Military expert Khodarenok - about Iran's nuclear program and a possible conflict between the republic and the United States The Pentagon believes that 12 days will be enough for Iran to create a nuclear weapon.
Israel is convinced that only the threat of the use of military force can deter Tehran from this step, and they do not rule out strikes on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities. Military observer of the Newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok tells how a hypothetical war between the United States and Israel with Iran will look like and what price the parties will pay for it.
The deputy head of the Pentagon, Colin Kahl, said that Iran is capable of producing an atomic bomb in 12 days. His words are quoted by Reuters.
"In 2018, it would take Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb from stocks of fissile materials. And now it would take him 12 days," said Colin Kahl, noting Iran's "impressive progress" in the nuclear sphere after the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). By the end of the year, Tehran will have enough uranium enriched to 60% to create 10 bombs, the official appreciated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously stated that a credible threat of military force is the only way that can deter countries like Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Moreover, Israel may decide to strike Iran's nuclear program facilities faster because of its desire to acquire Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.
Due to the increased threats from Iran, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will visit the Middle East in the near future.
As for the military-political situation in the region as a whole, then, as previously noted by "Gazeta.En", Iran's activity has increased significantly in recent years even without large-scale efforts to create nuclear weapons.
In addition, the Iranians are creating various kinds of transshipment points and warehouses for the paramilitary Shiite organization Hezbollah, in which weapons and ammunition are accumulated.
Tehran is still conducting a large-scale economic expansion in Syria. Representatives of Iran are actively engaged in buying real estate, acquiring various industrial enterprises (even those who suffered during the fighting, this does not matter much to Iranian buyers). Land plots are also being actively bought.
Among other things, Iran is doing a lot of work to "Shiize" the population of Syria, and as much as possible.
Tehran is unlikely to leave Syria in the near future. This will be possible only under multilateral and diverse pressure on the Islamic Republic. The Iranians may withdraw some of their formations - primarily Shiite groups. But in any case, their economic and ideological influence in Syria will remain, and they will use Damascus to their advantage whenever possible.
Tehran's influence is also growing in other countries of the Middle East.
If we add here Iran's desire to acquire nuclear weapons in the very near future, then the situation in the region becomes simply explosive and cannot but worry the United States and Israel, and for the latter, the threat from Tehran is, without any exaggeration, a matter of life and death.
As the newspaper wrote earlier.Ru", the United States is sending more and more troops, weapons and military equipment, material and technical means to the region. And specialists in operational and strategic planning of the Pentagon, as well as high-ranking representatives of the US intelligence services began to carefully analyze what an armed clash could entail.
Iran's available forces and means are likely to make the entire Persian Gulf inaccessible to detachments of US Navy warships. The first echelons of the launch positions of anti-aircraft missile systems and complexes of the Iranian air defense forces will pose a serious danger to the pilots of the US Air Force. And the numerous arsenal of Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles threatens US military facilities in almost the entire zone of the Central Command of the US Armed Forces.
Iran has recently created a very wide range of missiles - from the Shahab-1 ballistic missile with a firing range of 300 km to the Sumar cruise missile with a claimed flight range of 2500 km. These products can hit targets anywhere in the Persian Gulf, Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan and other regions of Southern and Eastern Europe.
Thus, the possible fee for participation in such an armed conflict may become prohibitively high for the United States and its allies (primarily Israel).
In addition, the absolute majority of the American expert community does not understand what a hypothetical American victory might look like. No one in the United States is currently advocating a large-scale occupation like the one that followed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And many experts warn against hoping or assuming that a massive US-led military invasion will force the Iranians to overthrow their Islamic regime and turn Iran into an American ally.
The military-technical power of Tehran at this stage is clearly not enough to effectively resist such a rival as the United States.
If an armed conflict is unleashed between the United States and Iran, it will be characterized by the massive use of precision weapons, mainly air-based, the use of a small number of units and units of Special Operations Forces and large-scale offensive cyber attacks.
In the upcoming conflict, the United States and Israel will solve the tasks of defeating Iran's underground shelters using both conventional and nuclear weapons, which have recently been given the properties of precision weapons by the Pentagon.
In order to hit Iran's anti-aircraft missile systems and radar reconnaissance system, the United States will either have to physically destroy them, or make their normal functioning impossible with the help of electronic warfare.
In order to get closer to the launch positions of the SAM, USAF aircraft must have minimal radar visibility.
The United States, in alliance with Israel, will have to conduct an almost full-scale strategic aerospace operation involving a significant part of its air and naval forces in order to pacify Iran. There is every reason to believe that in form it will be one of the options for a rapid global strike, but only within the framework of the Near and Middle Eastern region.
In such a scenario, Iranians, even with the most diverse political beliefs, are likely to rally around their leaders and support the regime in the fight against an external aggressor. And what to do exactly with this - no one in Washington and Jerusalem seems to know.
Nevertheless, the main military and political goal of the United States and its allies (primarily Israel) is still a sharp weakening of Iran's role in the Middle East, its removal from the political scene as a regional leader and depriving Tehran of even a hypothetical possibility of possessing nuclear weapons.
Mikhail Khodarenok
