Thursday, January 12, 2012

What War With Iran Might Look Like



by Philip Giraldi, January 12, 2012

"....Fighters from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis are immediately launched under standing orders, and they devastate the naval base that the Iranian boat departed from. President Obama holds a press conference and calls the incident an act of war and vows to do everything necessary to support U.S. forces in the region, but he stops short of a commitment to stage a full-scale attack on Iran. A hastily called meeting of the U.N. Security Council results in a 17–1 vote urging the United States to exercise restraint, with only Washington voting “no.” In the General Assembly, only the United States, Israel, Micronesia, and Costa Rica support possible military action.

The United States is effectively alone, but Israel takes advantage of the growing war fervor in the United States to launch an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. The recently completed nuclear reactor at Bushehr is destroyed, killing 13 Russian technicians working on the site, and the aboveground buildings at the Natanz nuclear research facility are leveled. Russian-supplied Iranian air defenses shoot down six Israeli aircraft. Washington receives no prior warning of the Israeli attack, though it does pick up the signal traffic that precedes it and knows something is coming. It makes no effort to stop the Israelis as they fly over undefended Iraqi airspace.

Congress and the media rally behind the Israelis and demand war
. A bill in the House of Representatives calling on the White House to take military action in support of Israel passes 431–4. A similar bill in the Senate receives only two nays. President Obama hesitates but then approves a limited offensive, directed against Iran’s military, its nuclear sites, and, most particularly, its Revolutionary Guard installations. In the first few days, overwhelming American air and naval superiority destroys Iran’s principal air, naval, and army bases. Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities are obliterated, as are the known Iranian nuclear research and development sites. The limited offensive soon becomes anything but that, with strategic bombers dropping 30,000-pound Big BLU bunker-buster bombs to strike underground labs and processing centers. Population centers are avoided, though smart weapons are used to destroy communications centers and command and control facilities. There are nevertheless large numbers of civilian casualties as many of the targeted nuclear sites are close to or within cities and large towns. Infrastructure is also hit, particularly bridges, roads, and power-generation stations close to known nuclear research centers and military sites.....

.....The United States tells the Iranian government that unless resistance ceases, nuclear weapons will be used on select targets. India and Pakistan are alarmed by the U.S. threat and put their own nuclear forces on high alert, as does Israel. Russia and China also increase their readiness levels to respond to the crisis.....

The United States uses a neutron-type bomb against the main Iranian nuclear research center at Natanz, which both Washington and Israel had already bombed conventionally and destroyed. It vows to bomb again if Iran continues to resist......."

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