Iranian Defense Plan: Israeli Intelligence Analysts Study Scenarios – OpEd

The Israeli Intelligence Agency (ISA) are analyzing what’s purported to be Iran’s plan to confront attacks by Israel, the United States or its allies, according to a Law Enforcement Examiner source in Israel.

The official web site of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published an article titled “Possible scenarios of threat against Iran,” according to the Meir Amit Center for Terrorism and Intelligence.

The Iranian article was also published in the daily Resalat and was written by Dr. Amir Mohebbian, a top Iranian political commentator affiliated with the conservative camp.

With news stories and news commentary circulating almost on a daily basis — much of it about a possible attack on Iran — the article’s author provides an in-depth analysis of three possible scenarios of an attack on Iran led by the United States and its allies, and estimates the likelihood of each.

Mohebbian wrote that overall goal of the Israel, the United States and other countries is the toppling of the current Iranian regime. After trying — and failing — to achieve this objective through various means such as an internal rebellion by more liberal Iranians, the are only two options left: weakening the regime to render it more vulnerable through tougher and tougher sanctions or launching a full-scale military attack.

Mohebbian then provides his readers with three possible scenarios of war against Iran: an all-out war combined with ground intervention; a limited war that includes action against the command centers of the regime aimed at promoting political objectives; and a selective war against specific targets aimed at stripping Iran of its offensive capabilities.

According to analysts at Meir Amit, the political commentator goes into great detail about the severe problems involved in a military campaign against Iran in each of the three scenarios. It is his assessment that the third scenario (selective war against specific targets) is the most plausible of the three, but even the likelihood of this scenario is not particularly high due to several reasons, including the difficulty of attacking a large number of targets, the possibility of a selective war developing into an all-out war, the regional environmental consequences of an attack on nuclear facilities, and the inability of such an attack to impact Iran’s scientific nuclear abilities.

Mohebbian asserts that the military option is brought up by Western nations as part of a psychological warfare campaign aimed at achieving a number of objectives: testing Iran’s reaction and the cohesion of the top echelon of its regime, mobilizing the support of Russia and China for sanctions against Iran, encouraging Arab countries to purchase American weapons to defend themselves against Iran, and forcing Iran into political concessions.

Mohebbian concludes his treatise with a discussion of Iran’s response to the threats it has received, arguing that the well-coordinated reactions by top regime officials and all of the country’s political factions reveal the inadequacy of the American strategy.

The commentator also argues that the Supreme Leader’s public remarks concerning the military threats are aimed to send several important messages to the West: Iran will not yield to pressure, there is internal unity among the decision makers, Iran has no offensive intentions and poses no threat to any country in the region, and its policy is dependent on the policy of the other side.

In other words, a reasonable policy by the United States will be met with a reasonable course of action, and any aggression will be met with a strong reaction.

Special thanks to former New Orleans, Louisiana, police sergeant Jeffrey Hochman, who now resides in Israel, for his excellent assistance and information.