Yves here. Simon Watkins is a hard-core neocon, so his posts need to be taken with an ample dose of salt. Nevertheless, he raises an option for Israel in attacking Iran that I have not seen mentioned before, that of operating out of Azerbaijan. I hope I can get Conor to opine. As you can see from the map below, Israel could fly into Azerbaijan through Turkiye and Armenian or Georgian airspace. Watkins reduces his credibility by (without naming them) by claiming that their is a flight path to Azerbaijan through NATO airspace, when neither Georgia or Armenia are members (both are in the half-pregnant friends of NATO status; Armenia is an Associate Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and has an Permanent Mission to NATO; Georgia like Ukraine has been invited to join NATO and Russia fought a war to prevent Georgia’s NATO entry).
A separate reason to question this piece is it depicts Iran as receiving Russian assistance with a nuclear program. Scott Ritter, who knows a thing or two about nuclear programs, opined today on Judge Napolitano that it would now take Iran only 2 to 3 days to complete developing a nuclear weapon.
So would either state accommodate Israel, and risk some sort of retaliation by Russia (which needless to say does not have to be military)? And what about Turkiye? Erdogan has been all hat, no cattle in terms of fiercely criticizing Israel’s genocide but doing virtually nada to stop it (its import and export ban did not extend to what really could have hurt, trans-shipped gas; Conor, in a must-read post yesterday, has more detail as to how Turkiye’s actions against Israel don’t even rise to the level of a wet noodle lashing). His citizens are very upset with his inaction. Could he afford to allow Israel to overfly Turkiye to pre-position an attack on Iran from Azerbaijan?
And I to implement this scheme assume Israel would have to move a fair bit of kit over too, which would be visible to Iran and to Russia. Could Israel realistically set up the needed logistics support and comms out of a base presumably not set up for US/NATO use? Reader sanity checks encouraged.
By Simon Watkins, a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow. Originally published at OilPrice.com
- srael faces mounting pressure to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities amid escalating missile attacks, with Tehran now reportedly possessing enough material for three nuclear warheads.
- Discussions at high levels suggest that Russia may be assisting Iran in nuclear technology in exchange for missile support in the Ukraine war.
- A full-scale Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, while technically feasible, risks severe retaliatory missile attacks.
As Tel Aviv continues to trade attacks and counterattacks with Tehran and its proxies – the latest being the 1 October firing of 181 missiles by Iran on targets inside Israel — the obvious question to many dedicated Middle East watchers is why Israel does not just take out all Iran’s nuclear facilities in the process, as these are the greatest danger to it and its allies? There may well also be an even more immediate danger than many think as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned in May that Iran possesses enough material to produce at least three nuclear warheads. The only previous saving grace in this fact was that the Islamic Republic was further away than that from having finalised the designs for key technology elements of such a weapon — around nine months, according to a senior security source close to the U.S. Presidential Administration and a counterpart close to the European Commission exclusively spoken to over the past month by OilPrice.com. However, this has now changed, as very recent discussions at the highest levels of G7 governments highlight that Russia may now be assisting Iran in this respect, in exchange for the missiles and drones Tehran supplies Moscow for its ongoing war on Ukraine.
Certainly, there is no stumbling block to Israel hitting Iran’s key nuclear sites through lack of intelligence on the subject – Tel Aviv and Washington have long known exactly where all the major elements in Iran’s nuclear development programme are. It is reasonable to assume that the primary targets would include the big nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan, Arak, Parchin, Qom, and Bushehr, and the major uranium mines in Saghand and Qchine. Overall, Iran disclosed 21 sites related to its nuclear programme to the IAEA during the period it was monitored, and there were further sites at which the Agency detected the presence of highly enriched uranium. Several additional sites that remained undisclosed to the IAEA by Iran have since been uncovered by various intelligence sources, it is believed. This a lot of sites for Israel’s air force to attack, particularly given the 900 miles or so from their key operational airports to the furthest of these Iranian targets they are, compounded by how deep underground several of the sites have been located. But could Israel successfully strike a handful of the biggest sites, which would at least significantly set back Iran’s nuclear development timetable? According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report from 28 September 2012 (‘Israel: Possible Military Strike Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities’) the answer may be ‘yes’.
