By Steve Hynd
The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, has today said that further sanctions against Iran would not work and warned that Iraq will not allow the use of its airspace to Israel or any other nation for an attack on its neighbour.
That gives a whole new impetus to the scenario envisioned by former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who recently told the Daily Beast:
"We are not exactly impotent little babies...They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren�t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."
Of course, it isn't "our" airspace at all. It's the Iraqis' airspace and we're just protectors of it on their behalf. At least, that's how sovereignty is supposed to work. The Iraqi president clearly wants the U.S. to enforce a ban, with force if necessary
The Iraqi president's ban would as equally apply to the U.S. and it's European allies as to Israel. If an attack on Iran used Iraqi airspace, we could expect at the very least the Shiite majority in Iraq to react very badly to it. At worst, the entire Iraqi nation would be outraged into armed insurgency against an occupier which had so revealed itself as anything but a friend and protector of Iraq's sovereignty.
Israel's stock is already at new lows in the US. If they attack Iran you are right the Iraqis will react and US soldiers will die.
ReplyDeleteIsrael definitely does not have to fly over Iraq to attack Iran; I could google up some links with specifics for you, there are a variety of practical alternatives, such as routing the long way over Turkey using aerial refueling.
ReplyDeleteI wrote all this up a while back in a comment on Obsidian Wings I should have turned into a blog post.
See my three comments in a row here, and some following.
ReplyDeleteSee also here, although note that Israeli capabilities have since increased.
Brezinski is simply wrong in thinking that Israel has to overfly Iraq; he's out of date on capabilities.
Of course, an Israeli attack would be a horrible idea, but that's different from whether they can launch an attack, however pointless, difficult, and useless it might be.
Hi Gary, I wrote it up myself, back in 2006, with a little map of alternate attack routes.
ReplyDeleteStill across Iraq is still most likley as it gives most "time on target".
Regards, Steve
Isn't the game of cut-and-paste fun? :-)
ReplyDeleteOh, there's no doubt going across Iraq would be *easiest*, if the U.S. didn't stop Israel; I was just saying that if Brzezinski was saying it was the only route, that he's wrong.
To be sure, such an implication may merely have been the result of editing of the interview.
I, incidentally earlier posted an FB link on Kessler's story today, which you've probably seen, with this quote:
"In an interview to be broadcast Sunday on CNN, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that if Iran's program were destroyed by force, it would take the country one to three years to get it running again."
"The reality is there is no military option that does anything more than buy time," he said."
Which anyone who pays attention knows, but it's useful to have Gates affirm reality. Kessler's piece also usefully covers some of the other issues of just how limited any pressure on Iran could be. Such as that "London's Financial Times reported Tuesday that Chinese state companies this month began supplying refined gasoline to Iran and now provide up to one-third of the country's imports."