Scott Ritter: The Israeli Intelligence Leaks
If the purpose of the leaks was to wake up the American people and the U.S. government to the danger posed by an Israeli strike against Iran, it appears that the mission so far has failed.
Iranian clergymen in November 2006 watch a Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile fired by the IRGC in the desert outside the holy city of Qom during the Great Prophet II military exercise. (Fars Media Corporation, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
By Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter Extra
The
leaking of two highly classified documents which, upon examination,
appear to contain sensitive U.S. intelligence information about Israeli
military preparations for an attack on Iran, has created a storm of
controversy in the United States.
As U.S. law enforcement scrambles to discover the source of the leak, very little concern is being expressed by U.S. politicians or the American public at large over the implications of the information they contain — that Israel is preparing a massive strike on Iran that could trigger a larger conflict which, realistically, could end up involving the use of nuclear weapons.
According to the leaked intelligence documents, Israel was preparing some 40 ROCKS air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBM)s for a possible strike against Iran, along with 16 “Golden Horizon” ALBMs, which appear to be what is known publicly as the “Blue Sparrow” missile, an adaptation of a target missile developed by Israel to mimic the Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
The ROCKS has a demonstrated range of more than 500 miles, while the “Blue Sparrow/Golden Horizon” has a range of around 1,200 miles.
The daily air strikes carried out by Israel over Lebanon and Syria provide the perfect cover for a strike on Iran. The Israelis are striking Syrian air defense sites in southern Syria daily to create a pattern of behavior while at the same time carving a path through Syrian airspace that can be used by Israeli aircraft to penetrate western Iraq, from which long-range ALBMs can be launched against Iran.
Top Israeli military commanders Yoav Galant, Herzi Halevi and Tomer Barover on Sept. 28 as Israeli fighter jets attacked Beirut. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
This appears to be the tactic used by Israel on April 19, when an Israeli strike package that bombed two Syrian air defense locations in southern Syria went on to enter Iraq and fire three probable ROCKS ALBMs against an Iranian S-300 air defense battery outside of Isfahan. The ROCKS ALBM uses a “Blue Sparrow” booster, one of which was found in a field south of Baghdad following the attack.
An assessment of the missile mix being prepared suggests that Israel is preparing for a major attack against a major military production facility in the vicinity of Tehran (the Parchin missile production facility comes to mind, as well as the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group) or — more likely—a decapitation strike against Iranian leadership targets in and around Tehran. The ALBM attacks would be supported by armed covert drones which would be used to track mobile targets in real time and engage if necessary, using onboard weapons.
By way of comparison, the attack conducted by the United States on the opening day of Operation Desert Storm against the eight Iraqi targets in the vicinity of Baghdad used 35 air-launched cruise missiles. Most of these missiles struck the Taji missile production and storage facility north of Baghdad. The weapons mix being prepared by Israel suggests a similar-size target package.
Another Possible Target
But there is an additional target possibility.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a three-minute speech in English addressing the Iranian people on Sept. 30 — three days after Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — declared “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach. There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
Netanyahu said the Iranian government was bringing Iranians “closer to the abyss,” adding that Iran and Israel would be at peace only when Iran is “finally free,” something Netanyahu said would “come a lot sooner than people think.”
If Tehran is the target, then Israel will need to neutralize Iranian air defense systems along the path of attack. If Israel repeats its past pattern of behavior, a large package of F-15I’s, supported by F-16I’s which would suppress Syrian air defenses, would penetrate western Iraq via Syria, would enter western Iraq.
A USAF F-15E refueling over the mountains of Afghanistan in 2008. (U.S. Air Force, Aaron Allmon, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
The initial salvo of ALBMs — most likely ROCKS — would be released, their intended targets being the radars associated with Iranian air defense located along the attack path. The final missiles released would be the “Blue Sparrow/Golden Horizon” missiles, which would strike their targets in and around Tehran.
These targets could include the residences of senior Iranian leadership targets, including the supreme leader, as well as buildings associated with the symbols of government, such as the Guardian Council, the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC Headquarters, and other targets identified as being supportive of the Islamic Republic.
Israel would probably follow up such an attack with an appeal to the Iranian people to revolt against the regime. This appeal would be done in concert with actions undertaken by anti-regime entities operating at the direction of Israel, the United States and other regional actors. These would include pro-monarchy groups, the MEK, and various Kurdish, Azeri, Baluch and Arab independence movements.
John Bolton, U.S. national security adviser in the Trump administration from 2018-19, speaking at an MEK event in October 2017. (VOA Persian, Wikipedia Commons, Public domain)
Israel, the C.I.A., and other foreign intelligence organizations hostile to Iran attempted a similar revolt against the Iranian government in September 2023, following the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody. What started as localized demonstrations exploded into outright insurrection which took the lives of some 550 protestors/insurgents and nearly 70 Iranian security personnel before being violently suppressed.
Israel would be looking to repeat this kind of insurrection, but this time helping it by preemptively dealing a fatal blow to Iranian leadership.
Protest in Tehran’s Tehran’s Keshavarz Boulevard in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. (Darafsh, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The odds of Israel being able to pull such a decapitation strike off are slim. Likewise, given the recent suppression of anti-regime groups by the Iranian government, it is unlikely those the Israeli government are hoping will revolt against the Iranian regime have reconstituted themselves in any meaningful manner.
Moreover, by focusing on a decapitation strike, Israel will have done little to prevent Iran from launching its own massive retaliation attack on Israel. Perhaps the Israeli leadership believes that once it takes out the senior-most levels of Iranian leadership, the resolve to strike back will wane. It’s a heavy gamble, however, and Israel risks suffering existential levels of damage from any concerted Iranian retaliatory strike.
U.S. intelligence indicated that Israel’s nuclear deterrence capability, in the form of its Jericho missiles, were not being readied for action. This, however, would not be the case if Iran launched missile attacks against Israel that threatened its very existence. This is the very scenario that the Israeli “Jericho Option” (i.e., nuclear weapons capability) was created for.
The fact is, if Israel launches a decapitation strike against Iran, it will likely fail. The Iranian counterstrike, however, will be very much on target. And the Israeli nuclear retaliation, at that point, becomes probable.
Americans should let this sink in as we ponder the meaning of the leaked intelligence documents. If the purpose of the leak was to wake the American people, and by extension the American government, to the danger posed by an Israeli strike against Iran, so far it appears that the mission has failed.
In that case, we will reap what we have sown.
Wake up, America.
It’s your future on the line.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
This article is from the author’s Substack, Scott Ritter Extra
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.