Last week, Iran warned Israel that if their nuclear facilities were attacked, they would bomb Israel. I figured from the start that it was just a lot of hot air, and that the Iranian Air Force was in such bad shape that there was no way they could launch a successful attack on the most powerful nation in the Middle East. Before I went posting about this, I wanted to be sure. So, I did a little research, which led to a lot of research, which made me change my mind. This is a serious threat to Israel and should be taken as such.
We all know that until the late 70's, the Shah of Iran was a good friend of the United States and we considered Iran as a stabilizing force in the Mid-East. We considered them such a power for peace that we decided to sell them 79 F-14 Tomcats (this is the plane Tom Cruise made famous in the Movie "Top Gun"). Now, this was a long time ago, and we stopped selling replacement parts to the Ayatollah back in 1980. In fact, during the Iraq-Iran war, only 10 of these planes were still operational. In a perfect world, all of the planes would by now be in the trash heap. Seems however that a Dutch Business man (you may insert arms-dealer here), Robert Kraaipoel has been violating the embargo by selling spare aircraft parts to Iran. As many as 50 of these F-14's may now be operational. The F-14 can carry 4-500 lb bombs on it's underbelly, and if it's wing mounted missiles are removed, another 2 can be mounted on each wing. That's 200,000 pounds of bombs for those of you who are keeping count.
In addition, at the start of the first Gulf War, Iraq flew 115 combat aircraft to Iran to protect them from being destroyed by the US Air Force. Among these were 24 Mirage F-1B fighter jets, along with some MIG-23's and SU-25's. In 2003, Iran was able to purchase an unknown number of new Su-25 Frogfoots. Other aircraft include 10 F-8M's, 7 TU-22M's, 19 MIG-27's and several MIG-31's (Russia's most advanced fighter ... thank you Mr. Putin).
As for missile forces, The Iranians have SCUD C & D's (can't reach Israel with those) and the Shahab-3D (with a range of 2200 km that can hit Israel). The also have the Farq-3 which is a ballistic MIRV missile that can hit Israel (and probably parts of Europe.
After reading about all this air and missile power, I was going to post that Israel had nothing to worry about. The Israeli Air Force is easily the best Air Force in the region ... probably second only to the USAF in the world. They could surely shoot down any and all aircraft that Iran wanted to send their way. As for the missiles, well those Patriot missile batteries that we sold to Israel during the first Gulf War are still there ... In addition, Israel has developed its' own interceptor missile called the Arrow ("Til Hetz"). After Iran tested their Shahab-3 missile in the summer of 2006, Israel tested their Arrow Interceptor by successfully shooting down ... you guessed it, a Shahab-3 missile.
So here I am, ready to post about Iran not being able to hurt Israel when I come across an article in Jane's Defence Weekly that changes everything. Jane's reported that the July 26th explosion in Syria took place at a joint Iranian-Syrian site. The project was to fit a Scud C missile with a mustard gas warhead. The explosion happened when the missile fuel caught fire. The blast dispersed mustard gas across the storage site and outside the facility. The blast killed 15 Syrian military members and injured at least 50. Dozens of Iranian engineers were also killed in the blast. Mustard gas is some really bad stuff. There are still parts of Germany that are off-limits because of the mustard gas that the Kaiser ordered used during WWI. Mustard gas (Yperite) is a blister agent (the chemical causes blisters to form on exposed skin greatly hampering combat effectiveness. In addition, those that get it in the eyes will be permanently blinded, and those that inhale it will almost certainly die). The mustard gas attacks the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane ... causing internal bleeding and eventually (it usually takes four or five very painful weeks) the victims would drown on their own blood.
If Iraq were to attack from Syria with mustard gas, the casualties would be incomprehensible. Israel would almost definitely retaliate with their Jericho ballistic missiles (nuclear) and the whole region would begin to glow. Iraq needs to be stopped from producing nuclear weapons, and it needs to be stopped by the Western World in toto. We can not diddle around thinking that if worst comes to worst, Israel will handle it ... we may not like the outcome.
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