If Iran attack is necessary do it right

Ralph Peters:

MY greatest worry on Iran's nuclear threat to civilization isn't the military option. It's trying that option on the cheap.

If there's any way to block Tehran's pursuit of nukes short of warfare, I'm all for it. Maybe yesterday's dispatch of the No. 3 US diplomat to observe the European Union's talks with the mullahs about their nukes will work a miracle (don't hold your breath).

Military strikes must be the last resort. Even a successful attack would panic oil markets, interrupt supplies to an unknown degree and make enemies of the Iranian people for another generation.

But the fanatics in Tehran may leave us no peaceful alternative. In that case, the most disastrous thing we could do would be to launch an economy-model attack.

If forced to strike, we have to do it right. When safe-at-home ideologues bluster, "Just bomb 'em," they haven't a clue how complex this problem is.

Nor is there any chance that the Israelis could handle Iran on their own (their recent air-force exercise was psychological warfare). As skilled as their pilots and planners may be, the Israelis lack the capacity to sustain a strategic offensive against Iran - or to deal with the inevitable mess they'd leave behind in the Persian Gulf. Israel's aircraft could do serious damage to Iran's nuke program, but the US military would face the potentially catastrophic aftermath.

Without compromising any secrets - the Iranians already know what we'd need to do - here are the basic requirements for smacking down Iran's nuke program:

* Take out Iran's air-defense and intelligence network to protect our attacking aircraft.

* Take down its national communications network to degrade its military reaction.

* Strike dozens of dispersed nuclear-related targets - some of them in hardened underground facilities, with others purposely placed in populated areas.

* Hit every anti-ship-missile installation along Iran's Persian Gulf coast and the Straits of Hormuz. The reflexive Iranian response to an attack would be to launch sea-skimmer missiles against oil tankers and Western warships. The Iranians know that oil's now the world's Achilles heel.

* Destroy Iran's naval capacity, including small craft, in the first 24 hours to prevent attacks on shipping (expect suicide attacks, too).

* Immediately take out all of Iran's long-range and intermediate-range missiles - not just those that could strike Israel, but those that could hit Saudi, gulf-state or Iraqi oil refineries, pipelines, port facilities and oil fields . . . or our installations in the region.

* Hit the military's key command centers in Tehran, as well as regional headquarters, with special attention to the Revolutionary Guards' infrastructure.

* Expect three to six weeks of intense air and naval fighting, followed by months of skirmishing and asymmetrical warfare. And Iraq will heat back up, too.

...

There is more. This adds some detail to what I have been saying is necessary if we are going to attack Iran. If we do less it will be a big mistake. If the Israelis attack, we will still have to followup with the kind of attack Peters sets out. One target I would add to his list is Iran's weapons production facilities, down to the machine shops making the EFPs.

To do this right would require more military assets than we have in the region right now. Specifically more fighter bombers. We could do much of it with the Naval aviation and the cruise missiles as well as B-2 bombers. But to do it right and efficiently we would need the kind of air offensive we had in the first Gulf war, which means bringing in the new F-22's and other Air Force assets.

Doing less would be like the tailor who cuts the coat too short and constantly has to go back and add material in a patchwork fashion. The results are never satisfactory.