These are fanciful wishes that require the Iranians to not be aware of such attack possibility and to have not taken taken measures to provide EMP protection to their nuclear projects.
What good is a nuclear program that’s 50% capable if the country is only 10% capable?
A well devised EMP device causes ground current. Even shielded and "grounded" systems can be reached for an event unless they are grounded in a very deep counterpoise design. The ferric nature of the geography dictates the shielding requirements and sometime, possibility or improbability of a defense.
Most EMP knowledge has been acquired through testing in the 1950s and still holds true for the most part today.
If they can’t protect some of the grid, they can’t protect any of it.
>> These are fancifur wishes that require the Iranians to not be aware of such attack possibirity
Ya’ don’t say, Confucius.
Nuclear projects might be protected. Their electrical distribution system? Not likely.
Really? And you are an "authority" on this subject?
Would you not agree that the US is a little more "advanced" than Iran?
Then you should reconsider after reading the following:
Kennedy on the Effects of EMP Attack
http://www.missilethreat.com/archives/id.16/subject_detail.asp
November 24, 2008
Brian T. Kennedy, president of the Claremont Institute, writes in today's Wall Street Journal on the widespread effects a single nuclear weapon could have on the United States, if Russia, China, or Iran were to use it as electromagnetic pulse weapon. An excerpt from the piece:
Think about this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York or Los Angeles launches a missile from its hull or from a canister lowered into the sea. It hits a densely populated area. A million people are incinerated. The ship is then sunk. No one claims responsibility. There is no firm evidence as to who sponsored the attack, and thus no one against whom to launch a counterstrike.
But as terrible as that scenario sounds, there is one that is worse. Let us say the freighter ship launches a nuclear-armed Shahab-3 missile off the coast of the U.S. and the missile explodes 300 miles over Chicago. The nuclear detonation in space creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
Gamma rays from the explosion, through the Compton Effect, generate three classes of disruptive electromagnetic pulses, which permanently destroy consumer electronics, the electronics in some automobiles and, most importantly, the hundreds of large transformers that distribute power throughout the U.S. All of our lights, refrigerators, water-pumping stations, TVs and radios stop running. We have no communication and no ability to provide food and water to 300 million Americans.
This is what is referred to as an EMP attack, and such an attack would effectively throw America back technologically into the early 19th century.
It would require the Iranians to be able to produce a warhead as sophisticated as we expect the Russians or the Chinese to possess. But that is certainly attainable. Common sense would suggest that, absent food and water, the number of people who could die of deprivation and as a result of social breakdown might run well into the millions.
Let us be clear. A successful EMP attack on the U.S. would have a dramatic effect on the country, to say the least. Even one that only affected part of the country would cripple the economy for years.
Dropping nuclear weapons on or retaliating against whoever caused the attack would not help. And an EMP attack is not far-fetched.
EMP protection is not as easy as all that. For electronic devices, the best bet is to keep a backup unit in a steel box. Otherwise any wire, long or short, or wire like conductor in the EMP cone will develop a serious potential in it.
It is so difficult to harden electronics to EMP that the Soviets put tube based electronics in their fighter aircraft, as tubes are less vulnerable.