Iranian aviation irrelevant for war with Israel, military expert says
David Gendelman on Caliber.Az

INTERVIEWS  27 October 2022 - 15:10

The Moscow Institute of the Middle East (founder and president – Evgeniy Satanovskiy) has recently reported in one of its publications that Israel is preparing to launch airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The author of the article claims that Israel conducted a number of intelligence operations in order to prepare its Air Force for the destruction of strategic Iranian enterprises.

Israel, the article notes, is making significant efforts to prepare for a direct conflict with Iran. The army uses a variety of methods to gather valuable intelligence about Iran, including a specialized naval unit stationed in remote areas. The author even mentions that "unit 663" monitors electronic data using warships and submarines close to enemy shores, hires Farsi experts, and collaborates with Mossad.

Given the rapid development of events in the Middle East and Tehran's destructive foreign policy, information about Israel's preparations for airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities looks quite realistic. However, to understand the details of the current Iranian-Israeli confrontation, Caliber.Az turned to Israeli military expert David Gendelman.

According to Gendelman, who is familiar with the situation from the inside, Israel has been developing a military operation to strike Iran's nuclear facilities since the 1990s.

"Periodically, such as in 2010-2011, the situation reached the level of immediate readiness, but no blow was delivered. Now, preparations are being made in all aspects, including intelligence, operations, and technology. The work is coordinated by the Department of Strategy and the Third Circle of the General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which was established in 2020 and includes the 'Iranian headquarters'. All options are considered in the intelligence plan, including space, radio engineering, intelligence, and so on. Relevant operational plans are being developed given target characteristics, the calculation of forces and means, and regular Air Force exercises based on appropriate scenarios.

In technical terms, weapons of destruction, targeting, communications, electronic warfare, tankers, evacuation vehicles, etc. are being prepared. In general, billions of dollars have been invested in the preparation of the military option for many years. The issue of immediate readiness to strike, of course, is a state secret, but Israel's political leadership has set the army the task of reaching such a level. The choice of the moment for a strike depends primarily on the promotion of the Iranian nuclear project, the readiness of elements of its nuclear weapons for practical use, as well as on the political situation, in particular, the signing or non-signing of the US nuclear deal with Iran. Specifically, the situation does not yet look like it requires an immediate reaction, but the situation in the Middle East is a dynamic matter," the military expert believes.

Gendelman does not exclude that an Israeli strike on Iran will lead to a war between them, but due to the geographical remoteness of the countries, military actions will have their own characteristics.

"The Israeli Air Force and special operations forces will be involved. On the part of Iran, the threat is posed by ballistic missiles, attack drones, as well as the involvement of the Lebanese Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip, mainly for rocket attacks on Israel. This may entail, in addition to Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza, also ground actions. It is possible that Iran will use pro-Iranian groups from Syria and Yemen to attack Israel with missiles and UAVs. There are also possible terrorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish sites around the world, which will be launched by Iranian special operations forces," the agency's interlocutor noted.

Speaking about the quality of Iranian weapons, Gendelman said that ballistic and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and air defence - primarily S-300 air defence systems - are the most relevant. But Iranian aviation, in his opinion, is weak and technically backward, the ground forces are also out of date, although in any case, they are not relevant for the war with Israel because of the considerable distance between the countries.

In conclusion, the Israeli military expert suggested that the war between Iran and Israel will affect other Middle East countries. With a certain development of events, the United States may also be involved in hostilities.

"As for Azerbaijan, the Iranian-Israeli war can affect it only if Israel uses its territory to perform intelligence or operational tasks. And of course, everything will depend on the course of the war, on what actions the Iranian regime decides to take in the new conditions, whether it will focus on Israel or want to expand the front to its neighbours," Gendelman summed up.

Caliber.Az