Firstly, the air strike force would need to take off from a position that allowed it the optimal air route from Israel to Iran. Top of the list of such candidates would appear to be Azerbaijan, with which Israel has notably developed much closer relations in the past few years, including supplying it with weapons to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Up to and after that, according to the U.S. and E.U. sources spoken to by OilPrice.com, Israel’s military presence in the country has dramatically increased, although further additions to Israel’s force there could be made by overflying the airspace of several NATO countries. This would avoid the more problematic routes involving Jordan and then Iraq, or via Saudi Arabia. Second, it would need the right bombs to penetrate the defences of deep underground facilities. Several of these sites are believed to be at least 300 feet down, compared to the 100 feet of the bunker in which Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was neutralised on 27 September by the U.S.-made 2,000-pound BLU-109 penetrator bombs, so a more powerful weapon would be needed. Back at the time of the CRS’ 2012 report, it highlighted that the U.S. had already sold Israel Guided Bomb Units (GBU) of the ‘27’ 2000-lb class and the ‘28’ 5000-lb class. Crucially, though, it added that, “the U.S. may have quietly given Israel much more sophisticated systems or Israel may have developed its own.” Over and above any further logistical considerations in such a major operation is the telling fact that Iran clearly thinks Israel could pull it off, as in April — shortly after the Iranian missile attack on Israel — Tehran closed its nuclear facilities.
Such attacks by Israel on Iran’s key nuclear facilities is only one part of the equation, of course, with the other being what Iran and its allies might do in retaliation. It is this that appears to form the dividing line between the views of current U.S. President, Joe Biden, and his predecessor and current presidential candidate, Donald Trump. And although Israel could carry off the nuclear site attack without the U.S., handling the consequences on its own would be difficult. Most notably in the context, repeated barrages of Iranian missiles and drones aimed at a broad selection of targets across Israel would be extremely difficult for Tel Aviv to defend without air support from the U.S. and U.K., despite its Iron Dome missile defence system. According to a recent news report, satellite and social media footage has shown that multiple Iranian missiles were able to penetrate the defensive shield and hit Israel’s Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert, among other targets, in its previous missile attack on 13 April. Any idea that Israel would be able to take out these missile sites at the same time as Iran’s nuclear ones looks highly unrealistic, given not only that many are also buried deep underground but also that many of the missiles are launched from highly mobile launchers. It may be that Israel decides to take its chance in this regard in order to setback Iran’s nuclear programme without the full backing of the U.S., but this is clearly the less preferable option.
Biden last week made it clear that he is not in favour of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites and the key reasons appear to be the same as they were when President Barack Obama refused to countenance such calls from Israel as well. Then-Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said back in 2011 that in such an event the U.S. would be blamed and could also be the target of retaliation from Iran through strikes against its military bases or navy in the Middle East. There could also be actions by Iran and its proxies to cause economic hardship for the Western Allies through attacks taken against key oil sector sites, as analysed recently by OilPrice.com. It could further be expected that Iran pushes its supporters around the world to launch terrorist attacks on wider targets associated with the U.S. in the West and East. This is why Biden’s team continues to focus on tightening sanctions as the principal response to any increase in the scale of Iranian actions against Israel. This is also the view of the doves in Israel’s cabinet. Conversely, the hawks take the view of Donald Trump, who said last week (in response to Biden’s flat ‘no’ on Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities): “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s the biggest risk we have. The biggest risk we have is nuclear … Soon they’re going to have nuclear weapons. And then you’re going to have problems.” Given this, Israel may be waiting to make the big push against Iran if and when Trump is elected president.
I think Azerbaijan would have to be crazy to assist Israel against Iran, for many reasons:
– fellow feeling / ethnic “hostages”: Azerbaijan is an historic region of Iran, only independent for the 20th century, and there are ethnic ties in the bordering province of Iran.
– geostrategic goals: Israel cannot help the Azeris balance between Iran and Russia and Turkey, they are too far away (and only help themselves anyway) and they definitely cannot solve the problem of the Zanzegur corridor to connect the Nakichevan exclave to Azerbaijan proper. Attacking Iran would kill the North-South corridor that Russia is working to build.
– escalation dominance: the entire country is dependent on oil revenue from the Caspian but the oil market is not dependent on Azerbaijan. Iran could take out the Azeri energy economy in a day and the oil market would not blink.
I think Simon Watkins’s idea is nonsense!
However, he is technically right about a NATO flight route into Azerbaijan, if you consider the Nakichevan exclave. It has a very narrow border with Turkey which could permit overflight. Whether Nakichevan is a sensible place to strike from is another matter entirely!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakhchivan_Autonomous_Republic#/media/File:265nakhichevan-assr.gif
Finally, there was a typical Western thinktank article in the last couple of days claiming that Iran needed months to compete a Bomb. This strikes me as wishful thinking for public consumption: it may be technically true, by the definition they chose to use of essentialy having a fully deployed nuclear strategic force, but that’s not the point. It’s been understood for years that Iran could run a nuclear test in a matter of days and, once you prove you are in the nuclear club, your opponents are left guessing how much the rest you have done.
In Iran’s case, its ability to hit Israel through the Carboard Dome defence shield is fully proven. Israel would be betting that Iran did not have also have a few warheads prepared – and only an idiot would develop hypersonic missiles and not in parallel develop the potential warhead packaging required to cross the nuclear threshold.
