The London Telegraph has noted that for Israel to deal a substantial blow to Iran’s nuclear plants, its air force would have to carry out a number of strikes relying on air-to-air refueling whenever possible over the course of a few days. The Royal United Services Institute's Malcolm Chalmers commented:
This is not going to be one strike and they are out, not like Syria or Iraq where facilities were not underground[;] it is much harder than that.
And the Iranians are experts in building reinforced concrete because of their long problems with earthquakes.
But air strikes could destroy power plants, supply facilities, communications and the centrifuges themselves would be very sensitive to blast. They could do quite a lot of damage which would set back the program for a period.
British officials have warned that Israel may still surprise its allies with an attack. "We underestimated the things that the Israelis have done in the past in sheer out-of-the-book daringness," one unidentified official noted. One such successful Israeli operation in the past, pointed out Jane's Defense Weekly, has been a special forces strike. A former British commander of Special Air Service (SAS) observed that a raid could be launched from a ship carrying helicopters in the Persian Gulf. They [the Israelis] have done it before and they are quite capable of doing off the beaten track operations," he asserted, adding, "I wouldn't say it was impossible but I would be very surprised if they tried to do it[;] it would be pretty high risk."
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