A doomsday war between nuclear-armed adversaries Iran and Israel would kill up to 28 million Iranians and destroy their nation, but the Jewish state might survive, according to a prestigious US think tank.
The nightmare “what if?” scenario concluded that Israel’s state-of-the-art missile defense would intercept most of Iran’s nuclear-tipped missiles.
That would limit Israel’s deaths to as “few” as 200,000 – while its much more numerous and more powerful nukes would obliterate Iran, said the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of the term, though Israeli recovery is theoretically possible in population and economic terms,” analyst Andrew Cordesman wrote.
The findings could cheer Israeli hawks who dispute the recent US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran is not seeking nukes.
But the study also indicates that Iran wouldn’t use them even if it got them, because a war would lead to the same kind of “mutually assured destruction” that kept the US-Soviet Cold War from becoming hot.
“The ‘War Game’ paradox: The only way to win is not to play,” the study concluded.
An exchange of nukes would last about 21 days and immediately kill 16 million to 28 million Iranians and 200,000 to 800,000 Israelis.
Long-term deaths, from the effects of radiation and other causes, were not estimated. The greater Iranian death toll is explained by several factors:
* Israeli bombs have a bigger bang. Israel has produced 1-megaton nukes, while Iran would be unable to produce anything more than 100 kilotons, a weapon with one-tenth the impact.
* Iran would have fewer than 50 nuclear weapons, while Israel would have more than 200.
* Israel also has an Arrow-2 missile defense, buttressed by US-made anti-missile weaponry. Iran has a limited missile defense.
* Israel’s missiles would be more accurate, due to high-resolution satellite imagery.
If Syria joined its ally Iran in a wider war, it could attack Israel with mustard gas, nerve agents and anthrax in non-nuclear warheads.
That could kill another 800,000 Israelis, but in response, up to 18 million Syrians would die, the study found. With Post Wire Services