Frankly, they would be betting Iran doesn’t even have some prototype “Fat Man” / “Little Boy” bombs, that could be lobbed in on big-ass ballistic or cruise missiles after a massive initial salvo of hypersonics takes out / drains Israel’s missile defences.
After that ambiguous “earthquake” seismic reading in the Pars desert, I think Iran going to be treated as a member of the big boys’ club from now on, like North Korea.
Thanks for the helpful detail.
I infer Watkins relied on maps as imprecise as the one I found on a fast pass. A search does confirm your observation, that there is an 11 mile Turkiye-Azerbaijan border. But Watkins nevertheless posited that Israel could overfly several NATO countries, not, say, “NATO airspace”.
Regarding your last point, Scott Ritter said on Judge Napolitano yesterday that the seismic reading in Iran was not a nuclear test. It was > 10 miles down. No drilling equipment goes deep enough to plant a weapon that far underground.
I don’t know how to insert a link using my phone as I am, but googling “usgs why do so many earthquakes occur at a depth” I find a USGS faq discussion which indicates 10 km is a nominal depth assigned for earthquakes too shallow for a precise depth to be calculated.
If I understood the explanation correctly the crude rule of thumb here is that “too shallow” means the depth is less than the distance to the nearest seismograph station.
I’m out of my depth in this, no pun intended, and only stumbled on it via a Will Shreyver tweet, he being someone I don’t know anything about.
The depth was not 10 km. It was 10 miles.
I think this is mostly right, but I also do remember reading during the Artsakh conflict that Azerbaijan buys a lot of its weapons from Israel. Hence, I point out that there are probably more defense ties between Azerbaijan and Israel than Revenant acknowledges. Another thing to point out is that Azeri nationalism is anti-Iranian; in other words, the right nut in Azerbaijan would see attacking Iran as an opportunity for national liberation, not a bad thing because of the presence of the Azeri minority. I have the impression that Azeris in Iran mostly don’t share these sentiments, and I have no reason to think that the right kind of nut is actually in charge in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, I just wanted to point out these caveats to Revenant’s post.
Completing a usable nuclear device does take time though. The last IAEA report earlier this year apparently credited Iran with nearly 150kg of uranium enriched to 60%. I understand that technically it’s not that hard to further refine it to the 90% you need for a weapon, but you can’t do it overnight. The IAEA estimates also that Iran already has enough enriched uranium to make perhaps two warheads once it’s at 90%.
But that’s a long way from a nuclear weapon. Making something go bang is one thing, turning that into a functioning warhead that goes bang exactly when you want it to is another, marrying that with a reliable and accurate delivery system is another, and combining it with a reliable guidance system still another. It’s worth noting that the established nuclear powers no longer use uranium for warheads, so technical expertise and knowledge is limited. The North Koreans apparently do, and there have been technology exchanges between the two countries for a long time. Whether NK has a reliable guidance system I don’t think anybody knows.
But if the Iranians are going this way, I suspect it’s much more in the service of strategic ambiguity and deterrence, rather than developing offensive weapons. The classic argument against Iran actually using nuclear weapons against Israel is that very large numbers of Muslims would be at risk, even if the accuracy is spot on, and of course the impacts in terms of fallout, especially from the kind of crude system we are probably talking about here, would be felt all over a predominantly Muslim region. Likewise, I’ve heard it suggested that the best use for such a weapon would be an explosion in the high atmosphere, which would wreak havoc with the electronics of any attacking force, since in general military equipment is not EMP-hardened these days. And there would be no deliberate human casualties. So the overall message of any development programme might be: leave us alone, you don’t know what we can do.
Good points Revenant. My two cents: There have long been rumors, accusations, denials about secret Israeli bases in Azerbaijan and using the country to attack Iran. US Neocons have also long dreamed of using Azerbaijan to destabilize Iran by stoking ethnic divisions as there are millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis that live in the Iran
None of it has ever happened and it would be shocking if it did despite Azerbaijan’s very close economic and military ties with Israel (its kamikazee drones were big piece in Azerbaijan victory in 2020 war against Armenia, which happens to be very close to Iran, although the ongoing US takeover of Armenia is changing that).
It would be very out of character for Azerbaijan to allow strike. While it has close ties with Israel to help balance Iranian influence, it is also very close to Moscow and manages to work with Iran despite issues like the potential Zangezur Corridor. Azerbaijan is central to and benefiting from all the trade corridors being developed in region, including N-S ones with Russia and Iran. The last thing country leadership would want would be for Caucasus to get sucked into conflict and destroyed.
