London’s Financial Times consulted with experts who believe that Israel, by itself, lacks the military capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. While not mentioning it, the article implicitly makes the case for why Israel must draw the U.S. into its war with Iran for any moderate degree of success—which it is increasingly clear is the plan of Israeli and other hardliners.
The main handicap for Israel is distance. Iranian nuclear facilities lie over 1,000 miles from Israel making fuel the major issue for an Israeli strike package. Each aircraft in the package would have to be air refueled twice, once going out and again coming back. Israel’s limited fleet of air refueling aircraft would be severely stretched trying to meet that requirement.
Secondly is the question of weapons. Israel has U.S.-supplied 2,000 lb bunker buster bombs—which they’ve used liberally on Beirut. But these may not be powerful enough to inflict significant damage to the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities in Iran—both of which are deep underground. The U.S. does have bigger bombs but they can’t be carried by Israeli aircraft.
