Can Israel attack Iran?

This post is not about whether Israel is politically capable of attacking Iran. It's about whether Israel is militarily capable of attacking Iran. There's a May 2012 article on Time Magazine's website by Karl Vick and Aaron Klein which claims that we're not militarily capable of attacking Iran (Hat Tip: Shy Guy via Tomer Devorah). This isn't a question of whether we have planes or missiles. It's a question of how we'd defend ourselves from a counter-attack without the use of American-supplied x-band radar.

The discreet complex atop Mt. Keren is a U.S. military installation, and the 100 U.S. service members who staff it are the only foreign troops stationed in Israel. Most are guards; a few are support. The technicians are recognizable by the protective suits they wear to shield them from the extraordinary amounts of radiation generated by the no less extraordinary apparatus the base is built around.

The small, rectangular-shaped portable radar peeking around a concrete blast wall is so advanced it can see over the horizon, and so sensitive it can spot a softball tossed in the air from 2,900 miles away. (Tehran is a mere 1,000 miles away to the northeast.) On Mt. Keren, the X-band radar is indeed pointed northeast, toward Iran, where it could detect a Shahab-3 missile launched toward Israel just seconds into its flight — and six to seven minutes earlier than Israel would know from its own radar, called Green Pine.

The extra time means a great deal. Six additional minutes increases by at least 60% the time Israeli officials would have to sound sirens that will send civilians scrambling into bomb shelters.

It also substantially increases the chances of launching interceptors to knock down the incoming missile before it reaches Israel, hiking the likelihood its wreckage or warhead falls in, say, the wastes of the Jordanian desert rather than Israel's heavily populated coastal plain. And should the interceptor miss, the extra time might allow for the launch of a second one.

All this is possible, however, only if U.S. officials choose to share the information, because only Americans have eyes on the radar. And if it's difficult to imagine a U.S. commander-in-chief choosing to withhold an early warning that could save civilian lives of a close ally, both sides recognize that if the Iranian missiles were launched in retaliation for an Israeli air strike, the onus might be on the Israeli government that set such events in motion. In any event, military officials and outside analysts say that uncertainty can only inhibit any Israeli impulse to "go it alone."

I wrote many, many posts about the x-band radar when it was first installed. X-band was a parting gift from George W. Bush, and was installed in early 2009, shortly before Bush left office. The Americans did insist on controlling it, but they insisted on that in every other installation too (you may recall that in Turkey there was a dispute because the Turks object to information from their x-band radar being shared with Israel). But in mid-2009, the Americans did allow Israel to station at least one person in the control room. Here's what I wrote about it then, and I think it still applies.

Note that the Americans are running the show and that there's still only one Israeli being allowed in. I argued herethat we are better off with the Americans running the show without us than we would be without the radar at all. I still believe that. If there's really an attack, God forbid, the Americans are unlikely to refuse to turn the radar on. They know that Iran would like nothing more than to have some 'high quality' American casualties.

On the other hand, with Hopenchange in power, one never knows for sure....

In 2011, x-band radar installations in Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia werelinked.  

All this is not to say that the US will definitely turn on the radar if Israel attacks Iran. We already know that the Obama administration refused to turn on Japan's radar during a North Korean missile test. And we already know that the US sharply cut back joint exercises with Israel and denied it anti-missile systems that could be used against Iran. 

Bottom line: Israel may not benefit from the x-band radar in defending against counter-strikes from an attack on Iran. But to jump from there to say that not having the x-band radar would prevent Israel from attacking Iran is still a big jump. A military strike on Iran is considered a last resort anyway. The fact that we might not have an extra layer of defense that would be nice to have won't stop it.