AT PENPOINT
The shadow of a world war looms over the world every time there is a clash, and now there is a frightening sense of deja vu to the Israel-Iran conflict, which harks back to the recent Indo-Pakistan clash, which seemed about to bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. As with the Pakistan-India conflict, this writer did not know whether if these lines would appear in print, they had been overtaken by a nuclearization of the conflict, or if they would appear at all, because of just that conflict.
There are certain similarities, or rather congruence, between the two clashes. One of the most counter-intuitive is the USA’s readiness to get involved in making peace. In the case of India and Pakistan, the USA had India, which it is now trying to co-opt as the regional bully, while it sort of had Pakistan, for old times’ sake, and because its establishment was tilted towards the USA anyhow. The USA may be closely allied to Israel, but it cannot be certain that Israel will obey it even though it owes its continued existence to US support.
Another congruence was nuclearity. The congruence was not exact, for while both Pakistan and India are declared nuclear states, which have tested weapons, Israel is an ‘undeclared’ nuclear power, in that it has nuclear weapons since 1966, though it has never tested them, and did not use them during the 1967 or 1973 Wars, presumably because Israel itself was never under threat, and conventional military means were sufficient for it to achieve its ends. Iran, on the other hand, is not a nuclear power, though it is attempting to enrich uranium to the point where it becomes weapons-grade. Israel justified its attacks by claiming that Iran was close to achieving a nuclear weapon.
Iranian nuclear ambitions are very old, and predate the Revolution. Indeed, a 1976 thriller, The Crash of ‘79, is predicated on Iran under the Shah obtaining a nuclear weapon. He then uses it on Saudi Arabia, rendering its oilfields unusable, because they are in the midst of a nuclear wasteland. Israel is not in the equation, because the Shah was pro-US enough to have established diplomatic relations with it. The author, Paul Erdman, a banker who had turned to writing after his bank collapsed following unfortunate speculations in cocoa, got somethings badly wrong. He had no inkling of the fall of the Shah, and his title, The Crash of ‘79, refers to what happens to world stock markets, not to the Shah.
However, he was the one who showed that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were pre-Revolution, and indicated the direction it was thought they would take. The Shah had no pretensions to leadership of the Shias, so his animus against Saudi Arabia would be geostrategic rather than sectarian. Still, it existed.
It must be remembered that nuclear weapons do not recognise ideologies. There is no way that Iran can have a nuclear weapon directed against Israel alone. The relative positions within the region between the Sunni Arab monarchies and Shia Iran will change dramatically, and while Iran will be strengthened, the Arabs will be weakened. And they are all US allies.
Even if Israel is not directly involved, India may well profit from the lesson, and that means the nuclear deterrent is the next target. The whole world, including the USA, would like to see the bomb removed from Pakistan. India would be only too willing to comply.
Though China has arranged a reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, there is still enough rivalry between them for Iran to justify the need to dominate by nuclear means a region peppered with US allies. Then there is the sectarian issue, which goes back to the Ottoman-Qajar struggles which saw Iraq and the Caucasus as battlegrounds.
Then there is the presence of the Israeli weapon. It may well not be the primary factor, but it is certainly there, as the Arab states have either out-and-out recognized Israel, or are moving towards it. Now the Arab states, having avoided the threat of the Israeli weapon, find themselves menaced by an Iranian one (which has not been built).
While China has intervened positively with one US ally, it has also intervened by stitching together a peace agreement between Hamas and the PLO, thereby intervening in what the USA regards as its bailiwick.
The danger of the nuclearization of the battlefield is low, because, as Erdman’s book pointed out, no one would like oilfields rendered unusable. However, there has been an idea floating around that Israeli war aims would not be achieved until Iranian nuclear facilities were nuked. To that end, there have been reports of the mobilization of US B1 bombers, which carry a nuclear payload. Somehow, it does not make sense for nuclear weapons to be used on Iranian nuclear facilities, but not on Israeli, not if the goal is deterrence. Of course, if the aim is to ensure an Israeli monopoly, then it is possible. However, President Trump would probably want to avoid the political blowback that would ensue.
One of the striking features of the current conflict is how much it has been an air war. Trump’s call for Iran to accept that it conceded air supremacy to Israel, and that it should surrender, is an expression of this. Neither side has spoken of putting ‘boots on the ground.’ Even more than the recent Indo-Pak conflict, this has been an air war, with planes, missiles and drones all involved.
The Israeli use of its F-35i stealth fighter was not quite the innovation it seemed, for tne USAF had deployed stealth fighters during the Ksovo War.
The Kosovo War was accounted the first war where one side had used only airpower to achieve its objectives. Kosovo was a region of Yugoslavia, by then basically just Serbia, which wanted to separate, because it was Albanian-majority. NATO wanted peace in the region, and tried to get Serbia (still Yugoslavia) to accept separation. This NATO pounded Serbia form the air, and made it submit, not before NATO places had flown 38.000 missions over the 10 weeks of conflict in Jen-August 1999. Tomahawk cruie missiles were also used, fired from aircraft, ships and submarines. NATO used bases in Italy and US aircraft carriers in the Adriatic to launch its strikes.
That War saw a US stealth fighter downed, and Iran has claimed five, though it is likely enough that only one was downed. Though the PAF is acquiring Chinese F-35 stealth fighters, it also needs to look at air defence systems, of which China has made one, which use a radar with very short wave lengths and very high frequencies, which can detect stealth fighters.
It seems, considering how the Iranian air force and air defence has performed, that training and practice really count. If the Iranian claims are even partially true, the potential of stealth aircraft will have to be reconsidered.
One of the important takeaways for Pakistan is that, as before, Israel may try to join India in an adventure against Pakistan, based on air power. There has been any Indo-Israeli front before, when Israel was about to mount an operation from Indian soil against Pakistan’s enrichment facilities. In the end, the operation was cancelled, as while the pilots being Israeli would let India disclaim responsibility, their flying from India would still be enough.
Even if Israel is not directly involved, India may well profit from the lesson, and that means the nuclear deterrent is the next target. The whole world, including the USA, would like to see the bomb removed from Pakistan. India would be only too willing to comply.
