliberate against a religion. But this is no ordinary religion as it demands absolute obedience of all to their religion at the cost of freedom itself." [FReeper Backtothestreets]
Israel ought to threaten to hit every enemy capital AND Mecca and Medina. Let those that are capable of such things, think before the mad mullahs act.
Oh my...even worse than I thought, though I am amazed at the low body count predicted inside Israel.
The problem is we assume those that will act are informed. most in the muslim world are illiterate and only know what is told to them. People that kill out of ignorance can still kill you as dead as one that kills out of hate.
While that is concievable, some sources believe they have added between twenty five and thirty five warheads per year since that time (including the small bunker buster tech they stole from us). what is presented here is a "least possible damage we could hope for" scenario.
The samson option is that Israel will take out the capitol cities of all the beligerant Arab nations around it. As the Muslims tend to live in the capitol cities, the death toll will be far worse than this limited exchange calculated here. It is not like Israel will be attacked by one state, it will be gang raped as is the pattern of all its wars in the past.
Also, Israel does not need to waste the effort attacking all the cities of egypt, All it needs to do is drop one conventional bunker buster bomb in the face of the Aswan Dam. When it breaks and goes to sea, it will take all of egypt with it.
I estimate the death toll to be over 20,000,000 in the first hour of the war, with just the destruction of Iran and Syria’s capitol cities. That is two air bursts over two bowl shaped cities. That leaves over a dozen capitol cities not counted in.
The obvious picture is far worse than this estimation, because this guy is thinking Western warfare not Eastern.
5 years ago Egypt printed an article in its papers saying the way to destroy Israel was a mass launch of missiles by all the arab states to overwhelm their defenses, then a conventional invasion for mopup.
At that point all the Arab nations started a missile buildup.
Pretty easy to see the handwriting on the walls.
Pipes links to an article which refers to a report which examined the feasibility of an Israeli air strike to take out Iran’s nuclear program. I believe that the report is too narrow in focus. Another work on this subject can be found at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1383639/posts
Are you the author? It says on your profile page, “Work for Washington DC based national security think tank” and that you have written for that article’s media source.
It does not matter whether Iran says it is developing nuclear weapons. If it said that clearly then the West would have the political cover to launch the necessary attack so the Iranians dissemble. By not saying it Iran can Imply the threat and the weak-willed politicians in the West, and that includes our own State Department and Olmert and his government in Israel, have sufficient excuse to put off the thing that must be done. The Iranian rulers are striving for hegemony in the Islamic world and conquest of Europe and America. They think they can accomplish that now. Allah wills it for their generation. They “know” that like Reagan knew he could bring down the Soviet Empire.
Al Qaeda is really a sideshow to the main event, which is Iran. The real war directly with Iran could have been put off, perhaps for a generation if we had entered the fray as if it were a serious defense against this modern Islamic resurgence and destroyed Iraq the way we destroyed Germany in WWII. A study of history shows us that this is not a third rate dictator blustering and bullying his neighbors or just some nutcases that have got their hands on a country. This is the inevitible expansion of Islam. It is the history of Islam since the beginning. It expands until it meets devastating defeat, then goes dormant and lethargic for some generations at a time then awakens againas weakness in the West become apparent. The first expansiion began with Mohammed and washed up against defeat at Tours in 732. The second wave was broken at the walls of Byzantium in the 1100s. In the 1400s it was stopped in the Balkans. and in 1499 at Lepanto where the turks lost their entire sea force. In 1529 they lost most of their land armies at Vienna. Vienna again was the undoing of another sultan in the 1600s. That series of defeats over a century and a half knocked the hordes of Allah back until pretty much the present, in part because of European expansion and trade.
The Renaissance put a lid on Islamic conquest for a long time because Europe was advancing at a rapid rate as the Islamic world was declining economically.In the 1400s Islam actually had superior firepower. By the second battle of Vienna the Christian/European forces were reaching parity and by 1700 the Saracens were far behind.
Europe colonized and administered most of the Islamic lands of the Middle East and South Asia through the 1800s and into the last century and the paynim were kept inert. The colonials have been gone for 50 years and the blood is flowing in the veins of the Mohammedans. Their Book tells them that their lives must be dedicated to killing or converting all the world and that they will go straight to Heaven if they die in the attempt. That is what we face now and Iraq and Afghanistan are only the preliminary campaigns, a jockeying for position.
This war will not end until America is conquered or Iran is destroyed. The second option is only viable if we do it before Europe is Islamic, and that is coming on fast. Europe is conquering itself for Islam by dying out and by nervously passing more and more laws banning blasphemy against Moslem sensibilities. Spain is in the forefront though even England and Sweden have made it illegal to say words that Moslems find offensive and cities in France and Germany and Sweden have districts that have been abandoned by law enforcement, areas that are effectively ruled by sharia. These areas continually expand as their populations grow. If we wait much longer to deal with Iran then it will be a nuclear war in which our cities will be attacked and we will have to use many nuclear weapons to survive. If we wait for Europe to be formally incorporated into the Dar-al-Islam then we will have to destroy much of Europe.
Listen to Ahmadinejad. He is speaking as the sultans of old spoke when they set out on Jihad.
Iran says it is not developing nuclear weaponry. In Arabic and Farsi Iran says it is developing the weapons that will wipe out Tel Aviv and Washington. Our press only reports the English. Many Farsi and Arabic speakers in this country translate but the State Department and the press are not interested. Their focus is solely on the defeat of the Repulicans and the military. Yes, even the State Department. The permanent staff of State is wedded to the job of diplomacy. A shooting war marginalizes them. The permanent staff is bureaucrats who have never worked in the real world and inhabit a dreamworld where talk is the only way to deal with anything, not to solve anything, just to deal with things. Condoleeza Rice, as Security Advisor was focused and hardnosed. As Secretary of State she has been captured by the Department and her advice to the president has become nearly pacifist and the president has gone along far too much.
I suspect it will take a Democrat president and Congress to fight and win this war. A democrat administration will pull back from Asia and will redirect Homeland Security against Christians and conservatives. We will take another 9-11 and then another. The events will be treated like a domestic law enforcement problem and all the forces of the FBI will be set to find the individual perpetrators and bring them to justice. Sooner or later we will lose a large portion of a city to a nuclear device and probably a second, maybe even a third before the president reacts effectively. He will send ICBMs and nuclear cruise missiles in all directions and the economy, already crippled by the strikes against the cities, will be shattered. We will probably lose the Constitution in the progress and will have a very difficult time even feeding ourselves. But we will win the war. Europe will be gone. But we will win the war.
Bush s ms resolved to put off the necessary action for another administration. The next administration will have a much worse situation to deal with, possibly including Iran already engaged in explicit nuclear blackmail.
All of us, as a nation and as the Western world will have a lot more to deal with once the Russians make it possible for Iran and who knows how many other anti-American dictatorships. The Iranian problem should have been dealt with in 2004. Every week those Mahdi worshiping madmen are allowed to continue their quest for the Shi'ite Bomb, makes the general situation far worse in the long run.
OK, what do you think we in America should do if the ME lights up like this? Wouldn’t people think some nut case country would retaliate against the US because of Israel’s actions?
I was thinking that it might be desirable to get away from major population centers and perhaps head to Alaska where there would be less danger from global fall out.
Sitka has a relatively mild climate.
Naw, but I met that guy a few years back. Haven’t seen his work in a while
I think that you are a sadly cockeyed optimist.
There. Fixed it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.