Are the Iranians hell bent on the destruction of Israel?

[Street Samurai1978]

Israel goes apesh!t and invades, that's what happens next. If Israel uses its nukes, it'll be to knock out military installations. They don't want the entire Middle East turning on them more than usual. Only way to keep Russia out would be to promise them cheaper oil. That should make Putin the Terrible happy.

[Codger_64]

I just thought of something that I don't believe has been mentioned. The IDF has and is still developing a very sophisticated air defense system.
So, let's say that a missile is launched from Iran towards Israel and Israel shoots it down while it is still over Iranian territory. What happens next?

They wouldn't have time to do that. But if they did, most nukes won't detonate from a non-triggered destruction, a shootdown. Worst case is some Iranian realestate becomes uninhabitable for some years. Most likely if they did manage to shoot one down (better than we did scuds shot at them) the debris would fall in someone else's back yard.

[UffDa]

They wouldn't have time to do that. But if they did, most nukes won't detonate from a non-triggered destruction, a shootdown. Worst case is some Iranian realestate becomes uninhabitable for some years. Most likely if they did manage to shoot one down (better than we did scuds shot at them) the debris would fall in someone else's back yard.

That was a long time ago. I doubt that the Israelis have been sitting around doing nothing. I am sure that they know exactly what is going on in Iran at any given minute.
It's a long way from Iran to Israel and I doubt that the IDF is just sitting on their hands waiting to see what happens.

I just looked at a map of the Middle East. Any missile launched from Iran towards Israel would have to fly over at least two other countries. That could be a problem, especially
if Israel shoots it down. What of the debris lands in Iraq or Jordan? I wonder if the good folks in Iran have considered this? What if the missile lands in Jordan by mistake? Oops?

[Codger_64]

I didn't mean they didn't have time to build a system. I was refering to the time between launch detection, determination of target trajectory, acquisiton by defense missile telemetry, launch and intercept. Overlay that map on a map of the U.S> and you will see the unliklihood of their being able to intercept a missle launch over Iran.

[UffDa]

I understood what you meant. Depending on where in Iran a missile was launched from, we're talking anywhere from 700 to 1000 miles. Israel has some pretty sophisticated
anti-missile systems in operation and is developing more. Much of the system is automated. Will it work? Who knows, but it is several magnitudes better then the Patriot which
was used in the Gulf war.

[Street Samurai1978]

People have been trying to make anti-ballistic missile systems for decades and nobody has come up with anything yet. I'm old enough to remember the 'Star Wars' system that was being touted by the Reagan administration. While I'm sure eve progressed by leaps and bounds since then, those missiles move real fast and it'd be awfully difficult to get a bead on one.

[HJK]

Israel has several antimissile systems and they do appear to work. But...
One of the problems with all these defensive antimissile systems is that they are hugely expensive and israel doesn't have many deployed and even if they did it would be easy for Iran and/or hezbollah to over-saturate the system with thousands of missiles, and they have tens of thousands ready to use.
The only defence against missiles like that is to destroy the source. israel didn't manage that in the last lebanon war against Hezbollah and they're unlikely to be able to manage the trick against Iran directly unless they target the leadership rather than the missiles or launch sites themselves. Nasrallah ( the Hezbollah leader) is still in hiding. The Iranian Mullahs have the finest bunkers to protect themselves: martyrdom is for lesser Muslims, I guess. But in any event, not even the USA managed to take out Sadaam's more primitive scuds and israel's capabilities don't compare to what the USA had when they went scud hunting.
To my knowledge, israel doesn't have the ability to intercept over Iran, and certainly not for any length of time. IMHO, Iran doesn't care where the debris falls and would probably welcome a confrontation with any nation that does complain ( except Turkey) because the one thing that unites the "Arab Street" is a hatred and blood lust against Israel.

[Codger_64]

The Iranians are now touting the recent intrusion and shootdown of their low-n-slow drone by Israel as proof of the fallability of the Israeli air defense systems.

[UffDa]

The Iranians are now touting the recent intrusion and shootdown of their low-n-slow drone by Israel as proof of the fallability of the Israeli air defense systems.

Hmmmmm. Israel shot down Iran's drone, so they failed. I guess that makes sense to the Iranians.

[Codger_64]

Hmmmmm. Israel shot down Iran's drone, so they failed. I guess that makes sense to the Iranians.

I suppose the fact the drone penetrated is what counted. The remains crashed into the Gaza zone. Then there has been another rocket attack, followed by an Israeli air strike. I believe Hamas is claiming "credit". Or a branch thereof.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...070588924.html

[JohnTheTexican]

Israel goes apesh!t and invades, that's what happens next. If Israel uses its nukes, it'll be to knock out military installations. They don't want the entire Middle East turning on them more than usual. Only way to keep Russia out would be to promise them cheaper oil. That should make Putin the Terrible happy.