I’m sure there’s quite a bit of under the radar stuff Israel does from Azerbaijan but a launching point for major attack is more of the usual neocon fantasies
Gawd. I sometimes think that neocons all suffer a sever case of mapisitis. So they will look over a map, sees that North Korea borders Russia and then come up with the bright idea to let the Ukrainians attack Vladivostok by flying out of North Korea and in return the North Koreans would get a promise of lifting some sanction or something. So here they have the bright idea of how Israel could fly into Azerbaijan through Turkiye and attack Iran. Now this would burn Azerbaijan’s relations with all their neighbours but if it did happen, then Iran would declare Azerbaijan to be a party to this war and do a counter strike, say, on Azerbaijan’s oil infrastructure heading west. Not only would this be a catastrophic blow to Azerbaijan’s revenue, but that oil west goes to Israel so bonus points. EU countries that take that oil like Italy, Spain and Croatia would also be in the crapper but Iran would reckon that to be the EU’s problem. Turkiye would freak as they get a lot of revenues from letting that oil go through their country and so would not let Azerbaijan do something so stupid. And there is one final factor. Since Israel would be attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, then that gives Iran the right to do the same to Israel. I wonder what the effect of about 20 ballistic missiles slamming into the Negev Nuclear Research Center (NRCN) near Dimona would be. Does Israel really want to find out?
Iran and others have tried to hit Dimona. They may even have cut the power to it once. I’m kind of wondering what would happen with a loss of containment.
Of course, it might do damage to Jordan if the radiation release goes the wrong way, and it might give Ukraine ideas…
The Ukraine does not need such ideas as a lot of people are saying that the real target for the Kursk invasion was the Kursk nuclear power plant. Trying to bomb it at least twice kinda gives the game away.
Baku, or the Map Game
Its jolly to look at the map, and finish the foe in a day.
It’s not easy to get at the chap; these neutrals are so in the way.
But if you say ‘what would you do to fill the aggressor with gloom?’
Well, we might drop a bomb on Baku. Or what about bombs on Batum?
Other methods, of course, may be found. We might send a fleet up the Inn.
We might burrow far underground and come up in the heart of Berlin.
But I think a more promising clue to the totalitarian doom
Is the dropping of bombs on Baku. And perhaps a few bombs on Batum.
The scale of the map should be small if you’re winning the war in a day.
It mustn’t show mountains at all, for mountains may be in the way.
But, taking a statesmanlike view, and sitting at home in a room,
I’m all for some bombs on Baku. And, of course, a few bombs on Batum.
Sometimes I invade the dear Dutch. Sometimes I descend on the Danes.
They oughtn’t to mind very much, and they don’t seem to have any planes.
I slip through the Swiss and say ‘Boo!’. I pop over the Alps and say ‘Boom!’.
But I still drop a few bombs on Baku. And I always drop bombs on Batum.
Vladivostok is not very far. Sometimes I attack him from there.
With the troops in a rather fast car, I am on him before he’s aware.
And then, it’s so hard to say who, is fighting, precisely, with whom,
That I know about bombing Baku, I insist upon bombing Batum.
— A P Herbert, 1940
Didn’t we read recently that the US was meddling in Armenia, causing that country’s president to try to bring Armenia into the Western orbit, which then pushed Azerbaijan toward Russia? Do these crazy people really think Russia wouldn’t notice something like this? After seeing what happened to Ukraine, one would think these countries just outside Russia would be a little skeptical being used as proxies against the West’s perceived enemies. But I thought Ukraine might be smart enough not to let their country be depopulated and turned to rubble and it turns out I was wrong about that.
What part of K.I.S.S. does Watkins not understand?
Yeah, I guess he’s got a slight bit of a point that Azerbaijan is perhaps the Islamic country most in bed with the Israelis.
Otherwise, I’m not impressed much. Even an article this short is riddled with lots of wording that shows the author is stuck in a rigid worldview, i.e. he “knows” lots of things that are clearly not certain. And it’s a “my dad could beat up your dad” worldview too. Maybe that’s the secret to the neocons? They’re all really permanent 8-year-olds with daddy-issues?
That question is only obvious to someone that won’t consider the obvious answer: Israel is a spoiled satrapy of a declining US, not a comic-book demigod. The odds of them succeeding in a raid are so low, and however it turns out, the likely response Iran would dish out is so severe, that nobody doing actual military planning wants to try it.
“Certainly”, “long known exactly”, this guy should go to Vegas or get into zero-day options.
The author may know how to read maps, but apparently calendars are outside of his wheelhouse.
There are several more passages like this, but ultimately, it sounds like a courtier, whose worldview is based only on info from other courtiers, debating with other courtiers why the new king will just subjugate the “barbarians” next door. Meanwhile, all the kings are incompetent, the peasants & knights are in open revolt, and the “barbarians” are actually a better organized great power.
“…We have already told representatives of other countries that we will consider [an enemy] anyone who provides their airspace to Israel. But I hope that no one will give such permission,” Iranian news agency SNN quoted Araghchi as saying.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20241003/iran-will-consider-any-state-providing-airspace-to-israel-as-enemy–foreign-minister-1120393797.html
What do the Turks have to lose?