Israel invades Iran? How are they going to do that? And who's going to mind the store while the IDF's off playing in a sandbox a thousand miles from home?

[UffDa]

I suppose the fact the drone penetrated is what counted. The remains crashed into the Gaza zone. Then there has been another rocket attack, followed by an Israeli air strike. I believe Hamas is claiming "credit". Or a branch thereof.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...070588924.html

Gaza is just next door. Iran is about 900 to 1000 miles away. What we don't know is how sophisticated the Israeli's newer anti-missile system is. Do you think that they
would use it against a small slow moving drone and show their hand? I wouldn't.

I could be wrong. It has happened before.

[Codger_64]

No, the drone originated closer, Lebanon is my guess. Israel won't say. But they shadowed the drone with their fighters for quite some distance before deciding to shoot it dowm. They say that it apparently was unarmed.

[HJK]

I doubt that israel was blindsided by the drone but if it was it won't happen again. Dumb move by Hezbollah.
The talk is that israel wanted to check out the drone and shepherd it to a safe crash, which is why they scrambled a jet. I assume they dealt with any telemetry from the drone. Iran loves to squawk about israel's capabilities. They are jealous and insecure about the comparison.

[UffDa]

I just read that Israel is activating Patriot missile to intercept any more drones. Don't confuse these with the Patriots of the Gulf war era.

I also just read that No. Korea claims to have missiles that could reach the US mainland. Big whoopee. Even those crazy bast----
are aware of the destruction to their pitiful country that would ensue.

[Codger_64]

The head of the Lebanon Hezbollah has just claimed "credit" for the drone launch.

The leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group has claimed responsibility for launching the drone aircraft that entered Israeli airspace earlier this week.

The rare admission Thursday by Hassan Nasrallah raises regional tensions at a sensitive time when the group's backers, Syria and Iran, are under pressure.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10...#ixzz296cEmPeJ

[Allen R.]

All I gotta say is this, they can keep on poking at Israel and poking, but when that little dog's cage gets rattled enough It'll fight, Israel could take out Iran, but like others have said thats when all hell is gonna break loose with every jihadist that can find a suicide vest is gonna head for Israel, thats when big brother (the Us ) will end up stepping in, call me crazy and call my theorys unbacked and me just rambling, that drone launch had more intentions than just spying on the Israelis, My guess is it was just to see how quick of a response the Israeli military would respond to something over their air space and how they would deal with it. Like someone posted above though you can believe that we (the USA) and Israel and probably a few other countries know every move Iran makes, I have no doubt we have operators on the ground in Iran as we speak right now, and who knows we may have a few people higher up that have turned and are feeding us intell either way, a lot more is going on that wil ever be released by a news agency and both Israel and the USA know alot more about Iran than they would ever tell anybody. Somethings brewing here folks , kind of a powder keg, Iran needs to look at what happened to saddam and osama before they keep doing this stupid stuff, but if they wanna go up against the strongest military the world has ever seen i say, So be it , but remember you asked for it

[Allen R.]

this may be off topic but it's a fun fact the Us invaded Iraq on march 20,2003 , baghdad fell on april 9th, the Iraq Iran war lasted 8 years and half a million people died. Sure that was back in the 80s but I still think we'd have no problem turning Iran into another puppet state in the middle east. again just my $.02

[timcsaw]

call me crazy and call my theorys unbacked and me just rambling, that drone launch had more intentions than just spying on the Israelis, My guess is it was just to see how quick of a response the Israeli military would respond to something over their air space and how they would deal with it.

Not crazy at all... you actually nailed it. There are reasons that it was intercepted when and where it was... How did it "get that far" into Israel, and "why didn't they intercept it earlier" etc. type questions are understandable... because most don't understand the tactics involved. To hint at what I'm talking about let me provide an example I've actually lived;

While in Iceland, a remote radar site would get notifications from another "northern radar site" on mainland "Europe" that Russian Bear bombers were launched and headed south from one of the Russian bases. Those bombers would "wander" into the edge of our monitored air space on their way to presumably, Cuba (or maybe not Cuba as the game was played). They "wandered" for primarily one reason and only one reason... to see how long it took for us to scramble interceptors and put them off the Bear's wing tip. Some times, it was a quick response... some times it wasn't so quick... our interceptors almost NEVER picked up the Bears in the same amount of time, at the same location, from the same altitude/range/bearing etc., and this was by design on OUR part. I know some guys who took similar pictures of US interceptors flying off the wings of Bears... with Russian crew members waving at them out that big round window in it's tail/side.

Now, think about where the Israelis intercepted that drone and think about the tactics used to blow it away.... interesting twist isn't it?

[Codger_64]

IIRC, they initially picked up the drone as it came in from the Med, not in Israeli airspace. The delay in shootdown was intentional. They could have easily downed the Iranian... I mean... the Lebanese Hezbollah drone upon first contact.